Sheley Temchin photograph collection

Moses Temczyn (Michael Temchin), was born on August 5, 1909, in Pinsk, Poland, now Belarus. He received his medical degree from the University of Warsaw in 1937. He was mobilized by the Polish Army when the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939. Temczyn was captured and sent to Stalag LA, a prisoner of war camp. In October 1940, he was sent to Biala Plaska POW camp and released in November. He lived in the Warsaw ghetto until June 1941, when he fled to Grabowiec where he resumed the practice of medicine. In November 1942, Temczyn was selected for deportation to Sobibor concentration camp. While en route, he escaped and eventually joined a partisan group, A.L. (Armja Ludowa) that was part of the leftist underground. Under his leadership, the unit, which contained both Jews and non-Jews, was active in the Lublin district. He also organized a field hospital in Lublin. He was nicknamed “Znachor” (the Witch Doctor). In May 1943, his group became part of the Polish People’s Army, and Major Temczyn became chief medical officer. The region was liberated by the Soviet Army in August 1944 and Temczyn remained with the Army. After the war ended in May 1945, he served as chief of surgery in a military hospital in Warsaw, Poland. In June, he married Mira Sommerstein. In November 1946, they emigrated to the United States in the Ile de France. Dr. Temchin raised a family and practice medicined in New York. In 1983, he published a memoir of his wartime experiences, The Witch Doctor: Memoirs of a Partisan. Temchin died, age 81, died in 1990.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Shelley Temchin donated the collection to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1996.