Biography
Dr. Naum Wortman (1914-1988) was born in Chelm, Poland. During the 1930s he studied medicine and surgery at the University of Rome, from which he graduated in 1938. Wortman then returned to Poland, taking a position at the Jewish hospital in Warsaw. After the German invasion, Wortman fled to the Soviet sector of Poland, where he worked as a physician in several towns. From January 1940 until December 1942 he was the chief surgeon in a country hospital in Szczucin. In January 1943 Wortman was deported from Szczucin to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he was soon assigned work in the Krankenbau (hospital barracks) in Block 12. Wortman did his utmost to delay or prevent the transfer of sick laborers to the gas chambers by misreporting the nature of the diseases afflicting them and seeking new remedies for ailments that would result in their being sent to the gas chamber. When Auschwitz was evacuated in January 1945, Wortman was sent on a forced march to Mauthausen. He was ultimately liberated in the Mauthausen sub-camp of Ebensee. Following the liberation, Wortman began to work as a physician at the temporary hospital established in Ebensee. When this facility was closed he was transferred to the displaced persons camp in Ebelsberg. There, he served as both chief physician of the hospital and chief medical officer for all the hospitals in Upper Austria. In addition, he examined all would-be Jewish immigrants to Palestine on behalf of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. In March 1949 Wortman immigrated to the United States and settled in Far Rockaway, N.Y.
