Sophie’s father. A Warsaw obstetrician, born in Poland in 1878. He stayed in Poland during the German occupation and was sent to Majdanek, the concentration camp outside Lublin, for trying to help Jewish people. He died there of typhoid fever; Sophie’s own 1960 hand-written autobiography describes him without ever naming him, and the 1970 FBI file is the source that recovers the name.
Per Sophie’s recollection (in the 1960 statement), he had served as a medical officer in the Russo-Japanese War in 1901 and as a lieutenant colonel in WWI, and was a sufficiently accomplished chess player to have beaten the master Dawid Przepiórka three times out of four. He was also the figure who insisted Sophie leave Poland early in WWII for her safety.