Dr. med. Felix Meyer
- Magdeburg, 13.03.1876
- Berlin, 10.06.1955
- Member since 1926
- Deported in 1943
- Berlin
- Specialist in gastrointestinal and metabolic diseases
Felix Meyer was born in Magdeburg-Altstadt in 1876 as the son of the factory owner Philipp Meyer and his wife Jeanette, née Simon.
Education and Places of Work
Meyer studied medicine at the University of Würzburg, where he passed his state examination in 1900 and received his doctorate with the thesis “Über die Bedeutung des Kochens und Kauens Kohlenhydrathaltiger Nahrungsmittel für die Verdauung”.
He actively participated in the First World War, among others, at the Würzburg reserve hospital.
Meyer settled as a specialist in gastrointestinal and metabolic diseases in private practice in Berlin in 1918.
After 1933
Felix Meyer was injured in his practice by an SS man in 1936. His licence to practise was revoked on 30 September 1938.
From 1939 to 1942, Meyer was licensed in Berlin as a so-called “Krankenbehandler” (NS-terminology for a doctor permitted to treat Jewish patients only).
Felix Meyer attempted suicide in late 1942 in view of the threat of deportation and had to be treated as an inpatient at the Jewish hospital in Berlin. Afterwards he illegally lived in Berlin in hiding for ten months. He was arrested by the GESTAPO in October 1943. Meyer was deported from Berlin to the Theresienstadt ghetto on 15 October 1943 (Transport I/102).
In the ghetto, he initially worked with and assisted Hermann Strauss at the health service. After the latter’s death in October 1944, he became head of the large medical ghetto library, which contained about 10,000 volumes. He had his own “office” and several assistants. Meyer himself suspects that this position saved him from being transferred to Auschwitz, especially from the autumn transports of 1944.
Meyer survived the ghetto. He was able to leave Theresienstadt in July 1945. He lost a brother and three sisters in the Holocaust. He himself thought of emigrating to the USA in 1946, but remained in Berlin. He took up private practice again in 1948, specialising in gastroenterology.
Felix Meyer died at the Jewish Hospital in Berlin on 10 June 1955 at the age of 79.
