Hans Bernhard Schwerin (1878-1945)

Dr. Hans Bernhard Schwerin, M.D. (1878-1945) was a German-Jewish physician. He was interned at the Auschwitz concentration cam and later transferred to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp where it is assumed he died. Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner number 189186.

World War I
Hans Schwerin served in WWI and for the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the war on July 13, 1934 Reich President Hindenburg awarded a participation medal to veterans. Hans' medal survived, it was one of the few item brought to Switzerland by his son who escaped the Holocaust.

Holocaust
Bernhard Hans Schwerin was "privileged", meaning that he was not required to wear the Jewish star and his deportation was postponed because he had an Aryan spouse. He was later arrested and interned at Auschwitz concentration camp, as his prisoner number (189186) occurs in the prisoner number registry. (Source: International Tracing Service)

Biography
Hans Schwerin did not survive the Nazi era. He was forced to give up his medical practice in 1938, after 36 years of practicing. Between 1940 and 1941, he worked in the Jewish Hospital. According to his official employment book, he worked thereafter as a "treater of the ill ", a derogatory title given to the Jewish physicians who were allowed to treat Jewish patients, but not call themselves doctors. During the periods of time in which he wasn’t working Hans Schwerin devoted himself to genealogical research. In a painstaking effort he transcribed the letters of his grandparents and reproduced them for his own children. He was also able to draw on diaries and letters that have not been preserved. Although he was released after his internment following the "Factory Action", he was arrested again in February 1944 and found guilty of helping Jews who had gone underground. Judging from the information provided in his "protective custody" record, it appears that he was transferred to Auschwitz on June 19, 1944 and from there to the Groß Rosen concentration camp on November 11, 1944. No further records on him exist, but it can be assumed that he died in Groß Rosen. (Source: Jewish Museum Berlin)