Eduard Bloch Received Hitler's Protection

In 1907, an Austrian Jewish physician named Eduard Bloch treated Adolf Hitler's mother, Klara, for breast cancer in Linz, often charging the struggling family little or nothing. After Nazi Germany annexed Austria and closed Bloch's medical practice in 1938, the 66-year-old doctor wrote directly to Hitler for help. Hitler called him an "Edeljude," or "noble Jew," and granted him special Gestapo protection, making Bloch the only Jewish resident of Linz with that status. Bloch and his wife, Emilie, sold their home at market value and immigrated to the United States in 1940, settling in the Bronx.

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