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  Still, our community experienced the same type of prejudice that was common in the 1930s. Specifically, prejudice against Jews. In school, Jewish children were sidelined. The principal read Christian prayers during assembly. And in December, many school activities were given a Christmas theme. (We Jews quietly resisted, however. When the class sang Christmas carols, we substituted the name “Moses” for Christ and “Chanukah” for Christmas.)

  When I was in my young teens, my mother asked if I would prefer to use a middle name other than Judah. I believe she was attempting to protect me from the harm that might have come from having a Jewish-sounding name. In those days, Jews were denied work and acceptance into college simply because of their faith. I followed my mother’s advice when I was in high school and changed my middle name to “Jay.” (About twenty years ago, I went back to my original name. Today I proudly call myself Henry Judah Heimlich.)

  In high school, there were fraternities for Jews and non-Jews. I joined Omega Delta because it was known as a “nonsectarian” fraternity, which meant it accepted members of any religion. I believed in this open policy but was disappointed to find that, in reality, the fraternity was mostly Jewish with only one Christian member. While I was aware that Jews were discriminated against, African Americans were totally isolated and given few social or business opportunities. Seeing this unfairness soon after I joined Omega Delta, I decided I would avoid any segregated organizations and stopped attending fraternity meetings.

  My sister Cele experienced a more direct kind of anti-Semitism than I. As the top student in her elementary school, she was entitled to receive a certificate of honor at her graduation. So we were shocked to learn that another student would be receiving the certificate. When my parents asked the principal why my sister was not the designated winner, she told them that she had instituted a new rule. That is, students would be measured not just on grades but also on attendance, and, the principal noted, Cele had been absent two days for the Jewish holidays.

  My parents were convinced that the principal had jimmied the system so that the award would not be given to a Jewish child, yet they held their tongues. In those days, Jews tended to keep quiet when confronted with prejudice. Fortunately, things did not turn out as the principal had allegedly planned. Cele’s name had been printed on the program before the principal changed the rules, so she was indeed handed the reward at her graduation.

  Given the way kids were separated by religion in those days, I primarily socialized with Jewish people. But I broke out of that pattern when I was a junior in high school and joined the New Rochelle High School drama club, the Tower Players. Mind you, I was never a great actor, but I enjoyed performing in plays. Acting helped me develop a comfort with addressing an audience, and it brought out my sense of humor. I was given some pretty good parts. My favorite was having a role in the dramatic play Yellow Jack, the story of Walter Reed, the US Army doctor who saved thousands of lives after discovering that yellow fever was spread by mosquitoes.

  Being part of a group comprised of both Jews and non-Jews was rewarding. One Saturday evening, after the play’s last performance, the entire cast went out together to celebrate. Several of us piled into a Model T Ford convertible, bound for the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle. We all had a great time. For this one evening, religious beliefs and social limitations were cast aside.

  Still, it was rare when I spent time with non-Jews and was not made to feel self-conscious about my religion. Ultimately, my experiences with anti-Semitism and observing racial segregation made me angry. But I would turn that anger into hard work and learn to rely on my own record rather than the opinions of those who judged people by their religion or skin color.

  PRISON TIME

  Spending time with my father expanded my education far beyond the classroom. From the time I was twelve years old, I occasionally accompanied Dad on his travels to visit inmates and prison administrators. As I got older, my father gave me the opportunity to interact with these hardcore convicts and juvenile delinquents. It proved to be a great lesson in how to deal with people in desperate need.

  As a social worker with the Jewish Board of Guardians, Dad visited Jewish prisoners in all the New York State prisons, counseling them on how to maintain hope and dignity while incarcerated and assisting them as they adjusted to the outside world when released. One of his goals was to help them stay in touch with their families for support and encouragement. If a prisoner was from New York City, Dad would try to have him sent to Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York, which was located on the east bank of the Hudson River. This allowed the inmates to receive more visits from family members who would not have to make a long trip to see them. I can remember making trips not only to Sing Sing but also to the Attica and Auburn prisons. I visited Mattewan State Hospital for the “criminally insane,” where I peered through the small windows in the doors of padded, solitary-confinement cells to see inmates wearing straitjackets.

  Figure 3.1. A social worker: My father worked in prisons, helping inmates who were about to be released adjust to life on the outside.

  On one visit to Sing Sing, all the prisoners were assembled in the auditorium, and Dad spoke to them, describing sights and scenes in New York City. The purpose was to give them hope by providing them with positive visions of what life could be like after they had served their time. I was sitting in the middle of the audience, along with the prisoners, listening to Pop’s words. He described the vaudeville show being performed at the Radio City Music Hall that cost twenty-five cents and included the dancing line of girls known as the Rockettes, comedians, magicians, and a movie. I heard an inmate next to me say, “Wow! I get out in two years. That’s the first place I’m going.”

  Most of the prisoners respected my father so much that they looked out for him. He told me once that a prisoner had asked him to do something illegal but that Dad refused. The man then threatened to kill Dad. When other prisoners overheard the remark, they threatened to kill the prisoner, but Dad told them to forget it.

  Occasionally, Cele went with us to the prisons. When I was twelve years old, she was eighteen and very pretty. Yet, despite the potential danger, Cele and I were allowed to wander unaccompanied through the prison. Sometimes a guard escorted us through the halls. He would insert his big key, unlocking the heavy steel doors that led from one hall to another. As we passed through, the doors slammed loudly behind us. From time to time, a guard left an inmate’s cell door open so we could go inside and have a chat with him. I once sat in the electric chair, the method of execution used at the time in New York State, and tried to comprehend its grave purpose.

  One day, after our customary walk through Sing Sing, Cele and I returned to the warden’s office. Warden Lewis E. Lawes became very well known as the author of the book Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing, which in 1932 was made into a movie starring Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis. Talking with the warden that day was a state prison commissioner who noticed us kids and asked Lawes, “How can you allow these children to walk through this prison alone?” Lawes stated matter-of-factly, “All the men know these are Phil Heimlich’s kids.” That was all that had to be said.

  What I learned from Dad on these visits—and from the way he and my mother reached out to people—was the power of respect. In the prisons, Pop had respect for the prisoners and their problems; they, in turn, had respect for him and the advice he gave. While most of society had ignored these people and their problems, my father did the opposite and taught me to do the same. In going to the prisons with Dad, I saw firsthand how respecting others—even individuals who had hit upon hard times—leads to a better life, not just for the recipients of that respect, but for us all.

  In later years, I would medically treat individuals who were wealthy and powerful as well as those who came from abject poverty, both in this country and in remote areas of the world. To me, no one deserved more or less care than the other. To me, each patient was a human being, someone who needed
my focused attention along with a pat on the hand and a warm smile. Many patients have let me know that they appreciated how I treated them, not just medically, but personally.

  It was my parents who taught me what it means to be a compassionate physician. My experiences in the prisons were real-life lessons in dealing with individuals in need. But Dad knew exactly what he was doing. He put me in those situations out of love for me and to open my eyes to the world beyond the suburbs. He never for one minute thought that I was in danger because he himself worked in those environments every day.

  One time, a friend asked Dad, “Phil, weren’t you afraid of leaving Henry in such a place?”

  Dad answered with a smile, “He turned out okay, didn’t he?”

  I guess I did.

  I graduated from high school in 1937 at the age of seventeen. Thankfully, I had won a New York State Regents scholarship, which gave me the chance to go to my first-choice college, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

  Figure 4.1. High school: I knew from a very early age that I wanted to be a doctor.

  It was a busy time. To make extra money, I worked for the National Youth Administration, typing excerpts from reference books for a zoology professor. I lived in an inexpensive rooming house instead of joining a fraternity. Back then, fraternities were segregated—not only by race but also by religion—and I did not want to isolate myself by joining a Jewish fraternity.

  Cornell required all male students to receive military training through the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) or join the ROTC Cornell “freshman” marching band. The latter appealed to me more; I adored music. I had played clarinet in the New Rochelle High School band and enjoyed marching at football games. In the summer between high school and college, Dad surprised me with a baton, and so I learned how to twirl it and conduct. I tried out for the position of drum major and was selected. I was excited to be leading my college marching band my freshman year. In my second year, I was assistant drum major of the one-hundred-member, nonmilitary Cornell marching band for upperclassmen. I had high hopes that I would be the head drum major during my third year at Cornell. I loved being a drum major and wanted to be able to list this senior position on my application for medical school. Instead, though, the faculty bandmaster selected another fellow to be head drum major over me, and so I was given a secondary position in which I marched behind him, wearing a less impressive uniform. The drum major was atrocious at the job: he didn’t get his signals right and so the band marched out of formation. At the first football game of the season, his direction was so poor, band members were bumping into each other. After that, the bandmaster appointed me as head drum major, and I remained in that position for the rest of the year.

  It was 1939, which marked the best year Cornell’s football team ever had. At the end of the season, we were undefeated and had four all-American players. We went to Columbus, Ohio, where we beat the national powerhouse college, Ohio State. At halftime, I led the band through some complicated maneuvers and we got a roaring cheer. That evening, the ROTC sergeant who oversaw the band program took me and two other band members to an after-hours bar for drinks. Once he loosened up, the sergeant told me that the bandmaster had initially chosen the other student to be head drum major over me because I was Jewish. Then, after all the foul-ups the student caused, the sergeant said the bandmaster had no choice but to make me head drum major.

  Figures 4.2 and 4.3. Leading the band: I was the drum major for Cornell University.

  CHALLENGES OF ENTERING MEDICAL SCHOOL

  Even before I got into college, I knew I wanted to go to medical school and then become a doctor. Part of this was not by choice since, back in the 1930s, anti-Semitism drew lines between what Jewish people could and could not do for a living. For example, Jews were largely barred from working in upper-management positions of corporations or the government. If they had start-up money, Jews could open their own businesses. They were also accepted as lawyers or doctors. Becoming a doctor, in particular, held prestige. There’s an old joke about a young Jewish mother wheeling her baby boy in a carriage: when another woman looks into the carriage and remarks about how cute the baby is, the mother beams, “That’s my son, the doctor.”

  Figure 4.4. A graduate: After graduating from Cornell University, I was eager to attend Cornell Medical College.

  I decided I would apply to three outstanding medical schools—Cornell Medical College (now Weill Cornell Medical College), Yale University, and New York University. And I applied in my junior year, hoping to start medical school a year early. I was eager to learn everything I could about medicine, and I knew that medical schools accepted some outstanding students after they had completed their junior year.

  But getting into medical school was extremely competitive in the 1930s, especially for Jewish students. Colleges had unstated quotas as to the number of Jews they would admit. Administrators kept these numbers small to appease anti-Semitic alumni and students. Tragically, such discrimination created a fight-for-the-crumbs kind of situation for Jewish candidates. There was no question that if I wanted to be accepted into a good medical school, I would have to stand out in some way, and so I made it my goal to get a recommendation from a notable professor.

  As a freshman in college, I was assigned an advisor who would counsel me throughout the duration of my undergraduate studies. Hans Bethe was a physics professor, renowned in his field. In fact, in 1967, he won the Nobel Prize in physics.1 But, knowing where I was headed, I felt it would be better to have an advisor who was a medical doctor. I flipped through the faculty directory and noticed that there were only a few physicians on the faculty. I found a prominent anthropology professor who was a doctor of medicine and asked him if he would be my advisor. He accepted the request on the condition that my present advisor agreed, which he did. Later, I took his anthropology course and found it to be one of my favorite classes. Learning so much about the origins of humankind, as well as its physical and cultural development, biology, social customs, and beliefs was fascinating. The anthropology professor wrote me a strong recommendation for medical school.

  In 1941, when I was a junior, I learned that I had achieved my goal: I had received early acceptance to all three of the medical schools to which I had applied. There was no question that I would go to Cornell in New York City. Attending a local school would allow me to live at home with my parents on Ninetieth Street. I could save money living at home, and I would get to spend more time with Mom and Dad. There were other benefits, too. Staying in the Cornell school system meant that I could apply the last year of my four-year undergraduate scholarship to my first year at Cornell Medical College.

  Only after I entered my freshman year of medical school did I fully appreciate just what a feat it had been to be admitted. As I had suspected, I was one of very few Jewish students whom the school had let in. Because of the social workings on campus, we Jewish freshman easily sought each other out. There were four of us out of a class of eighty-five students.

  A MEDICAL-SCHOOL STUDENT

  I loved medical school. It was exciting to study the miracles of the human body. Back then, anatomy was a one-year course—versus the six weeks that it is today—and so there was a great deal to learn and digest. The studies were a lot of work, but I enjoyed every minute of it. To me, the body was a fascinating, logical system, and I was thrilled at the prospect of someday being able to improve that system when something went wrong.

  I wasn’t always serious about the work, though. To combat the intensity of studying, I relied on my sense of humor to keep up my spirits and everyone else’s.

  There was one joke I learned in medical school and used later when I gave talks. I would tell a made-up story about a patient who was severely ill and dying and under my care. His two devoted sons stayed at his bedside constantly. One day, all of the patient’s symptoms improved, as did his laboratory findings. I realized he would recover and told his two sons. They asked, “When do you think he might come home?�
� When I told them he would be on an oxygen mask for a few days and could return home about a week later, they were overjoyed. When I left, they ran over to their father’s bed and told him the good news. Suddenly, the patient sat up, gasping, and turned blue. He picked up a pad and pencil and wrote a few words. One son said, “See what he wrote!” The other son read aloud, “You’re standing on my oxygen tube.”

  There was another funny about a man who was told by his doctor that he had contracted a terrible disease and had only one day to live. The distraught man came home, looked at his wife, and said, “Darling, this is our last night together because tomorrow I’ll be dead. Let’s paint the town! We’ll go to our favorite restaurant for dinner, then catch a show from front-row seats, followed by a nightcap at that speakeasy we like. What do you think?”

  The woman looked at him, perturbed, and said, “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to get up in the morning!”

  But while I enjoyed medical school, I faced additional challenges. This period represented the worst years of anti-Semitism in US history. In fact, the largest indoor Nazi rally in the world was held at Madison Square Garden in New York City shortly before the United States entered World War II.

  Mind you, most people are blind to racism and anti-Semitism unless they are the scapegoats. Such prejudice is often quite subtle. I remember one incident that occurred when three other medical students and I were taking turns dissecting a cadaver. I was taking the lead on the assignment when one fellow pointed out that I was Jewish and, therefore, did not deserve to be in charge. As strange as it sounds, he actually thought that by saying this anti-Semitic comment, he was helping me. “You should stay in the background and be quiet,” he continued.