Klaas P. Honig, MD
Dr. Klaas Pieter Honig, longtime Southold resident, died Sept. 26 at his home at the age of 88.
Born Aug. 8, 1923, in Alkmaar, the Netherlands, he spent his early years on the island of Java in the former Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). He returned to the Netherlands to complete his education and medical school training at the University of Amsterdam.
In 1940, when he was 17, the outbreak of World War II and the occupation of Holland interrupted his education. He avoided mandatory conscription in the German army by going into hiding in a remote region of Holland. In 1944 he returned to Amsterdam, joined the underground resistance and published transcribed BBC news broadcasts as the “London News.” Later in the war and because of his brief medical training, he became involved in an underground blood bank set up in anticipation of heavy civilian casualties during the liberation.
After the war, Dr. Honig graduated from medical school, and in 1951 he immigrated to the United States to complete his medical training at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York and Cook County Hospital in Chicago, where he served as chief resident in internal medicine. There he met Ruth N. Quarum, whom he married in 1954. He returned to New York to open a private practice in general internal medicine and retired in 1993.
Dr. Honig served as president of the board of Deepdale Hospital in Queens and on the boards of San Simeon by the Sound Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation and the Southold Historical Society.
He was an avid boater, enjoyed home construction projects and adored his grandchildren, all of whom were enormous sources of pride and joy, family members said.
He is survived by his wife of 56 years; his sons, Peter, a physician in Philadelphia, Pa., and Mark, a physician in Virginia Beach, Va.; his daughter, Janna, an attorney in Minneapolis, Minn.; and seven grandchildren.
After a private ceremony, he will be interred at the family plot in Sleepy Hollow Burying Ground, adjacent to the Old Dutch Church, in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.
