This man is Eduard Bloch, a Jewish doctor from Austria who cared for Hitler’s family. He worked in Linz, Austria, and looked after Adolf Hitler’s parents for nearly ten years.
The Hitlers didn’t have much money, so Dr. Bloch often charged very little — sometimes nothing at all. In 1907, he found out that Adolf’s mother, Klara Pölzl, had breast cancer. He gave her medicine every day to ease her pain, which helped her feel a bit better before she passed away that same year.
Years later, in 1925, Hitler wrote in his book that he would be “forever grateful” to Bloch. In 1937, he even called him an “Edeljude,” meaning a noble or honorable Jew — someone he said he truly respected.
In 1938, Bloch wrote a letter asking Hitler for help. Hitler responded by putting him under special protection from the Gestapo — the Nazi secret police. Bloch was the only Jew in Linz who got this kind of treatment.
In 1940, Bloch moved to New York in the United States. But he couldn’t work as a doctor anymore because his medical license wasn’t valid there. In 1941 and again in 1943, U.S. secret agents asked him about Hitler’s early life. Bloch told them that Adolf’s mother was very kind and religious — and that when she died, her son looked like “the saddest person he had ever seen.”