Dr. Faust Iosifovich Shkaravsky (Russian: Фауст Иосифович Шкаравский; 1897–1975) was an officer and physician in the
Soviet army during
World War II. He was a forensic expert. He is most famous for having overseen the autopsy of
Adolf Hitler's charred remains in 1945.
Biography
Shkaravsky was born into a Jewish family in 1897 in the Ukrainian town of Kukavka to Iosif Shkaravsky. In 1925 he graduated from the Kiev State Medical Academy, now known as the
Bogomolets National Medical University in
Kiev
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
. Prior to
World War II, he worked as a civilian forensic expert in Kiev and then in the Department of Forensic Medicine in the Kiev Institute of Advanced Training of Physicians, today the
P.L. Shupyk National Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education, along with
Yuri Sergeyevich Sapozhnikov and
Agnes M. Hamburg.
Shkaravsky served in the Soviet
Red Army starting from May 25, 1941. He worked as a forensic expert at various fronts of the war. He was awarded several medals during his service, including the
Order of the Red Star
The Order of the Red Star (russian: Орден Красной Звезды, Orden Krasnoy Zvezdy) was a military decoration of the Soviet Union. It was established by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 6 April 193 ...
and the
Order of the Patriotic War
The Order of the Patriotic War (russian: Орден Отечественной войны, Orden Otechestvennoy voiny) is a Soviet military decoration that was awarded to all soldiers in the Soviet armed forces, security troops, and to partisan ...
.
Autopsy of Adolf Hitler
At the end of World War II, Shkaravsky served as chief medical examiner of the Central Front. He headed a commission of Soviet experts that examined the remains of different leaders of
Nazi Germany, including those of
Adolf Hitler and
Eva Braun.
After World War II
Shkaravsky used his expertise to help prosecute Nazi crimes connected to the Holocaust. He helped show the extent of crimes that took place in the
Majdanek concentration camp
Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, a ...
.
After the war, he worked in Kiev as a medical examiner. He completed his Ph.D, Changes to the Lungs and Liver in Instances of Death by Drowning, in 1951. In 1962 he retired from military service. He died in 1975.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shkaravsky, Faust
1897 births
1975 deaths
Soviet military doctors