Dr. Robert Brettell, who taught at the University of Colorado medical school, was a “superb physician,” said Stuart Schneck, an emeritus neurology professor, but Brettell also gained a measure of distinction as a photographer bearing witness to the Holocaust.
Brettell died of heart disease in an Aurora care facility in December, according to his wife, Ellen Brettell. He was 86.
A service was planned at Fairmount Ivy Chapel, 430 S. Quebec St., on Saturday.
During World War II, Brettell was trained at Lowry Air Force Base to take reconnaissance photos while flying over Germany so Allied forces could pinpoint bombing sites.
The missions — flown in stripped-down bombers — were dangerous, said Richard Brettell, Brettell’s son, because they had to be done in the daytime.
As the Allies began to win the war, Brettell was among the soldiers who liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Among the prisoners Brettell helped to free was Andre Mark — although the two would only meet decades later when they were Denver neighbors.
At Buchenwald, Brettell took hundreds of pictures of the survivors, crematoria, buildings and “bodies piled 20 feet high,” in Mark’s words, at Buchenwald.
Brettell’s photos are now at the Holocaust Museum in New York City.
Although the two lived only a few doors apart in southeast Denver, Brettell and Mark didn’t meet until a few years ago when they were working out at the Jewish Community Center.
Mark told Brettell he’d been at Buchenwald, and Brettell said he had been there too. They also found they had been living on the same street for years.
“I was excited to meet him,” said the 79-year-old Mark.
Mark probably was in a photo, but he didn’t find himself. “I weighed only 65 pounds when the camp was liberated,” he said.
Herbert Robson Brettell was born on a ranch rear Rock River, Wyo., on Feb. 1, 1921. Friends and family called him Bob or Robert most of his life.
He graduated from Laramie High School and the University of Wyoming.
Brettell earned his medical degree at the University of Rochester in New York.
“He was even-tempered and was good with patients because he gave them explanations,” said Schneck.
“He was always teaching,” said his daughter, Dr. Leslie Brettell, of Iowa City, Iowa.
On family trips, her dad would quiz the kids on plant names or why a certain creek curved where it did, said Richard Brettell.
Brettell married Ellen Sackett on Aug. 20, 1947.
Brettell was named to the faculty of internal medicine at the University of Colorado medical school in 1956 and remained there until retiring in 1991.
As founding chairman of the Department of Family Practice, he directed the hospital’s outreach to rural Colorado.
Brettell traveled the state visiting small towns to determine their medical needs, said Dr. Larry Green, professor of family medicine at CU.
CU medical students rotated through those communities for their residency, with Brettell’s hope that some would choose to practice in small towns.
In addition to his wife, daughter and son, Brettell is survived by two other daughters: Lisa Brettell, of Saratoga, Wyo., and Laurel Brettell, of Bloomington, Ind.; seven grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
