Dr. med.
Paul (Pinkas) Holzer
1893 - 1957

“I, Paul Holzer, born on February 24, 1883 in Waldenburg in Silesia, son of the merchant Max Holzer, Jewish, Prussian citizen, attended the grammar school in Waldenburg until Easter 1912, where I obtained my school leaving certificate. Thereafter, I studied medicine in Freiburg and Breslau, and passed the medical examination in Breslau on June 22, 1914. On August 8, 1914, I joined the Grenadier Regiment 11 in Breslau as a war volunteer and was stationed at a field hospital until December 1915. From December 1915 to January 1917 I served in the Breslau fortress hospital, Yorckschule section (headed by Professor Schäffer). I joined the 2nd Infantry Cycling Brigade as a battalion doctor on January 19, where I remained until the end of the war. From September 1, 1917 to March 15, 1918 I was on leave to take my state examination, which I completed on March 15, 1918. I obtained my license to practice medicine on September 17, 1918 and am currently working as a volunteer assistant at the Breslau Medical Clinic,” Paul Holzer wrote in his dissertation.

His mother was Helene Pauline Holzer, née Brinnitzer, who came from Festenberg, Lower Silesia, now Twardogóra, Poland. His father Max Holzer was born in 1863 in Lissa, Province of Poznan, now Leszno, Poland.

Education and Places of Work

In 1919, Paul Holzer received his doctorate from the Medical Faculty of the University of Wroclaw with his “Contribution to the doctrine of the ‘Hernia en W’ and retrograde incarceration”, which he wrote at the University Surgical Clinic. After his state examination, he worked as a voluntary assistant and briefly as an assistant physician at the Medical University Clinic in Wroclaw under Oskar Minkowski. Several of Holzer’s writings originate from this period, including joint publications with Felix Rosenthal (who would later head the Department of Internal Medicine at the Israelite Hospital in Hamburg). From January 1, 1921 to July 18, 1923, Holzer worked as the first assistant at the Medical Clinic of the Kuechwald Municipal Hospital in Chemnitz. From August 1, 1923, he had his own practice as a specialist for internal diseases with an attached outpatient clinic for X-ray diagnostics and electrotherapy at Kronenstrasse 1 in Chemnitz. The practice quickly developed very successfully. It included an X-ray room, two waiting rooms, two consultation rooms, and a separate laboratory.

In 1921, Paul Holzer married Hildegard (Rivka) Brinitzer, their daughter Ruth was born in 1923, Hannah in 1927 and their daughter Miriam in 1928. The Holzer family commissioned the construction of their impressing family home at 3 Kuechwaldstrasse in Chemnitz in 1925, in which they then lived until 1933.

Since settling in Chemnitz, Holzer was extensively involved in social, political and, above all, sporting activities. He was a column doctor in the Workers’ Samaritan Federation from 1923 and became second chairman of the Erzgebirge Workers’ Sports Federation in 1925. Furthermore he was chairman of the Zionist local group in Chemnitz from 1925 and chairman of the Jewish workers’ sports club Bar Kochba Chemnitz from this time.

Together with Karl Bühren, Holzer wrote the tiny book “Sportmassage” which was published in 1926. At the time, Bühren was the national gymnastics and sports director of the Workers’ Gymnastics and Sports Federation (ATSB), in which he was active for many years, and was also a lecturer at the ATSB’s national school in Leipzig. In 1933, he emigrated to the Soviet Union via Czechoslovakia and was executed during the Stalinist terror in 1938.

Paul Holzer had been a member of the “Association of Socialist Doctors” since the end of 1927. At a general assembly in 1929, he was elected as a substitute delegate for the Reichstagung.

Zionism

Paul Holzer got involved in Zionism at an early stage. He was a member of the local Zionist group in Chemnitz, of which he became chairman in 1925, and was also a member of the regional board of the Zionist Association for Germany (ZVfD). In November 1929, he attended the ZfVD delegates’ conference in Jena, and was re-elected chairman of the Chemnitz Zionist local group in November 1932.

Sport

Since 1920, Paul Holzer was a central figure in the Jewish Gymnastics Club (JTV) Chemnitz, which was founded in 1919 and was named “Jüdischer Turn- und Sportverein Bar Kochba Chemnitz” after the general assembly on 16 September 1920 and belonged to the umbrella organization of the Zionist, national-minded Jewish sports clubs Makkabi. Holzer was head of the football department and, after entry in the club register in 1927, the 1st chairman.

His achievements in the construction of the Jewish youth and sports center on Keilberg are outstanding. This youth center was a joint project of the Saxon and Czechoslovakian Maccabi associations but was planned on the initiative of the Chemnitz Maccabi Association Bar-Kochba with Paul Holzer as the driving force.

In 1932, the association (Jüdisches Jugend- und Sportheim e.V. with headquarters in Brüx, Most in today’s Czech Republic) was founded in the Czech town of Komotau / Chomutov with Dr. Paul Holzer as deputy chairman on the board. It was decided to build a ski home in the border region on the slopes of the Keilberg at an altitude of 1100 meters (Jüdische Wochenzeitung. Newsletter of the Jewish Community of Chemnitz, February 26, 1932). This youth and sports center was built a short distance from the German border in Stolzenhain (a district of Wiesenthal, today Klinovec, Czech Republic) and was to be available to Jewish youth, gymnasts, skiers and families. The location was deliberately chosen: “In the middle of a large circle of Jewish communities, regardless of which country they belong to, there should be homes where all meetings, summer events, get-togethers and sporting events take place” (special issue of Maccabi 1931, cf. Yuval Rubovitch 2020, p. 28). The sports hall was opened on November 17, 1932. In his memoirs, Teddy Kollek, who would go on to be the mayor of Jerusalem for an extended period, recalls his time in the Zionist youth group in the Sudetenland in Karlsbad, now known as Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic and staying at the Maccabi Ski Club sports home at the end of 1933.

The house still exists today and is now called Pension Severka.

1933 Escape to Palestine

“My practice had already shrunken by about 1/3 in 1932 due to the propaganda against Jewish doctors. The boycott and my protective custody brought my practice to an abrupt end” (Paul Holzer, compensation file, Nds LArch).

With the new Nazi dictatorship, Paul Holzer was highly endangered as a public figure due to his political commitment, his prominent position and attitude towards the regime. “On March 31, 1933, at the advent of Nazi rule, I was taken into protective custody and spent 11 days in the Chemnitz police prison until April 11, 1933” (Paul Holzer in his application for compensation, Nds LArch). During his imprisonment he was largely isolated, his mail was blocked and he suffered a psychological trauma from which he would not recover in the following years. After his release from prison, he spent three weeks at the Lahmann Sanatorium in Dresden.

In May 1933, Holzer relinquishes his practice to an “Aryan” colleague, sells his house in Chemnitz in Kuechwaldrstrasse, says goodbye in June 1933 in the youth and sports home on Keilberg and flees with his wife and eldest daughter, initially to Marseille, France. From there, the family took the French passenger ship Champollion to Palestine, reaching Haifa on June 29, 1933. The two younger daughters followed to Palestine in March 1934.

Paul Holzer quickly obtained a license to practice medicine in a joint practice in Rishon le Zion together with Leo Rosenblueth, MD. Rishon le Zion, today a large city south of Tel-Aviv-Jaffa, was a small community with 3600 inhabitants in 1933. Holzer had to interrupt his work repeatedly due to illness. At the same time, he also tried to get involved in the Maccabi movement in Palestine: “The rising development of Maccabi in Rishon is primarily his work” (Holzer’s tribute on his 50th birthday, German-language newsletter Tel Aviv).

However, his earlier creative power was broken by the trauma he suffered during his imprisonment in 1933. His financial situation was complicated. “Neither I nor my acquaintances or professional colleagues in Germany could ever have believed that I could have found myself in such a precarious situation” (Paul Holzer, compensation file, Nds. LArch).

“In 1937 I took over a position as a radiologist in Bad Karlsbad” (compensation file, Nds. LArch). During this time, Holzer once again visited the youth and sports center on Keilberg and was able to meet some of his former friends (Selbstwehr 1937).

After his return to Palestine, Holzer initially worked in his own small private practice, interrupted by periods of illness. He was later given a part-time position at the health insurance fund of the General Union of Jewish Workers in Palestine in Rishon le Zion.

Paul Holzer died on July 30, 1957 at the age of 64 during a stay at a health resort in Zurich. His grave is located in Rishon Le Zion in the old Ganei Esther cemetery. In memory of Holzers commitment, a small park on David Wolffsohn Street in Rishon leZion was named after him.

The eldest daughter Ruth died in 1956, his wife Rivka Holzer-Brinitzer in 1981.