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

pharmacologist Pharmacology is a branch of medicine, biology and pharmaceutical sciences concerned with drug or medication action, where a drug may be defined as any artificial, natural, or endogenous (from within the body) molecule which exerts a biochemica ...

and one of the founders of

clinical pharmacology Clinical pharmacology has been defined as "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". Clinic ...

. He was killed in the

Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp Mauthausen was a 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 further ...

along with a few hundred refugees from Amsterdam after an incident in which a

Dutch Jew The history of the Jews in the Netherlands began largely in the 16th century when they began to settle in Amsterdam and other cities. It has continued to the present. During the Netherlands in World War II, occupation of the Netherlands by Naz ...

resisted a Nazi patrol. Emil Starkenstein was born in the

Bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Beer * National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst * Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...

(now Czech) town of

Poběžovice Poběžovice (formerly Ronšperk, german: Ronsperg) is a town in Domažlice District in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 1,500 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monumen ...

(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 ). He is not to be confused with Meir Abulafia, known as "Ramah" ( he, רמ״ה, italic=no, links=no), nor with Menahem Azariah da Fano, known as "Rema MiPano" ( he, רמ״ע מפאנו, italic=no, links=no). Rabbi Moses Isserles ( he, משה � ...

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

Saul Wahl Saul Wahl Katzenellenbogen (1541–1617) was a wealthy and politically influential Polish Jew who is said to have briefly occupied the throne of Poland on 18 August 1587. He has historically borne the nickname, "''Le roi d'un jour''" (king for a ...

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 a common English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; ...

.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 ( cs, Univerzita Karlova, UK; la, Universitas Carolina; german: Karls-Universität), also known as Charles University in Prague or historically as the University of Prague ( la, Universitas Pragensis, links=no), is the oldest an ...

) until the 1938

German occupation of Czechoslovakia German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

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

German invasion of the Netherlands The German invasion of the Netherlands ( nl, Duitse aanval op Nederland), otherwise known as the Battle of the Netherlands ( nl, Slag om Nederland), was a military campaign part of Case Yellow (german: Fall Gelb), the Nazi German invasion of t ...

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

yellow badge Yellow badges (or yellow patches), also referred to as Jewish badges (german: Judenstern, lit=Jew's star), are badges that Jews were ordered to wear at various times during the Middle Ages by some caliphates, at various times during the Medieva ...

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 The LuEsther T. Mertz Library is located at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) in the Bronx, New York City. Founded in 1899 and renamed in the 1990s for LuEsther Mertz, it is the United States' largest botanical research library, and the first ...

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 (german: Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Düsseldorf, abbreviated ULB Düsseldorf) is a central service institution of Heinrich Heine University. Along with Bonn and Münster, it is also one of th ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Starkenstein, Emil 1884 births 1942 deaths Clinical pharmacologists Czech 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 Czech people executed in Nazi concentration camps