A.A. Goetz, M.D.
May 7, 2013–Nov. 16, 2013
Resident of Los Altos. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Dr. Goetz resided in Los Altos and Los Altos Hills for over 60 years. In declining health over the past year, he passed away peacefully with his son and daughter by his side. Dr. Goetz grew up in Hagerstown, MD and earned his bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins and his M.D. from University of Maryland. He married his beloved Natalie in 1947, and they had a storybook romance for 64 years until her death in 2009.
In the late 1940s, military service brought them to California, where Dr. Goetz, an Army medical officer, was stationed at Fort Ord. They fell in love with California and stayed. Dr. Goetz practiced internal medicine and cardiology in California for over 50 years, first in San Francisco and then in the South Bay as an early member of the Sunnyvale Medical Group.
Dr. Goetz was the founding chief of medical staff of El Camino Hospital and served until 1961 when the doors opened. He opened a medical clinic in Mountain View, the first of a series of group practices dedicated to the belief that doctors working together could provide superior care to their patients. Dr. Goetz was much beloved by his patients and was a pillar in the medical community. In the early 1980s he founded one of the first Executive Health Programs in the area, which subsequently became part of El Camino Hospital. It later operated out of the Menlo Clinic and continues to thrive at Stanford Hospital.
Dr. Goetz was an avid tennis player and skier who enjoyed both pursuits into his 80s. Dr. Goetz enjoyed a wide, warm circle of friends who continued to visit him to his last days. Dr. Goetz is survived by his son Bill and daughter-in-law Jennifer of Eugene, Oregon; daughter Allison and grandchildren Zoe and Leo Davis of Redwood City. The family thanks the staff at the Forum Health Care Center for their patient and loving care. A memorial service will be held on Tuesday, Dec. 17 at 3 p.m. at the Los Altos Golf and Country Club, 1560 Country Club Drive. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Parkinson’s Institute.
Izrail Meer (Meyerovich) Nemenov
02/04/1928–11/10/2013
My father and my best friend passed away while I was holding his hand at Stanford Hospital at 4:25 a.m. on Nov. 10, 2013.
Izrail Nemenov was born in 1928 in the mostly Jewish town of Mogilev, Belarus, to Meir and Dveira Nemenov. Meir was a mechanic and a highly educated person, while Dveira, who was very beautiful, worked as a seamstress and housekeeper. They had a home near the Dniester River. When Izrail was 5, his father was murdered by the local People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, the NKVD, and the family home was taken over by a police officer who had been renting a room there.
When Izrail was 12, his mother came down with a serious chronic illness and was unable to take care of him and his twin sister, El’ka. Izrail and El’ka were placed in an orphanage in a suburb of Mogilev. A few weeks before the Nazis invaded the area, Dveira broke her leg and was hospitalized. The last day before the Nazis occupied Mogilev, the children tried to find their mother at both the hospital and her room, and Dveira searched for her children. They never found each other. Izrail and El’ka left on the last train out of Mogilev before the Nazis took the city.
Izrail lost his mother that day, and she was very likely murdered by the Nazis, either the same day or the following day, when they killed the patients in the hospital. Izrail was evacuated with the other orphans to northern Russia, where the winter temperature was around -10° to -20° F. At the age of 13, Izrail managed to survive and help his twin sister by chopping down trees in a local forest, rolling them one to three miles to the village, and selling them for bread.
Later, Izrail became a cadet at a naval college. In the North Sea, he helped take out WWII–era German sea mines that had been laid in the route of British convoys to Russia, a dangerous task with about a 50 percent survival rate. At one point, his wooden ship was blown up. Izrail suffered a concussion and spent some time in icy water, then a couple of months in a hospital in order to recover.
Nonetheless, he completed his naval education with the highest level of distinction, but due to anti-Jewish sentiment his score was lowered. As a result, Izrail had limited options for deployment. He wound up serving in the North Sea as naval officer. He was drummed out of the service when Stalin’s anti-Jewish actions started in 1953.
In the early 1950s Izrail got married to Fira (Piraner). He finished his engineering university education with the highest distinction in the late 1950s and eventually went on to work for Soviet telecommunication and space programs. Izrail was very well recognized for his perfect and sincere work in spite of all the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiments prevalent in the Soviet Union. Through his excellent work, he got high-ranking government officials as well as his colleagues to pronounce his name of Izrail with great respect, at a time when the word “Israel” was an expletive in the Soviet Union.
As a manager, Izrail took part in the joint American-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz mission and was decorated with the Soviet Union’s Order of the Badge of Honor for his impact on the program.
Izrail moved to California in 2001 at the request of his son, after he lost his beloved wife in August of 2000. He developed very good friendships in California and enjoyed his life here. Izrail had a phenomenal memory as well as great physical strength. He liked reading, especially history, and enjoyed ballroom dancing, particularly waltz and tango. Izrail was the best dancer at his naval college, and he never missed an opportunity to dance after he moved to California. He fought his disease until his last day. He never gave up in his entire life.
In addition to his son, Izrail is survived by his sister, El’ka Balanter, and her family in Moscow, as well as the family of his half-sister, Haya Minkova, including her granddaughter Elina Zister.
A memorial service was held Nov. 12 at Alta Mesa Cemetery in Palo Alto, officiated by Rabbi John Fishman and with the assistance of Sinai Memorial Chapel.
Donations in Izrail Nemenov’s honor may be made to Congregation Kol Emeth, 4175 Manuela Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94306.