Emil Starkenstein (December 18, 1884 – November 6, 1942) was a Czech-Jewish

pharmacologist Pharmacology is the science of drugs and medications, including a substance's origin, composition, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, therapeutic use, and toxicology. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between ...

and one of the founders of

clinical pharmacology Clinical pharmacology is "that discipline that teaches, does research, frames policy, gives information and advice about the actions and proper uses of medicines in humans and implements that knowledge in clinical practice". Clinical pharmacology ...

. He was killed in the

Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp Mauthausen was a German Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 f ...

along with a few hundred refugees from Amsterdam after an incident in which a Dutch Jew resisted a Nazi patrol. Emil Starkenstein was born in the

Bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, originally practised by 19th–20th century European and American artists and writers. * Bohemian style, a ...

(now Czech) town of

Poběžovice Poběžovice (until 1945 Ronšperk; ) is a town in Domažlice District in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 1,600 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monument (Czech Republic)# ...

(Ronsperg) to Jewish German parents. The family had many members who became local physician. Prof. Starkenstein researched and published a family tree in 1927 which traced his family roots as far back as 1350 and included such figures as R. Benjamin Wolf (1777-1851), R.Eleasar Löw, R.

Moses Isserles Moses Isserles (; ; 22 February 1530 / 25 Adar I 5290 – 11 May 1572 / 18 Iyar 5332), also known by the acronym Rema, was an eminent Polish Ashkenazi rabbi, talmudist, and '' posek'' (expert in Jewish law). He is considered the "Maimonides o ...

(1520–72), and several in the Katzenelbogen line, including R.

Saul Wahl Saul Wahl Katzenellenbogen (1541–1617) was a wealthy and politically influential Polish Jews, Polish Jew who is in Jewish folk legends said to have Pro tempore, briefly occupied the King of Poland, throne of Poland on 18 August 1587. He has his ...

Katzenelbogen who, according to the glossary of the family tree, 'became king of Poland for one night after the death of

Stephen Bathory Stephen or Steven is an English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; he is widely regarded as the firs ...

.http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/bohemia/boh575.html The History of the Jews in Ronsperg (Poběžovice) He was a professor at the German University in Prag (formerly German Charles Ferdinand University – see

Charles University in Prague Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the oldest universities in the world in continuous operation, the oldest university north of the ...

) until the 1938

German occupation of Czechoslovakia German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

. He continued his work as a refugee in the Netherlands. After the

German invasion of the Netherlands The German invasion of the Netherlands (), otherwise known as the Battle of the Netherlands (), was a military campaign, part of Case Yellow (), the Nazi German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands) and Fran ...

in 1939, Starkenstein was confined to an area in Amsterdam with other Jews, where they were forced to wear

yellow badge The yellow badge, also known as the yellow patch, the Jewish badge, or the yellow star (, ), was an accessory that Jews were required to wear in certain non-Jewish societies throughout history. A Jew's ethno-religious identity, which would be d ...

s and banned from civil service employment. He was arrested and deported in 1941, via Prague and Terezin, to Mauthausen concentration camp. His wife and daughter survived in hiding in The Netherlands, and after the war his wife Marie (née Weil) donated his extensive collection of papers (more than 20,000 items) to the Czechoslovak state. In 2002, these papers were finally deposited in the archives of Charles University in Prague. In addition to the scientific papers, Starkenstein had one of the most impressive pharmacological libraries ever assembled. Before he was killed in the Nazi concentration camps, his family agreed to sell the collection to rare book dealer Ludwig Gottschalk, but when Gottschalk faced deportation to the camps himself, he secreted the library in several locations in the Black Forest and went into hiding. After the war, he reassembled the Starkenstein books and for nearly half a century sold items from the collection under the name Biblion, Inc., in Forest Hills, New York.http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/vha1490 USC Shoah Foundation Institute testimony of Ludwig Gottschalk A portion of the library was purchased by the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of the

New York Botanical Garden The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, ...

. These 147 volumes, dealing primarily with the medicinal uses of plants, are identified by Starkenstein's bookplate.

Works

* ''Die neueren Arzneimittel und die pharmakologischen Grundlagen ihrer Anwendung in der ärztlichen Praxis'' . Springer, Berlin 2nd edition 191
Digital edition
by the

University and State Library Düsseldorf The University and State Library Düsseldorf (, abbreviated ULB Düsseldorf) is a central service institution of Heinrich Heine University. Along with Bonn and Münster, it is also one of the three State Libraries of North Rhine-Westphalia. ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Starkenstein, Emil 1884 births 1942 deaths Czechoslovak scientists Clinical pharmacologists Czech Jews who died in the Holocaust People who died in Mauthausen concentration camp People from Poběžovice Jewish scientists Czechoslovak civilians killed in World War II