Leopold G. Koss MD, passed away at his home in New York City, September 11, 2012. Born in Gdansk, Poland in 1920, Leo (as he was known to all who loved him) miraculously survived the Holocaust and became a refugee in Switzerland where he finished the medical studies he had started in Vienna before the War and continued in Brussels and Montpellier. When he arrived in New York in 1947 with his wife and baby son and $20 in his pocket, he spoke no English. Yet, with his prodigious intellect and devotion to science, he rose to the top of his field in his adopted country. He was a pioneer in the field of Cytopathology and was the author of the seminal book on the subject, "Diagnostic Cytology and It's Histopathologic Bases," which appeared in five editions and was recently translated into Chinese. Over his long career, he also wrote numerous other medical books and hundreds of scientific papers. Dr. Koss was chairman emeritus of the Department of Pathology at Montefiore Hospital and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, which was renamed in his honor. He will be remembered by all who knew him as a man of great intelligence, culture and wit. He was a gifted storyteller who could, depending on his audience, recite French love poetry, sing baudy ditties or quote Caesar's Gallic Wars in the original Latin He is survived by his three sons, Michael, Andrew, and Richard as well as 4 grandchildren. A memorial service will be held at Riverside Memorial Chapel on October 26 at 2 pm. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in his honor to the Visiting Nurse Service of NYC whose dedicated employees cared for him at the end of his life with unquestioned respect and love.
