Mintz Vladimir Mikhailovich (1872-1945)

Mintz Vladimir Mikhailovich (16 September 1872, Dinaburg [Daugavpils] — February 1945, Buchenwald) — surgeon.

Doctor of Medicine (1896), Professor (1917).

Vladimir Mintz was born into a merchant family of ancient rabbinical lineage. He was the brother of P. Mintz. From 1883 to 1889, he studied at the Riga City Gymnasium. In 1890–1895, he studied at the Faculty of Medicine of Dorpat (Yuriev) University. In 1896–1897, he completed postgraduate training in Berlin at the clinic of the urologist and surgeon James Israel.

From 1897, he worked at the Moscow Surgical Clinic. Beginning in 1902, he served as a physician at the outpatient department of the Old Catherine Hospital in Moscow. In 1903–1904, he was secretary of the Moscow Surgical Society (from 1919, vice president). From 1906, he was a privat-docent at the Faculty of Medicine of Moscow University and co-editor (together with Prof. Sokolov) of the journal Vestnik Khirurgii (Herald of Surgery).

From 1904 to 1916, he was secretary of the All-Russian Surgical Society, and from 1914, a member of the International Society of Surgeons. In 1914–1918, he headed the surgical department of the Main Moscow Hospital, while simultaneously working at a number of other hospitals and medical institutions. In 1917–1920, he was a professor at Moscow University and head of the Department of Topographic Anatomy and Operative Surgery. In 1918, he led the hospital surgical clinic of the 2nd Moscow State University and headed the group of physicians who treated V. I. Lenin after he was wounded.

In 1920, Vladimir Mintz moved to Latvia, where he worked at the Riga Jewish Hospital Bikur Cholim. From 22 October 1940, he was Professor at the University of Latvia and Head of the Department of Hospital Surgery. After the beginning of the Nazi occupation, by decision of the University Council on 25 July 1941, he was removed from the university’s teaching staff.

In 1941–1943, he was imprisoned in the Riga Ghetto, where he organized medical care for the inmates. From 1943, he was a prisoner of the Kaiserwald, Stutthof, and Buchenwald concentration camps, where he died in February 1945.

Vladimir Mintz worked in the fields of surgery, traumatology, orthopedics, gynecology, oncology, urology, neurosurgery, and plastic surgery. He was one of the founders of anesthesiology and thoracic surgery in Russia, the creator of a surgical school, and the author of more than 100 scholarly works published in medical journals in various countries.

P. Mintz — brother

Lit.: Altshuler, B.; Cherfas, D. Professor Mintz (Профессор Минц.). Riga, 1970. 70 pp; Outstanding Jewish personalities in Latvia / Text aut. G. Smirin. Riga, 2003. P. 23; Levenshtein, M. On the Edge of Nowhere The Book of Salvation (На краю нигде Книга спасения). Author-compiler and literary editor L. Koval. Jūrmala, 1993. Part 1, pp. 108–110; Smirin, G. The Jews of Riga during the Period of Nazi Occupation (1941–1944) Jews in a Changing World: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference, Riga, 16–17 September 2003. Riga, 2005. p. 357; Friedman, G. What Happened to Us: Memoirs (Что с нами случилось: Воспоминания). Riga, 2004. pp. 35–36, 131–134 .