Christian Corpses for Christians! Dissecting the Anti-Semitism behind the Cadaver Affair of the Second Polish Republic
Christian Corpses for Christians! Dissecting the Anti-Semitism behind the Cadaver Affair of the Second Polish Republic

Summary/Abstract: In this article, the author analyzes the campaign that captured the attention of medical colleges at Polish Universities in Warsaw, Vilno, Cracow, and Lvov during the 1920s and 1930s. The author discusses calls made by right-wing students for a regular supply of Jewish corpses matching their percentage among the students, and the ways in which university authorities and Polish Jewish communal leaders responded to these demands. Clearly, driving Jews out of the medical profession combined traditional prejudicial thinking about Jews with modern racial science and corresponded with the more general call to remove Jews from free professions. However, the issue of Jewish corpses took this line of thinking into the realm of pathology. The author argues that taking issue with Jewish access to “Christian corpses” echoed perceptions of Jewish impurity. It implied that Jewish students constituted a danger not only to their Polish colleagues but even to the corpses of Christians, which they could somehow contaminate or violate. Thus, this campaign was based on the notion of essential difference between Jews and non-Jews even in death. It suggests a vision of society in which any contact between Jews and non-Jews was perceived as contaminating and dangerous.

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