Otto Michael

The picture shows Dr. Otto Michael. How do we know that? Leipzig-based historian Dr. Andrea Lorz, who is one of the most renowned scholars in the field of Jewish history in Leipzig, has researched the life of Otto Michael. Without the dedicated support of his son, Walter Otto Michael, this would not have been possible.

Otto Michael was born on June 3, 1876, in Leipzig to David and Mathilde Michael, a Jewish merchant family. In 1895, he began studying medicine at the University of Leipzig and received his medical license in May 1900. He gained his first work experience in 1902 as a ship’s doctor on the route from Hamburg to South America. Via a stopover in Berlin, he returned to Leipzig in 1910, now married. He pursued his goal of opening his own medical practice with ambition and great professional dedication. In 1918, he opened his own practice at 30 Dresdner Straße, where he lived. In 1912 and 1919 his wife Elisabeth gave birth to their two sons Peter and Walter. During World War I, he served as a military hospital surgeon. Dr. Otto Michael spent most of his free time with his family, but also enjoyed art, theater and music. His wife Elisabeth died as early as 1933. From 1933 onwards, anti-Jewish laws made it increasingly difficult for him to keep his medical practice. In 1938, his license was revoked and he was merely allowed to treat Jewish patients as a “Krankenbehandler” (“a treater of sick people”). In the course of this, he had to give up his practice as well as his apartment. Following the November Pogroms around November 9, 1938, he was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp and later released. That same year, the now 62-year-old was appointed chief physician at the Israelite Hospital, which had been forced to relocate to the remote “Heil- und Pflegeanstalt“ (“Mental Hospital”) in Leipzig-Dösen. For over four years, he cared for Jewish patients there under the most difficult conditions.

On June 16, 1943, Dr. Michael was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and ghetto. About one year later, the doctor died due to the disastrous living conditions there.

A street in Leipzig has been named after him since 1990, and in 2008 a Stolperstein was laid at his former residence.