An underground medical school in the Warsaw ghetto, 1941-2.
نویسنده
چکیده
The Holocaust-the deliberate destruction of most of the Jews and Gypsies of Europe along with enormous numbers of the non-Jewish population of eastern Europe-is arguably the least understandable event since the Creation. Reactions to the Holocaust by those who were enmeshed in it are, however, more comprehensible. A very few committed suicide;2 some became totally involved in self-preservation at all costs; many tried to ignore the grim reality and avoided facing up to its implications; most behaved decently and even nobly as the situation deteriorated. One inspirational reaction of Polish Jews was the creation and operation of a medical school within the Warsaw ghetto, modelled on standard European curricular lines, though with appropriate adaptations to accommodate unique circumstances. Its intent was to educate Jewish youth in medicine and, ifthe situation permitted and the war lasted that long, to qualify physicians to fill the depleted ranks ofthe Jewish medical profession in Warsaw. The founders thus intended the school to express their belief that they still maintained some control over their lives and their futures. With the conventional wisdom of hindsight we can perceive the impossibility of the task. The odds can scarcely have seemed much better to those who established the school. Against those odds, it operated for 15 months, most of two academic years. Only a few students survived. Some became physicians and a very few are still practising medicine, almost 50 years after the school was submerged in the chaos attending the eradication of the ghetto and its inhabitants. This paper is an effort to tell the story of the underground medical school using, wherever possible, eyewitness testimony.
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عنوان ژورنال:
- Medical History
دوره 33 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 1989