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Book SynopsisBased on years of archival research, 'The Doctors of the Warsaw Ghetto' is the most detailed study ever undertaken into the fate of more than 800 Jewish doctors who devoted themselves, in many cases until the day they died, to the care of the sick and the dying in the Ghetto. The functioning of the Ghetto hospitals, clinics and laboratories is explained in fascinating detail. Readers will learn about the ground-breaking research undertaken in the Ghetto as well as about the underground medical university that prepared hundreds of students for a career in medicine; a career that, in most cases, was to be cut brutally short within weeks of them completing their first year of studies.
Trade Review“[The Doctors of the Warsaw Ghetto] sheds light on the influence of doctors, nurses and other health workers on daily coping while attempting to survive and save lives. The book broadens the perspective regarding participants in the Uprising. Ciesielska describes dozens of doctors and nurses who, rather than fleeing for their lives following Aktions in the ghetto, stayed behind to treat their patients in the bunkers, where nearly all of them died; a type of ‘white-coat rebellion’ alongside the armed struggle. These medical services also reflect the doctors’ and nurses’ ethical decisions made under extreme tragic circumstances during the ghetto’s final stages. … This book is a must read for researchers of the Holocaust, the history of medicine, in general, and particularly Jewish medicine. Its appendixes pose an interesting research challenge for further study.”
— Miriam Offer, Social History of Medicine
“It goes without saying that the Nazis had no interest whatsoever in the well-being and health of the captive Jewish inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto. But because they feared that diseases and epidemics might spread beyond it and endanger German personnel and afflict the general Polish population, they provided a bare modicum of assistance to Jewish hospitals, health services, doctors, nurses and pharmacists.
Innumerable books have been written about the Holocaust in Poland, but precious few have dealt with this important but overlooked issue. Maria Ciesielska’s The Doctors of the Warsaw Ghetto… examines it in voluminous detail from the moment the ghetto was established in November 1940 until it was destroyed during the uprising in April 1943.”
— Sheldon Kirshner, The Times of Israel (blog)
“Dr. Maria Ciesielska’s account of the Jewish doctors in the Warsaw Ghetto adds an important dimension to the existing material, but this is not just another historical account. Dr Ciesielska’s meticulous, detailed, and comprehensive use of many personal memoirs and testimonies to document their lives, and their deaths, provides a special lens through we which we can learn and understand more about the personal stories of those doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who worked and lived under those dire and extreme circumstances in the Ghetto. Through her unique way of storytelling, Dr. Ciesielska provides us with a humanistic glimpse into the complexities of the daily lives of these Jewish victims, and the ethical and moral complexities that they faced as healthcare professionals. This is a work of devotion to the memory of these individuals.”— Dr. Tessa Chelouche, M.D.
“This remarkable book depicts the heroic efforts which the Warsaw Ghetto doctors deployed to protect the inhabitants from epidemics and treat them if they were sick. Weakened by starvation, overcrowding, catastrophic hygienic conditions and diseases, most Ghetto residents did not survive. Many also perished in death camps. The Ghetto medical community was also almost completely wiped out. The author studied accounts by surviving physicians and provides a chronological history of the Ghetto medical organization, interspersed with portraits of Ghetto doctors. The book offers many examples of doctors’ altruism and self-sacrifice. Their exact number is unknown, but Dr. Ciesielska lists the names of over 700 of them. Their tragic and often heroic stories will now be available to English readers, both in the medical community and in the general population interested in the history of the Warsaw Ghetto.”— Claude Romney, Professor Emerita, University of Calgary
“The Warsaw Ghetto is one of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century, ending with the Great Deportation to Treblinka’s gas chambers; at the same time, the Ghetto offers an empowering story of a new and resourceful system of medical care which was a form of sustained resistance to the Nazi occupation. Maria Ciesielska tells this story vividly: she offers many new insights into the Jewish physicians and nurses confined to the Ghetto. It is a narrative of hope in efforts to create a new system of healthcare, and of dark violence from the Nazi authorities in their determination to destroy the Ghetto. The culmination is the heroic resistance of the Ghetto Uprising. We are offered a vivid and authoritative narrative with many new and often touching insights in the efforts to overcome epidemics and starvation. Dr. Ciesielska has created a lucidly written and inspiring book.”— Paul Weindling, Research Professor in the History of Medicine, Oxford Brookes University
“Ciesielska, however, a specialist in family medicine and an expert in the history of medicine, has delved into the various archives in Poland, producing highly impressive findings. She presents a new, preliminary database, which will serve as a foundation for additional studies and is a significant contribution to commemorating Jewish doctors, both men and women. …Ciesielska’s findings are impressive and an invaluable achievement. Her methodically written book follows a chronological development placed in broad historical contexts and enriched by diverse sources. …Maria Ciesielska’s book sheds light on the ‘other side of the coin’ in its description of Jewish doctors. They left behind a written legacy that is also still relevant today. Their stories provide food for thought on the potential of maintaining ethical and professional strength, even in the most difficult circumstances, and of the ability to resist the forces of evil while continuing to provide patients with devoted medical care in impossible and unexpected conditions. The book also draws attention to the dozens of non-Jewish doctors, who assisted their Jewish colleagues while risking their own lives. Although their numbers were few, their inspirational actions were extraordinary.”
— Miriam Offer, Western Galilee College, Israel, Holocaust and Genocide Studies
“This meticulous account of the Warsaw Ghetto’s medical community, doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, is a long overdue tribute to an era’s unsung heroes. Drawing extensively on archives, with appendices and a photo gallery listing over seven hundred individuals, backgrounds, specialties, hospital affiliations, the author sheds light on a subculture that emerged in 1940, following the ghetto’s establishment, and their dedication under the most hellish of environments to saving or helping Jewish lives. …This poignant but well-researched book is essential for Holocaust collections.”
— Hallie Cantor, Yeshiva University,
AJL News & Reviews
“…Doctors of the Warsaw Ghetto is a signal contribution to the growing scholarship on Jews in the medical fraternity during the Holocaust, and it has several virtues to commend it: its comprehensive, multifocal treatment of the subject; its attention to every dimension of medicine and healthcare in the Warsaw Ghetto; its recourse to hitherto unused source material; its profiles of specific doctors; and its inventories (in the appendices) of the names of the ghetto’s doctors. But besides being a work of meticulous research, The Doctors of the Warsaw Ghetto is a poignant tribute to the Warsaw Ghetto’s unsung medical ‘fighters.’ It was in this memorial spirit that Ciesielska, discussing her book in an article by the Jewish Book Council, remarked, ‘I don’t know if you can say Kaddish over a book. If it is possible, please do.’”
— Scott Abramson, Northwestern University, Contemporary Jewry
Table of ContentsACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
FOREWORD BY PROFESSOR MICHAEL BERENBAUM
FOREWORD BY LUC ALBINSKI
PREFACE
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION TO THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN POLAND
CHAPTER II: THE MEDICAL SYSTEM IN PRE-WAR POLAND
Doctors in pre-war Poland
The education of doctors in Poland
Career prospects of doctors in Poland
Jewish doctors in Poland
CHAPTER III: JEWISH DOCTORS AND ANTI-SEMITISM BETWEEN THE WARS
Anti-Semitism in Academia
Anti-Semitism in the Association of Doctors of the Polish State
Activities of the Association of Doctors of the Polish Republic
Jews in the Warsaw Medical Society
CHAPTER IV: HEALTHCARE DURING AND IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE 1939 SIEGE OF WARSAW
The Czyste (Old Order) Hospital for Orthodox Jews
The Bersohn and Bauman Children’s Hospital
The Ujazdowski Hospital
The activities of the Jewish community organizations
CHAPTER V: HEALTHCARE PRIOR TO THE CREATION OF THE GHETTO
The Polish medical system under occupation
Creation of the Judenrat
The functioning of the medical chambers
The activities of TOZ
The Czyste Jewish Hospital
The Bersohn and Bauman Children’s Hospital
Pharmacies
Emergency services
The threat of labor camps
Treatment of Jewish converts
CHAPTER VI: HEALTHCARE AFTER THE SEALING OF THE WARSAW GHETTO
The doctors in the Ghetto
Activities of the Judenrat’s Health Department
The fight against epidemics
TOZ activities after the sealing of the Warsaw Ghetto
Emergency services
The Czyste Jewish Hospital
The Bersohn and Bauman Children’s Hospital
The hospital at 109 Leszno Street
Pharmacies
The Chemical and Bacteriological Institute
Medical care for the Jewish Police
The prisons
Christian Convert Doctors
Mental health in the Ghetto
The threat of labor camps
CHAPTER VII: THE GREAT DEPORTATION (GROSSAKTION)
Events leading to the Great Deportation
The murder of Dr. Franciszek Raszeja
Hostage taking
The Great Deportation
Czyste Jewish Hospital
The General Hospital on Stawki Street
Doctors during the Great Deportation
Pharmacists during the Great Deportation
Doctors in the Jewish Police during the Deportation
CHAPTER VIII: HEALTHCARE AFTER THE GREAT DEPORTATION
The Hospital on 6–8 Gęsia Street
Doctors after the Great Deportation
Nurses after the Great Deportation
Pharmacists after the Great Deportation
Emergency Services after the Deportation
The Fate of the Gęsia Street Hospital
CHAPTER IX: THE GHETTO UPRISING AND ITS AFTERMATH
The last hospital in the Ghetto
The fate of Jewish doctors after the Deportation
CHAPTER X: RESISTANCE BY THE MEDICAL FRATERNITY
The underground medical school
The Blum-Bielicka School of Nursing
Studies in Hunger Disease
Studies in Typhus
CHAPTER XI: CONCLUSION
ANNEXURE I: LIST OF JEWISH DOCTORS WHO WERE ARRESTED AND HELD HOSTAGE IN 1940 FOLLOWING ANDRZEJ KOTT’S ESCAPE FROM THE GESTAPO
ANNEXURE II: LIST OF NON-ARYAN DOCTORS IN WARSAW FROM THE ARCHIVES OF THE JEWISH HISTORICAL INSTITUTE
ANNEXURE III: LIST OF JEWISH DOCTORS WORKING AND LIVING IN WARSAW IN 1940–1942
ANNEXURE IV: THE DOCTORS MOVED FROM THE WARSAW GHETTO TO THE ŁÓDŹ GHETTO IN 1941/42
ANNEXURE V: SCHEDULE OF PHARMACIES OVERSEEN BY THE PHARMACY DEPARTMENT OF THE JUDENRAT
ANNEXURE VI: A LIST OF PHARMACIES OVERSEEN BY THE PHARMACY DEPARTMENT OF THE JUDENRAT IN THE GHETTO IN SEPTEMBER 1942. ANNEXURE VII: DOCTORS SAVING JEWS IN WARSAW IN 1939–1945
ANNEXURE VIII: PHOTOGRAPHS OF SELECTED DOCTORS AND NURSES
INDEX
