Szpitale getta warszawskiego
Warsaw Ghetto Hospitals

Summary/Abstract: In 1940, the German authorities started to establish ghettos for the Jewish population in the occupied Polish lands. Among those confined in the ghettos were also Jewish doctors. It is estimated that in Warsaw ghetto, the largest of them all, there were some 1,000 doctors who had Jewish roots. Most of them continued to work inside the ghetto in the two hospitals located there and in outpatient clinics. The conditions in both types of establishments were getting worse from one week to next due to huge shortages of medical supplies and food. Over time, treatment was limited to elementary nursing while the hospitals and clinics were gradually closing down. Despite all the adversities, the Jewish doctors managed to build an efficient health care system, they taught medicine at clandestine courses and even did some research work. Both during the massive deportations and in the later period, some Jewish doctors fled the ghetto and went into hiding on the so-called Aryan side. The rest perished in the ghetto or in death camps. Memoirs and post-war accounts of the survivors are now the main source making it possible to trace the history of the physicians as an example of the fate of the Jewish population in Poland during World War II.

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