Gerchik Recalls His Spanish Civil War Days

Hundreds of World War II veterans still live in Pacific Palisades, but as far as we can determine at the Post, there’s only one surviving “veteran” here from the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). In fact, there are very few still alive anywhere in the country. Dr. Max Gerchik, who is 96 and still active in the Palisades Democratic Club, paid a visit to our office to recount how he happened to get involved in that faraway, long- ago conflict. Gerchik recalled that after graduating in the top 10 percent of his class at New York University in 1932, he was denied admission by top medical schools in the U.S. because of strict quotas against Jews. He then decided to go overseas, as many Jewish students did at that time, and matriculated at the University of Bonn, Germany–“only because Beethoven was born there,” Gerchik recounted. “He was my God.” After Hitler came to power in early 1933, Gerchik felt it was prudent to move to Switzerland to attend medical school in Bern. In early July 1936, before the Olympic Games began in Berlin, Gerchik and a fellow medical student decided to take a train (and their bicycles) over the Pyrenees to Barcelona, where a Workers Olympiad was scheduled for athletes from around the world who wanted to protest Hitler’s regime. ‘The civil war broke out two days before the counter-Olympics,’ said Gerchik, who has white wavy hair and was wearing a bright-blue Hawaiian shirt at our interview. ‘My friend didn’t want to stick around, but I stayed and I was one of the first international volunteers.’ In fact, Gerchik joined the forces in Spain before even the Abraham Lincoln Brigade arrived. Gerchik linked up with the government troops who fought General Franco’s rebels in Zaragosa, west of Barcelona. “Since I was a third-year medical student,’ he said, ‘I was put in charge of taking care of the wounded out on the front and in a truck, as we rambled back to the hospital in Barcelona. I wore a uniform and also had a rifle. During the day I would crouch behind stone walls, rise up and shoot quickly at the fascists,’ but without much success. ‘I didn’t have any training — other than growing up in Brooklyn,’ he laughed. Gerchik recalled that before he left for Europe, he exchanged rings with his father as a sentimental bonding. ‘He gave me his heavy gold ring and I gave him my high school graduation ring. In Spain, one of the women fighting with us got married to a peasant soldier. I took the ring off my finger and gave it to the soldier so he could use it as a wedding ring for his new wife. When I came home, my father asked, ‘Where’s the ring?’ I explained, and he was happy that I gave it to such a good cause.” After about five months of fighting on the Barcelona Front, Gerchik was interviewed by a correspondent with the Manchester Guardian. ‘He wrote a short article about me that was picked up by the Herald Tribune in New York, and it caused a lot of panic in my family. That’s how they found out I was fighting in Spain, not studying to become a doctor in Switzerland!’ Trying to lure Gerchik home, his brother sent a telegram to him through the U.S. consulate in Barcelona. It read: ‘Your mother is dying. Please come home.’ ‘But I didn’t believe it,’ Gerchik said. “So I had a fellow student in Bern send a telegram in my name to say that I was back in school. My brother didn’t buy that, and he sent another telegram: ‘Mother is dying’hurry!’ This time I believed him, so I requested a leave from my commanding officer and I made my way to France and sailed home. When I arrived in New York, there my mother was’in good health, waving from the dock.’ While home in New York, Gerchik gave speeches at fundraisers in Madison Square Garden to raise awareness about Franco and the fascists, and donated the original war posters that he brought back with him depicting the civil war. ‘They served a good purpose,’ he said, ‘but now I don’t have anything left. No posters, no photographs, only memories.’ Soon, Gerchik returned to medical school in Bern, while at the same time, assisting those fleeing the Nazi regime. He graduated in 1939–‘one month before World War II began.’ He returned to New York with his medical degree, then moved to Southern California, where he became a trauma surgeon and eventually owned several medical clinics of his own. He retired in 1985. This Sunday afternoon, Max and his wife of 40 years, Reca, will host another Palisades Democratic Club meeting in the poolside garden at their home on Alcima Avenue. They have a daughter, Julie, who is also politically active (including serving on the Democratic Club board) and is an attorney with Latham & Watkins. Max also has three children from his first marriage: Dan Gerchik, Lisa Baltazar, and Annie McKechnie (who recently died of cancer). In the end, Gerchik commented, despite fighting fascists on the Barcelona Front, then defying the Nazis, the only injury he’s ever sustained was in retirement, when a chaise lounge by the pool collapsed and damaged the tip of one of his fingers.