Richard Koch

Vocation

German physician, balneologist, internist, medical historian and medical theorist. He worked as a Jewish lecturer at the Free Jewish Education Center in Frankfurt am Main. He was friends with the founder Franz Rosenzweig and he was also his doctor. In 1935 the Institute for the History of Medicine was closed at the instigation of the Nazia. One year later, Richard Koch fled Germany for the Soviet Union. From 1936 to 1949 he lived and worked as a doctor in the Caucasian resort of Yessentuki. Here he dealt intensively with Jewish culture, learned Hebrew, translated psalms and wrote reflections on the Haggadah and other writings and customs. Koch had to flee to Georgia in 1942 with the family before the Caucasus offensive of the German Wehrmacht. When he returned to Yessentuki, his extensive library had been stolen. He died on 30 July 1949, aged 66. In addition to his scientific work and religious writings, Koch left behind an unfinished autobiography. Link to Wikipedia biography (German)