Samuel Berg Collection

Born in 1898, Dr. Samuel Berg of Newark, N.J. led the Atom Bomb Medical Research Commission into Nagasaki after the second atomic bomb was dropped there in World War II. Dr. Berg had a private practice in Newark from 1924 to 1984, ans was elected to the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey Historical Society in 1959. Samuel Berg was the son of Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants Rose Tashker Berg (1874-1957) and Bernard Berg (1870-1942). Rose Tashker and Bernard Berg were married in 1897 in Newark, at the home of Elias and Anna Reich, 136 Prince Street. Anna Reich was Bernard Berg's aunt, the sister of his mother. After their marriage Rose and Bernard Berg opened a laundry at 86 Ludlow Street in New York City and lived behind the shop; it was here that Samuel Berg, the oldest of three siblings, was born. Bernard Berg studied pharmacology at night, became a registered pharmacist, and worked in several pharmacies in New York. In 1906 Bernard Berg opened his own drugstore at the corner of 2nd and Warren St. (now West Market Street) and moved the family to Newark. In 1910 he bought a building at 92 South 13th Street in the Roseville section of Newark and re-located his business there; the family, by then including Ethel and Morris ("Moe"), lived above the store.

Samuel Berg attended South 8th Street School and Barringer High School in Newark. He received his BS degree from New York University and his MD from Bellevue Medical College (1921). Berg did his internship at Newark City Hospital and maintained a private practice (except during his years in the military) from 1924 to 1984 in Newark. He also worked as Assistant Pathologist (1934-1968) at Newark Hospital, first under Harrison S. Martland, MD and later under Edwin Albano, MD. During World War II Samuel Berg joined the U. S. Army, where he served as a pathologist and set up blood banks in the Pacific Theater. At the end of the War II he served as Director of Laboratory Studies, Nagasaki Unit of the Commission for the Investigation of Effects of the Atom Bomb. Berg was elected to the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey Historical Society in 1959, the first Jewish member of the Board, and was the author of "Harrison S. Martland, M.D.: The Story of a Physician, a Hospital, an Era" (NY: Advantage, 1978).

Ethel Berg (1900-1986) was a teacher, and later principal, at 1st Avenue School in Newark. She wrote a book about her brother, Morris. She was also actively involved in charities for children. When the family homestead at 92 South 13th Street was sold, Ethel bought the "old Pingry School House" at 88 North 6th Street in Belleville and moved there.

Morris "Moe" Berg (1902-1972) was a graduate of Barringer High School, Princeton University (1923), and Columbia University Law School; he was a talented linguist who spoke many languages and a professional baseball player. Although Berg's position in college had been shortstop, he played professionally as a catcher for clubs in Chicago and Cleveland, before joining the Washington Nationals in 1932. In 1934 Berg accompanied an American all-star baseball team to Japan, purportedly as a translator. His real mission, however, was spying for the U.S. government by taking photographs of Tokyo and other strategic locations in Japan. In 1943 Berg joined the newly established Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, for which he worked until the end of the World War II. After the war he returned to Newark, worked intermittently as a lawyer, and lived first with his brother, Samuel Berg, MD, and for the last years of his life with his sister, Ethel.