[HE GAVE EVERYTHING HE HAD: DR. SHLOMO GURFINKEL - A LAST DESCENDANT].

INTRODUCTION: Holocaust survivors gave a significant contribution to Israel's fighting forces and to the victory in the War of Independence. Many of them lost their lives in the battlefields. Many doctors who were survivors took an active part in the war, and afterwards in the building of the base of public medicine in the country. The "Last Descendants" were those Holocaust survivors who remained the last remnant of their nuclear family (parents, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters), who immigrated to Israel, joined the army and fell in battle, thus ending forever their family legacy. One of them was Dr. Shlomo Gurfinkel. During World War II he was a member of the Jewish underground and served as a doctor in Vilna's ghetto and in the ranks of the partisans. In the War of Independence, he was a doctor in a "Haganah" battalion and lost his life in the battles in Jerusalem. By telling his personal story, we intend to throw light on the heroic actions of those Holocaust survivors, amongst them medical personnel, who came to Israel and joined the fighting forces, including those who were "last descendants".

[The tragic fate of physicians].

Physicians and surgeons were always involved in revolutions, wars and political activities, as well as in various medical humanities. Tragic fate met these doctors, whether in the Russian prisons gulags, German labor or concentration camps, pogroms or at the hands of the Inquisition.

A forgotten Jewish-Portuguese historian of medicine: Dr. Augusto Isaac d'Esaguy, OSE, 1899-1961.

Augusto Isaac d'Esaguy was a 20th century Portuguese medical historian who made contributions to the history of Portuguese-Jewish physicians and was also involved with the Jewish-Portuguese Refugee Committee which assisted with the relocation of Jews from Nazi-controlled France during the Second World War.

Felicjan Slawoj-Skladkowski (1885-1962): The only known doctor-soldier-politician with an outdoor-wooden-toilet named after him.

Felicjan Slawoj-Skladkowski was a Polish physician, General and politician who served as Polish Minister of Internal Affairs and was the last Prime Minister of Poland before the Second World War. The lack of basic sanitation in many of Poland's villages caused him to issue a decree that every household in Poland must have a latrine in working order. Wooden sheds were built in the backyards, subsequently named 'slawojkis'.

[Physicians and terror: the historical perspective].

The topic of physicians who committed crimes or were involved in terrorists' activities, is not well known. This article does not present the well known horrific stories of the atrocities of the Nazi German physicians. The authors describe a number of doctors who were active during the French revolution, some murderous physicians-leaders, and present a few historical anecdotes. These examples might only emphasize the fact that, like other human beings, doctors, too, may suffer from bad character.

Physicians and architects - not an odd couple.

One may think that there is no apparent interface between so different occupations as medicine and architecture. The historical and present-day connections between these academic fields resulted in the creation of healthy environment, housing and hospital. This article also speaks about another meeting point of these professions: physicians who became architects (or amateur-architects) and personal friendships between physicians, scientists, and architects which resulted in fruitful and progressive architectural creations. Both professions may be regard as art and science as well.

Dr. Sigmund Wolfsohn (1765-1850) and the Biedermeier era: an orthopaedist, manufacturer of surgical appliances and leisure time products, and the builder of the Apollosaal in Vienna.

This is the extraordinary story of a British born orthopedist, Dr. SigmundWolfsohn (1765-1850), who came to Vienna, manufactured artificial limbs and surgical appliances, and created the magnificent colossal dancing and entertainment palace--the "Apollosaal"