Abraham Atsmon papers

Abraham Atsmon papers 

Abraham Atsmon was born Abraam Isak Blumowicz in 1909 in Łomża, Poland to Jakob and Gola Blumowicz. He studied medicine at the University of Vilnius. His family was killed while trying to escape Łomża during the German invasion of the Soviet Union, but Atsmon survived, found his way to the Słonim ghetto, and joined the ghetto underground. He organized the ghetto’s medical services and served as the director of its hospital and surgical department. He escaped the ghetto, joined a partisan group in Belarus, and ran a field hospital. After the war, he found his way back to Poland and then to the American sector of Germany. He intended to emigrate to Palestine and entered the Landsberg displaced persons camp. Atsmon was a political and social leader in the camp and helped create the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in the American Zone of Germany. The Committee worked to improve conditions within the displaced persons camps, establish the political legitimacy of survivors, and promote emigration to Palestine and the creation of the State of Israel. In 1946, the American military government in Germany recognized the Committee as the legal and democratic representation of liberated Jews in the American zone. Atsmon married Rebecca Distenfeld Bodek in Landsberg in 1947, and the couple emigrated to Israel in June 1948 and changed their name from Blumowicz to Atsmon. Atsmon served as Surgeon General of the Israel Defense Forces from 1949 to 1956. 

Abraham Atsmon papers