Lars Ernster ( hu, Ernster László; 4 May 1920 – 4 November 1998) was a professor of

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

, and a member of the Board of the Nobel Foundation.

Biography

Lars Ernster was born in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

and came to Sweden in 1946. He played a prominent role in the scientific community. He took his PhD degree at the Stockholm University in 1956. Until 1967 he was the head of the division for Physiological Chemistry at the Wenner-Gren Institute (

Axel Wenner-Gren Axel Lennart Wenner-Gren (5 June 1881 – 24 November 1961) was a Swedish entrepreneur and one of the wealthiest men in the world during the 1930s. Early life He was born on 5 June 1881 in Uddevalla, a town on the west coast of Sweden. He w ...

). From 1967 to 1986 he was a professor of

. He was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences from 1974. He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987. "The burning interest in science, the desire to get to the truth of the matter, the intense but courteous questioning and, above all, his charming and warm smile" as seen by a friend, colleague, fellow-European and competitor

Edward Slater Edward Charles Slater (16 January 1917 – 26 March 2016), also known as Bill Slater, was an Australian biochemist who spent most of his career at the University of Amsterdam. Early life and education Slater was raised in Australia. He recei ...

. In ''Mitochondria and Microsomes'' (C.P. Lee, G. Schatz and G. Dallner, eds.) Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Reading, MA 1981

Books

* Chemistry and physiology of mitochondria and microsomes, Olov Lindberg, Lars Ernster - Springer (1954) * Protoplasmatologia. Bd. 3. Cytoplasma - Organellen A. Chondriosomen, Mikrosomen, Sphaerosomen.?4. Lindburg, Olov, and Lars Ernster: Chemistry and physiology of mitochondria and microsomes - Springer (1953)

Nobel Foundation

* Lars Ernster was a member of the Board of the Nobel Foundation 1977–1988. * 1978 Presentation Speec

by Professor Lars Ernster of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, The

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

in Chemistry 1978

Lars Ernster rescued 8 January 1945

During World War II, Lars Ernster, Edith Ernster and Jacob Steiner lived in the office of the Swedish Embassy in Budapest Üllöi ut 2-4. During the night of 8 January 1945, all inhabitants were dragged away by an

Arrow Cross Party The Arrow Cross Party ( hu, Nyilaskeresztes Párt – Hungarista Mozgalom, , abbreviated NYKP) was a far-right Hungarian ultranationalist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which formed a government in Hungary they named the Government of National ...

executing brigade of the city commander near the banks of the Danube. At midnight, 20 policemen with drawn bayonets broke into the Arrow Cross house and rescued everyone

Edith Ernster remembers

Edith Ernster, who lived through that time, recalls: "It seemed so strange - this country of super-aryans, the Swedes, taking us under their wings. Often, when an Orthodox Jew went by, in his hat, beard and sidelocks, we'd say, 'Look, there goes another Swede." A special department was created in the Swedish embassy in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

with

Raoul Wallenberg Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (4 August 1912 – disappeared 17 January 1945)He is presumed to have died in 1947, although the circumstances of his death are not clear and this date has been disputed. Some reports claim he was alive years later. 31 J ...

as its head. It was staffed primarily with Jewish volunteers. Initially, there were 250 workers; later, he had about 400 people working around the clock. Wallenberg seemed to sleep no more than an hour or two a night, and then it was wherever he happened to be working. He was everywhere.

References

Literature

* József Szekeres: Saving the Ghettos of Budapest in January 1945, , Budapest 1997, Publisher: Budapest Archives * Gábor Forgács: Recollections and Facts; My Days with Raoul Wallenberg (Emlék és Valóság), , Budapest 2006, in the list of saved persons 8 January. 1945. Lars Ernster rescued to Sweden, around 1970 member of the Board of Nobel Foundation * The Road to Stockholm. Nobel Prizes, Science and Scientists (Oxford Paperbacks) Istvan Hargittai, Oxford University Press (12. Juli 2005) * Our Lives: Encounters of a Scientist, Istvan Hargittai, Akademiai Kiado, 30 January 2005

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ernster, Lars Hungarian biochemists Swedish educators Swedish biochemists Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Raoul Wallenberg Hungarian Jews Scientists from Budapest 1920 births 1988 deaths Hungarian emigrants to Sweden