Chronology of Eli G. Rochelson, MD
Life and History
INFORMATION ABOUT THE Holocaust and the Kovno ghetto, in particular, is indebted to the chronology in Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 241–49). Vital records information comes from the All Lithuania Database of JewishGen.com, the lists originally compiled by the Kaunas District Research group of LitvakSIG, records in the International Tracing Service files of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), interviews, and family records.
c.1830
Ilija Gershon Rochelson, grandfather of Eli G. Rochelson, is born.
1864
Bere-Mikhel (or Mikhel Ber; Hebrew name Dov Mikhael) Rochelson is born on July 17 (old style)/July 30 (new style); parents Ilija Gershon (Eliyahu Gershon or Eli’Gershon) and Devorah (Dvera) Rochelson.
1869 (possibly 1865)
Henye Lubovsky is born on October 5? (old style)/October 18? (new style); parents David and possibly Sora Mendelzon Lubovsky.
1907
August 19 (old style)/September 1 (new style)/22 Elul (Hebrew calendar): Ilija Gershon (Eli Gershon) Rochelson is born in Kovno, Russian Empire; parents Bere-Mikhel and Henye Lubovsky Rochelson.
June 25? (old style)/July 12? (new style): Serafima Meerovich is born in St. Petersburg, Russia; parents Saveli and Mariya Meerovich.
1915
May 2–5 (old style)/May 15–18 (new style): Jews are expelled from the western Russian empire. The Rochelson family eventually settles in the area of Rostov-na-Donu (Rostov-on-Don), where Eli attends a Russian Jewish gymnasium.
June 5: Pearl Friedman is born in Brooklyn, New York; parents Max and Masha Rubin Friedman.
1918 or 1919
Eli is infected with Spanish flu during the epidemic, as well as other serious illnesses, and survives.
1921
After famine during the postrevolution Russian Civil War, the family returns to Kovno.
1927
Eli Rochelson and Serafima Meerovich graduate from the Russian Gymnasium of the Teachers’ Association, in Kaunas.
1931
July 1–15: David and Ida Robinson (Eli’s brother and sister-in-law from Brooklyn) visit the family in Kovno.
1932
Eli Rochelson begins studies at the medical faculty of the University of Vytautas the Great, Kaunas.
April 5: Bere-Mikhel Rochelson dies of pulmonary disease, in Kaunas.
1934
January 22: Eli Rochelson marries Serafima Meerovich, in Kaunas.
April 19: Chaye/Anna Rochelson Arendt, Eli’s sister, dies in Berlin of rheumatic heart disease. Eli and his mother travel to the funeral.
October 19: Boris (Borya) Rochelson is born in Kaunas; parents Eli and Serafima Meerovich Rochelson.
1935
Eli begins military service in the Lithuanian Army.
1939
Eli is admitted to candidacy in medicine, University of Vytautas the Great; he completes his military service.
1940
June 15: Eli Rochelson is awarded an MD degree, University of Vytautas the Great (Kaunas Medical College); he goes to work as a medical intern at the university and in a health facility for government workers.
June 15: Soviets invade and occupy Lithuania.
1941
June 22: Nazis invade and occupy Lithuania, including Kaunas. June–September: Mottel (Eli’s brother) and Henye Rochelson are murdered in or near the town of Plokščiai, where they have been living.
August 15: All Jews left in Kovno, nearly thirty thousand in all, are now in the Kovno ghetto. Eli, his wife and child, and other relatives are among them.
August 18: Intellectuals Action. Five hundred Jews from the Kovno ghetto are taken away and killed. Avraham Rochelson is taken but sent back. Cousin David Lubovsky is murdered.
October 4: Nazis destroy the hospital in the Kovno ghetto by setting it on fire. All staff and patients inside are killed.
October 28: The Great Action in the Kovno ghetto. All assemble in Demokratu Square early in the morning. Selections last until nearly evening, and more than 30 percent are selected to be killed.
December 7: Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, and the United States declares was on Japan.
December 11: Germany declares war on the United States.
September 15: Nazis begin work to turn the Kovno ghetto into a concentration camp.
November 1: Kovno ghetto is officially reclassified as KL Kauen, a concentration camp.
November 30: Eli, Serafima, and Boris Rochelson are among one thousand Jews taken to a work camp in Aleksotas, outside the Kovno ghetto.
1944
Early March: Serafima develops diphtheria, and the family returns to the ghetto. Boris (Borya) develops meningitis.
March 27–28: “Children’s Action” in all the Baltic ghettos. In Kovno, “up to 1,300” children and people over fifty-five years of age are rounded up and killed. Eli is able to save Borya.
July 8–14: Nazis liquidate the Kovno ghetto, deporting the population to Stutthof and Dachau. On the last day, they burn the ghetto buildings to the ground, killing most of those who hid beneath them.
July 12–13: Serafima, Rose, and Sarah Rochelson (Eli’s wife, sister-in-law, and niece) are processed into KL Stutthof.
July 15: Eli and Boris Rochelson are processed into KL Dachau.
July 26: Boris Rochelson, in a group of 131 boys from Kovno, is sent on a train to Auschwitz.
July 29: Avraham Rochelson, Eli’s brother, is processed into KL Dachau.
August 1: The Soviet Army enters the Kovno ghetto, liberating those who remain.
August 1: The boys from Kovno (minus two who jumped off the train) enter Auschwitz-Birkenau. Boris Rochelson is among them.
September 18 and 19: On Rosh Hashanah, many of the Kovno boys are selected and murdered in the gas chambers. Borya may have been among them. On Yom Kippur, more of the Kovno boys are selected and killed.
1945
January 7: Avraham Rochelson is transported from Dachau to Flossenbürg.
January 25: The liberation of Stutthof begins, with forced marches by land and sea; it will not be completed until April, when the remaining inmates are liberated by Soviet troops. Serafima Rochelson dies of starvation, exhaustion, and disease around the time of liberation. Rose Rochelson dies of dysentery; Sarah Rochelson dies at the same time as her mother. Exact dates of these deaths are unknown.
January 27: Auschwitz is liberated by Soviet troops.
February 19 or (more likely) March 28: Avraham Rochelson dies in Flossenbürg. Late April: Eli is among a large group of prisoners evacuated from Dachau by train. When the station is bombed along the route, he and others escape, hiding out in the forest for two or three days.
April 29: US troops liberate Dachau. Eli and those he is hiding with are liberated in the forest by US soldiers.
Early May: Dr. Eli Rochelson assists Dr. Solomon Nabriski in establishing the hospital at the Landsberg-am-Lech displaced persons camp and administers its outpatient clinic. This is Hospital #2014 in the American Zone.
May 27: Liberation Concert by the St. Ottilien orchestra, made up of Holocaust survivors at St. Ottilien displaced persons camp, close to Landsberg. October: Landsberg becomes an all-Jewish camp, as other displaced persons are transferred to different locations.
1946
February 9–11: Eli Rochelson participates in a conference of liberated Jewish doctors in the American Zone, held at Landsberg.
March 27: Eli gives a lecture at Landsberg as part of the culminating events of “Sanitary Month.”
March 27: Eli registers with the American Joint Distribution Committee to emigrate to the United States.
April 18: Eli is living at an emigration center in Munich.
June 6: Eli leaves for the United States on the repurposed US troopship Marine Flasher.
June 18: Eli arrives in New York. His brother David meets him at the dock and he goes to live with Dave and his wife, Ida, in Brooklyn.
August 1: Eli begins a year’s internship at Israel Zion Hospital in Brooklyn (later Maimonides Medical Center). He lives on the hospital campus.
October 28: Eli publishes an article commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Kovno ghetto Great Action in Der Tog, a Yiddish newspaper published in New York.
December 27: An article is published in Aufbau/Reconstruction, a German-Jewish newspaper published in New York, summarizing testimony by Eli and others regarding medical atrocities during the Holocaust. Eli begins to gather materials to establish that he received a medical degree in Kaunas, Lithuania.
1947
August: Eli takes on a residency at the Casualty Hospital in Washington, DC. He stays for a few months and then leaves to work at the Swedish Hospital of Brooklyn.
September 13: Eli takes and passes the English exam of the University of the State of New York, State Education Department, Professional Division.
1948
July 1: Eli receives his initial license to practice medicine in New York State.
September 13: Eli is notified that he has passed the subject exams for his full medical license.
October 12: On Kol Nidrei night, Masha Friedman is injured outside a synagogue near her home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. She goes with her daughter Pearl by ambulance to the Swedish Hospital of Brooklyn, where Dr. Eli Rochelson treats her.
1949
April 29: Eli Rochelson marries Pearl Friedman in Brooklyn. Eli establishes his first medical practice at 542 Parkside Avenue.
1950
October 12: Meri-Jane Rochelson is born in Brooklyn. She is named after her maternal grandfather, Max (Mota), and her paternal grandmother (Henye).
October 15: The Landsberg displaced persons camp is closed.
1953
September 14: Burton Lee Rochelson is born. He is named after Borya and a maternal relative, Lazar (Lazer), who had lived a very long life.
Summer: Pearl and Eli Rochelson buy a house at 817 East 17th Street in Brooklyn and move there with their children. Eli purchases the building at 493 Marcy Avenue, Brooklyn, and moves his office to the ground floor.
1983
Spring: Eli’s and Pearl’s first grandchildren are born, in March and May. There will eventually be more.
1984
January: Eli sells his medical building and practice to a doctor who had immigrated to the United States from Africa.
February 15: Eli Gershon Rochelson dies, in Brooklyn.
1994
Pearl Rochelson sells the house in Brooklyn and moves to an apartment in Manhattan.
2010
January 9: Pearl moves to Hollywood, Florida.
February 3: Pearl Friedman Rochelson dies. She is buried next to Eli at Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, New York.