Edmund Hadra Collection

Edmund Georg Hadra was born September 17, 1877 in Berlin. He was the youngest of ten children, the son of the banker Leopold Hadra and his wife Franziska Hadra née Lesser. Edmund Hadra determined to study medicine like his eldest brother Salomon. After attending universities in Berlin and Munich, he received his doctorate in medicine from the University of Leipzig in 1906 and began practicing as a physician in Berlin, where he eventually specialized in the field of gynecology. Shortly after his twenty-second birthday Edmund Hadra converted to Protestantism. On October 12, 1909 he married Elsie Frieda Loewenthal. Their daughter Ellinor was born in July 1910.

He served from 1914-1918 in World War I, where he was wounded three times; as a result he received the Knight's Cross of the Royal Order of the Hohenzollerns with Swords (Das Kreuz der Ritter des königlichen Hausordens von Hohenzollern mit Schwerten). After the turmoil and food shortages in Berlin in 1918-1919, Edmund Hadra moved with his wife and young daughter to Schwerin in Mecklenburg, where he resided until 1936, when he returned to Berlin.

In 1942 Edmund Hadra was sent to Theresienstadt, where he worked in the hospital until he himself became too ill to practice. On May 23, 1943 Edmund Hadra married his second wife, Josefa Ruben, a nurse.

In July 1945 he returned to Berlin after three years in Theresienstadt. In February 1947 Hadra fled the Russian sector of Berlin with the help of the American Joint Committee. He and his wife made their way to Bolivia with brief stays in Paris and Rio de Janeiro along the way. In Bolivia he worked as a physician of the government in San Ignacio (province of Velasco) from July 1947 until March 1948. With the assistance of an affidavit from his daughter Ellinor, who lived in Pennsylvania, he and Josefa were then able to immigrate to the United States, arriving in August 1948.

At first Hadra stayed for a year with his daughter in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, where he accustomed himself to American practices in medicine by accompanying his daughter, also a physician, as she visited hospitals where she worked; Edmund Hadra also and took graduate courses and attending professional meetings. In August 1949 Edmund Hadra moved to New York City, where he was employed as a resident physician at the New York Cancer Institute. Following this position, he worked as chief resident at the Metropolitan Hospital Annex and in 1952 became chief admitting physician at the Bird S. Coler Memorial Hospital.

Edmund Hadra died April 7, 1971 in Manhattan.