Calling Dr. Ruben! Magician escapes Denmark and becomes live-saving doctor
Have you ever been taught first aid? Did you learn the head-tilt move to clear an airway, or use a resuscitation mannequin to practise mouth-to-mouth ventilation? If you have, you probably didn't know that the inventor of these was a Danish doctor called Henning Ruben. Aside from his life-saving inventions, Henning was a magician. Along with several thousand others, he took part in the mass escape of Jews from Denmark after the Nazis occupied the country during World War Two. After, he revolutionised the science of resuscitation.
Henning Ruben (1914-2004) was born in Copenhagen, Denmark and was the eldest son of an orthodox Jewish family.
Dr. Henning Ruben
(Source: resuscitationjournal.com)
After finishing school Ruben entered the Royal Dental College from which he qualified as a dentist in around 1935. In his spare time, he toured theatres and halls as a professional dancer, excelling at tango, with a well-known singer. He was an accomplished athlete, becoming a member of the Danish fencing team and winning a medal at the International University Games in Monaco in 1939.
Ruben Henning as a professional dancer
(Source: resuscitationjournal.com)
Ruben was also a keen magician, specialising in the emerging specialism of mentalism. He was one of the early members of the Copenhagen-based Danish Magic Circle, which was founded in 1934.
Denmark Magic Circle logo
(Source: Denmark Magic Circle)
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When World War Two started in 1939, life in Denmark changed little, until 9 April 1940. On that day, Nazi Germany invaded the country. Fearing widespread destruction and knowing it would be overwhelmed by German military superiority, the Danish government decided against resistance and surrendered within a few hours. Denmark became an occupied country controlled by Nazi Germany. The Danish government cooperated with the German occupiers, hoping to protect Danish society from harsh measures. The Germans were content with this arrangement, as they viewed the Danes as part of the 'Aryan' race.
Ruben, like most Danes, could continue his daily life much as before the German occupation. In 1943, for example, aged 29, he enrolled as a medical student at the University of Copenhagen, to train to be a doctor.
Eventually, the war meant shortages of goods, rationing, air-raid warnings, blackouts and closed national borders. These increased active resistance against the Germans and the Danish government's policy of collaboration. An underground resistance movement formed, which carried out sabotage operations and the destruction of German property and companies that cooperated with the Germans. Some sources state that Ruben was a member of the underground resistance, possibly from as early as 1940.
German troops marching in Copenhagen on 20 April 1940 to mark Hitler's birthday
(Source: AP)
During 1943, unrest between the Germans and Danes came to a head and erupted into street fighting. To stop the disruption and attacks, the Germans demanded that the Danish government impose the death penalty for sabotage. The government refused to agree to this. This led to the German occupiers imposing a state of emergency and on 29 August 1943, the Danish government ceased to function. After this, the situation in Denmark deteriorated rapidly. Arrests and executions became more common.
Before the state of emergency, the Danish government had resisted Nazi attempts to discriminate against the Jewish community. The change of circumstance led to an increase in persecution of the Danish Jews. In late September, 1,800 Gestapo officers deployed to Copenhagen to arrest the Jews, so that they could be sent to concentration camps. The operation was planned for 29 September, which in 1943 was Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) when the Jewish population would be at home or at their synagogues.
But, on 28 September, a German diplomat secretly informed the Danish resistance that the Nazis were planning to deport the Danish Jews. The Danes responded quickly, organising a nationwide effort to smuggle the Jews by sea to neutral Sweden.
Warned of the German plans, Jews began to leave Copenhagen, where most of the 8,000 Jews in Denmark lived, and other cities, by train, car, and on foot. With the help of the Danish people, they found hiding places in homes, hospitals, and churches, before being smuggled to the coast.
Within two-weeks, fishermen ferried 7,220 Danish Jews and 680 non-Jewish family members to safety across the narrow Öre Sund strait separating Denmark from Sweden.
It was a unique rescue operation, a nationwide effort, which enabled most of Denmark's Jews to escape to neutral Sweden, where they lived in safety for the rest of the war. Henning Ruben was one of the Danish Jews who escaped by fishing boat.
Danish fishermen ferry Jews across a narrow sound to safety in neutral Sweden during the German occupation of Denmark
(Source: USHMM Photo)
Around 485 Danish Jews who didn't escape were arrested and sent to the Theresienstadt ghetto-labour camp in Czechoslovakia, where 51 died.
The clandestine rescue of Danish Jews was undertaken at great personal risk to those escaping and their helpers. It was the ultimate act of resistance by a proud nation, which wanted to protect its citizens, whatever their religion.
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Ruben stayed in Sweden as a refugee for two years, working as a dentist in the capital, Stockholm. Part-time, he performed magic and mentalism. He returned to Denmark in 1945, completed his medical studies and graduated as a doctor in 1946.
Having gained an interest in anaesthesia, which was an undeveloped speciality in Denmark, Ruben set his sights on working in neighbouring Sweden where it was more advanced.
By chance, in 1947, Ruben was invited to Sweden by the Swedish Magic Circle (which was formed the year before). At one of their meetings in Stockholm, he performed brilliantly to a packed concert hall. During that visit, Ruben introduced himself to the anaesthetists at local hospitals. As a result of this networking, he was appointed to the Serafimerlasarettet Hospital in Stockholm.
Swedish Magic Circle, 1947
(Source: British Pathe)
An illustrious medical career in anaesthesia followed. Ruben returned to Copenhagen in 1949 and began a programme of research and invention that was to have a lasting and global impact on the practice of anaesthesia and resuscitation.
He invented a lightweight foot-operated sucker, an automatic constant-rate syringe pump for the controlled delivery of drugs and, famously, the 'Ruben valve'. This non-rebreathing valve for the induction of anaesthesia made him a household name among anaesthetists around the world. It is still used today.
Another notable invention was the AMBU self-inflating oxygen bag, a hand-held device used to provide positive pressure ventilation to patients who are not breathing or not breathing adequately. Like the Ruben valve, the self-inflating bag is in common use today. He also came up with the first resuscitation manikin - the AMBU man (a precursor to the Resusci Annie) - to practise airway clearance and mouth-to-mouth ventilation.
Ruben-Resuscitator (AMBU bag) invented by Henning Ruben
(Source: redcross.org.uk)
In another ground-breaking discovery, Ruben was the first to describe (with a colleague) the head-tilt method of securing a clear airway during resuscitation.
Head-tilt move, invented by Henning Ruben
(Source: researchgate.net)
He received many honours in his own country and elsewhere, including being made a knight of the Order of Danneborg. During Ruben's lifetime, the AMBU bag was recognised as "the most significant medical advance in anaesthesia of the last 25 years".
Henning Ruben observes a demonstration of an anaesthesia machine (standing, second from right), 1950
(Source: Public domain)
"Henning Ruben will be remembered as one of the great inventors. For those of us who have the privilege of knowing him, he was also a good friend, a brilliant raconteur, a man of exquisite manners and modesty, a generous and charming host, and above all, always a joy to be with," said John Zorab, one of Ruben's colleagues.
Henning Ruben MD was a doctor, dentist, fencer, dancer, magician and inventor. A man of prodigious talents, he revolutionised the science of resuscitation by the invention, among other things, of the Ruben valve, the Ambu self-inflating bag and the head-tilt lift. He died, age 90, in 2004, but his inventions continue to save lives every day.
After-note: Post-war research suggests that German authorities actually knew what was going on and allowed the escape of the Danish Jews. The Axis power had an interest in maintaining the image that Denmark was peacefully controlled by its occupiers, and that peace would have been destroyed had the Nazis resorted to deporting and killing the Jewish population. Letting them slip away to a neutral neighbour does not decrease the courage shown by those who escaped and those who aided them, all of whom believed they were risking their lives to do so. Nor does it suggest that a less-than-stark future would have faced them had they stayed behind, as evidenced by the deportation of those Jews who remained in Denmark to Czechoslovakia.
Related article: 'Dutch magician deported to extermination camp,' tells the wartime story of Jewish-Dutch card magician and magic author Louis Lam. Blog link.
Related article: 'Hungarian magician, Dr. Laszlo Rothbart survives Nazi concentration camp'. Blog link.
Related article: 'Jac Olten: A magical escape and a chance encounter,' describes how magician Jac Olten was captured by the Nazis and put in a prison camp, until a German magician helped free him. Blog link.
Research supported by The Good Magic Award from The Good Thinking Society
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