Letter of Admittance to Wittenauer Sanatorium

Dr. Max Loewenstein's admittance letter to Wittenauer Sanatorium, Sept. 25, 1941.

Maria Loewenstein suffered deep depression after Henry left for safety in England. The war had started and there was little hope that she would ever see her son again. She had been aware for some time that her husband, Dr. Max Loewenstein was addicted to morphine and she now insisted that something had to be done about it. 

Max’s addiction began as the result of a foot injury he sustained in 1933 while hiking with friends in the Harz Mountains in Southern Germany. Believing it to be a bad sprain, he refused X-rays and prescribed himself morphine for the pain. Too late, Max learned that his foot had been fractured and could no longer be set properly. Over the years, the break continued to cause Max pain, and he became addicted to the morphine. Maria had wanted Max committed to a drug rehabilitation facility for years. 

Finally, on September 25, 1941, Max agreed to admit himself to the Wittenauer Sanatorium in Berlin. Three weeks later, the Nazis began massive sweeps of Berlin’s Jews in which many, including Max’s brother Georg and sister-in-law Alice, were transported to the Łódź (Poland) and Riga (Latvia) ghettoes or to concentration camps in Poland.  Many died there of starvation. Any survivors were later taken to Auschwitz and killed. 

Maria visited Max while he was in Wittenauer, but pretended not to know where her husband was when the Nazis came looking for him, endangering herself to protect him. Max was discharged from Wittenauer in April 1942. Thankfully, the Nazis’ push to remove Berlin’s Jews had temporarily slowed down. Those seven months saved his life, not only in treating his addiction to morphine, but from almost certain death at the hands of the Nazis.