Klaus Blatteis / Clark Blatteis (M / Germany, 1932-2021), Holocaust survivor
Klaus Blatteis / Clark Blatteis (M / Germany, 1932-2021), Holocaust survivor
- KEYWORDS : <Refugees> <MS St. Louis> <France> <Morocco> -- <United States>
Biography
Born in Berlin, Germany, Blatteis and his Jewish family were forced to flee their home to escape further Nazi persecution after his father's arrest in the aftermath of the Kristallnacht and as a condition for his release from Buchenwald concentration camp where he was a prisoner. They were among the 937 Jewish German refugees aboard the MS St. Louis who were denied entry into Cuba, the United States, Canada, and all the other Western Hemisphere countries, and consequently obliged to return to Europe. There, the family was granted refuge in Belgium, but had to flee again when that country was invaded by the Nazis in 1940. They made their way ultimately to Casablanca, French Morocco, where Blatteis attended school from elementary through high school, partly (1940–1942) under Nazi (Vichy-France) occupation.
The family was finally able to immigrate to the United States in 1948. Clark became a distinguished professor in the field of physiology at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Memphis, Tennessee.