Eduard Bloch was born on the 30th of January 1872 in Frauenberg, then part of Austria-Hungary. Bloch studied medicine in Prague and then served as a medical officer in the Austrian army. <br />In 1899 he was ordered to Linz in Upper Austria, where he opened a private practice in 1901. <br />Willing to call on patients at any time at night, Eduard Bloch was held in high regard, particularly among the families of lower and indigent social classes. Among such families was the family of Klara Hitler. Her husband Alois Hitler, who was 'awfully rough' with her and 'hardly ever spoke a word to her at home, had died in 1903. Their marriage produced 6 children. Alois Hitler was a stern, masterful, and often irritable father who demanded unquestioning respect and obedience from his children and used the switch whenever his expectations were not met. One of his children was Adolf Hitler. In 1906, Klara Hitler discovered a lump in her breast but initially ignored it. She underwent the mastectomy in Linz whereupon the surgeon discovered that the cancer had already metastasized to the pleural tissue in her chest. Bloch informed Klara's children that her condition was terminal. After the 66-year-old Bloch wrote a letter to Hitler asking for help, Hitler personally intervened to ensure his safety. Consequently, Eduard Bloch was put under special protection by the Gestapo. He was the only Jew in Linz with this status. In October 1940, Eduard Bloch and his wife were able to leave for Lisbon. Portugal was officially neutral during World War II. There they embarked for the United States on board the Spanish ocean liner settling in the New York borough of the Bronx. However, Bloch was no longer able to practice medicine because his medical degree from Austria-Hungary was not recognized. Eduard Bloch was 73 years old when he died on the 1st of June 1945, barely a month after Hitler's death.
