Günther Friedländer

Günther Friedländer was born in 1902 in Chorzów

Friedländer was born on April 8, 1902, in Königshütte (Chorzów) in Upper Silesia. His father, Adolf Aron Friedlander, traded in footwear, and his mother was Paula Kober. In 1912 the family moved to Ratibor, where he later joined the Jewish youth movement Blau-Weiss and wrote stories and plays about his longing for the land of Israel.

In 1920 he began pharmacy studies in Breslau and joined a Zionist student movement. He then did his doctorate at the University of Bern under Alexander Tschirch, finishing in July 1927 with highest honors. Back in Breslau he worked as a university assistant and lab manager, and in November 1929 he received his pharmacist diploma.

In April 1930 he moved to Görlitz to run the pharmacy and lab of his aunt Else Kober, and he was active in the local Zionist circle. After the Nazis rose to power, he sailed to Palestine on May 31, 1933, to find a site for a drug company to be called Teva, and chose Jerusalem.

On April 2, 1934, he immigrated to the land of Israel with his first wife Charlotte, and his aunt followed a month later. He planned to make medicines from local plants. He died on May 25, 1975.