Mark Straus (1909-1993) was a Jewish doctor and a captain in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. After graduating from the University of Alabama he moved to Paris and received his medical degree from the University of Paris in 1936. A radical leftist, Straus went to Spain as part of the American Medical Bureau, Group IV, which arrived there in May 1937. Initially in charge of the Washington Battalion's medical unit, he went on to became chief medical officer for the 15th International Brigade. At the request of the Medical Bureau he returned to the U.S. on the S.S. Aquitania on July 12, 1938.
After the war, Straus succeeded Dr. Edward Barsky as chairman of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, when Barsky was sent to prison for refusing to cooperate with the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1950. Straus taught at New York Medical College and at Flower and Fifth Avenue Hospitals and later had a private practice in Brooklyn, NY. He held another medical position as a consultant to the Fur Dressers and Dyers Joint Board, conducting research on the occupational hazards of dyes.
From the guide to the Mark Straus Papers and Photographs, 1927-1938, (Tamiment Library / Wagner Archives)
