Albert Schweitzer relative Jean-Paul Sartre
Schweitzer died on 4 September 1965 at his beloved hospital in Lambaréné, now in independent Gabon. His grave, on the banks of the Ogooué River, is marked by a cross he made himself.
His cousin Anne-Marie Schweitzer Sartre was the mother of Jean-Paul Sartre. Her father, Charles Schweitzer, was the older brother of Albert Schweitzer's father, Louis Théophile.Schweitzer is often cited in vegetarian literature as being an advocate of vegetarianism in his later years. Schweitzer was not a vegetarian in his earlier life. For example, in 1950, biographer Magnus C. Ratter commented that Schweitzer never "commit[ted] himself to the anti-vivisection, vegetarian, or pacifist positions, though his thought leads in this direction". Biographer James Bentley has written that Schweitzer became a vegetarian after his wife's death in 1957 and he was "living almost entirely on lentil soup". In contrast to this, historian David N. Stamos has written that Schweitzer was not a vegetarian in his personal life nor imposed it on his missionary hospital but he did help animals and was opposed to hunting. Stamos noted that Schweitzer held the view that evolution ingrained humans with an instinct for meat so it was useless in trying to deny it.The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship was founded in 1940 by Schweitzer to unite US supporters in filling the gap in support for his Hospital when his European supply lines were cut off by war, and continues to support the Lambaréné Hospital today. Schweitzer considered his ethic of Reverence for Life, not his hospital, his most important legacy, saying that his Lambaréné Hospital was just "my own improvisation on the theme of Reverence for Life. Everyone can have their own Lambaréné". Today ASF helps large numbers of young Americans in health-related professional fields find or create "their own Lambaréné" in the US or internationally. ASF selects and supports nearly 250 new US and Africa Schweitzer Fellows each year from over 100 of the leading US schools of medicine, nursing, public health, and every other field with some relation to health (including music, law, and divinity). The peer-supporting lifelong network of "Schweitzer Fellows for Life" numbered over 2,000 members in 2008, and is growing by nearly 1,000 every four years. Nearly 150 of these Schweitzer Fellows have served at the Hospital in Lambaréné, for three-month periods during their last year of medical school.
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