Himmler’s doctor: The man who saved thousands of people from the Holocaust
by François Kersaudy
The true story of Kersten’s list, an unknown tale of horror, fanaticism, generosity and heroism.
Even the most fearsome figures in history have their weaknesses, and Heinrich Himmler was undoubtedly his doctor, whose miraculous hands were the only ones capable of relieving his unbearable abdominal cramps. Felix Kersten, born in Estonia and trained by a Tibetan master in Finland, was one of the most prestigious physiotherapists of the 1930s, with an international patient agenda and a good heritage. In 1939, she was asked to treat Himmler and, after overcoming his initial doubts, she became his personal physician or, in the Reichsführer’s words, his “magic Buddha.” Instead of receiving fees, he asked to be remunerated by freeing Jews and resistance fighters.
We all know Oskar Schindler, who saved a thousand Jews during World War II. But we know much less about Kersten’s feat, and yet the World Jewish Congress established in 1947 that this man had saved in Germany “about one hundred thousand prisoners of different nationalities, among them sixty thousand Jews, risking their lives,” a undoubtedly underestimated figure.
To follow in Kersten’s footsteps, François Kersaudy, a great specialist in the Second World War, has immersed himself in diaries, notes and statements in six languages of the main protagonists, and uses all this material to narrate this plot in an admirable way without a iota of fiction.
François Kersaudy is a historian who has taught at the Sorbonne and the University of Oxford. He is a specialist in contemporary diplomatic and military history. He speaks nine languages, has received twelve awards for his works. His biography of Winston Churchill won the Grand Prize for History from the Societé des Gens de Lettres of France in 2001.
Source: https://algunoslibrosbuenos.com/el-medico-de-himmler
