Karel Sperber

Karel Sperber OBE (1910–1957) was a Jewish Czechoslovak surgeon who travelled to England after the Nazi invasion of his country, but unable to practice medicine because he was an alien, took a job as a ship's doctor instead and was captured by Axis forces when his ship was sunk by the Germans.

He was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp where he was forced to help the SS doctor Carl Clauberg in his sterilisation experiments on Jewish women. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1946 for the medical services he provided to prisoners of war. He became a ship's doctor again and worked for the British Colonial Medical Service in Ceylon, and then in Ghana where he died.

Early life Karel Sperber was born in Tachov, western Bohemia, in 1910 to a Jewish family. He completed his studies in medicine at the German University in Prague

Second World War In 1939, Sperber escaped to Britain his ship was attacked and sunk by the German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis near Sumatra in Indonesia. In late 1942, Sperber was sent to a prison in Bremen following a journey through a number of prisoner-of-war camps.

On 13 December 1942, he entered Auschwitz as a Jewish prisoner, The number "82512" was tattooed on his arm. There, he worked among a number of Nazi physicians including Josef Mengele, Eduard Wirths, and Friedrich Entress. On 18 January 1945 he was sent on the death march to Gleiwitz and Buchenwald. After arriving at Buchenwald he and a group of doctors were able to gain admission to the hospital and later worked there as physicians. He subsequently escaped and hid in a forest until he was found by American troops on 1 April 1945.

In 1946, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire for the medical services he provided to prisoners of war and he received British citizenship in 1948. He signed on as a ship's doctor again and worked for the British Colonial Medical Service in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and then in Ghana, where in 1957 he died of Hodgkin's lymphoma in Accra.

(See pp194–6, 'Jews in the Merchant Navy in WW2 - last voices', by Martin Sugarman, VM books, London)