Harke Kylstra

KYLSTRA, HARKE Dr. Harke Kylstra, General Surgeon, passed away March 30. He was born in Holland and lived his life in the service of others. As a teenager during WWII, he was a member of a Dutch resistance group, aiding Jewish families in escaping Hitler ' s invasion of Holland. He was imprisoned and interrogated by Nazi soldiers for 3 months while watching all of his fellow Resistance members being executed. He was released from prison and used as a decoy to lead Nazi soldiers to others in the movement. On learning this, he fled to Poland and lived for two years in the basement of a Polish family until the war ended. After the war ended, he believed he was now too old to finish medical school training and learned that a Jewish Foundation sought him out to assist in funding his medical training. After earning his medical degree in Holland, he came to the United States to complete his education as a General Surgeon. He spent 30 years of surgical practice with the African-American community in Edgefield, South Carolina. At 65 years of age, he worked with the the U.S. Government and spent the next ten years as a surgeon working exclusively with the Navaho Indians in Arizona. Retiring at 75 years of age, he spent the next five years volunteering his surgical talent on a island off of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. He and his wife, Barbara Carpenter, residents of La Jolla, had actively promoted the living conditions in LaGonave, Haiti, donating English/ Creole dictionaries to young students while Dr. Kylstra volunteered his time as the only surgeon on the island before kidney failure took his life. His last decision made was to donate his body to UCSD ' s Medical School to assist in training future doctors. Donations can be sent to La Jolla ' s Presbyterian Church, c/o Haiti ' s Education and Medical Program.