Max Gerchik, M.D., a physician whose life experiences included a brief stint in the Spanish Civil War, passed away on September 21, 2008 at his home in Pacific Palisades. He was 97.’ Born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 16, 1911, Max was the oldest of three children born to Russian immigrants Sophie and Harry Gerchik. He graduated with honors from New York University and began his medical studies at the University of Bonn, Germany.’With the rise of Nazism, he transferred to the University of Berne, Switzerland.’ In 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out and Gerchik temporarily dropped out of medical school to join the anti-fascist forces of the Spanish Republic on the Zaragoza Front in their struggle against Franco and fascism. ‘Since I was a third-year medical student,’ Gerchik recalled in an interview with the Palisadian-Post in 2007, ‘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.’ ‘ After about five months in Spain, Gerchik sailed home to New York, then returned to Switzerland and received his medical degree in 1939”one month before World War II began,’ he later noted. Upon returning to the United States, he continued his commitment to social justice issues and involvement in liberal political activities until the final days of his life. The Gerchik family moved to Los Angeles soon after the United States joined World War II and Gerchik was assigned to the Pacific Fleet as a ship’s doctor.’A burst appendix forced him to return to shore. Subsequently, he became resident physician for McDonnell-Douglas, which was involved in the war effort. Gerchik later joined a medical practice in Vernon that specialized in industrial medicine and provided medical services to factory employees.’Eventually, he bought that clinic and two others. Gerchik loved his adopted city, especially after his adored Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles six months after he arrived. He married his first wife, Marjorie, in 1950 and adopted her daughter, Ann, as his own.’He and Marge later had two children of their own, Dan and Lisa.’ He met and married his second wife, Reca, in 1967, and they moved to Pacific Palisades in 1974, where over the years they hosted numerous Democratic Club events and speakers. They had one child, their daughter Julie.’ Gerchik’s primary focus was always his family; that was what mattered most to him in the world.’After his family, however, Gerchik’s greatest passions were the Dodgers, politics, classical music and fine art. In fact, one of the reasons he chose to leave Brooklyn and attend medical school in Germany was because that was the birthplace of his favorite composers, Beethoven and Bach. Gerchik lost his dearly loved brother and best friend, Los Angeles artist and gallery owner Paul Gerchik, in 1998, and his oldest daughter, Ann, in 2007.’He is survived by his beloved wife of 41 years, Reca, and his three children, Dan, Lisa, and Julie. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made on behalf of Max Gerchik to the American Lung Association, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Southern Poverty Law Center, or the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (www.alba-valb.org), which was established by the veterans of the Bridgade when they returned from fighting Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
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