Dr Frederick ('Freddie') Morgan, formerly Morgenbesser (b. 1912)

Transcript of interviews with Dr Stefan Cembrowicz, October 2000, transcribed 2001, 67pp. Dr Morgan was born of German-Jewish parentage in Brno, now in the Czech Republic, then part of Moravia, a province of Bohemia, within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During the Great War his father was called up into the Army and stationed in Poland, where Freddie Morgenbesser learnt to speak Polish. They returned to what had become free democratic Czechoslovakia in 1918. Morgenbesser studied medicine at the recently-founded Masaryk University and he describes the organisation of medical education and practice at the time. Among his interests were tuberculosis and paediatrics. He left in March 1939 as a result of the Nazi invasion. The interview includes description of the rise of Nazism in Central Europe and its effects. In 1940 Morgenbesser joined the Pioneer Corps as a private, and then became a medical orderly. In 1941 his medical qualifications were recognised and he worked in the Medical Reserve in Devon,, eventually becoming a medical officer in the Army in 1943. After the War he went into general practice in the Bristol area where he had a diverse practice, including industrial medicine and working in the prison medical service, as well as dealing with a wide range of conditions among the general population.

2000

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