Healthcare Heroes of the Holocaust
Healthcare Heroes of the Holocaust
I hate the term “healthcare hero”. Really, I do. I feel like it’s thrown around way too easily and too often. That said, I am about to introduce you (or perhaps reintroduce you, as the case may be) to some of the bravest, most heroic individuals (who happen to have worked in healthcare during the Holocaust) that have ever walked this Earth. Of course, this is merely my opinion. It’s simply my incredible honor and privilege to tell you about them, explain what they did, and if you are even mildly pessimistic about the state of humanity—perhaps reading this will make you feel slightly better.
Drs Giovani Borromeo, Vittorio Emanuele Sacerdoti and Adriano Ossicini were Italian physicians at the Ospedale Fatebenefratelli. They and the hospital aided Rome’s Jewish population in several different ways. First, after Rome initially came under Nazi occupation, the Fatebenefratelli sent it’s younger doctors to provide care (including any available medicines) to the Jewish people living in the ghetto across the street from the hospital.
Second, and most famously, the doctors twice admitted small groups of fugitive Jewish individuals with the pseudo-diagnosis of “Koch disease” or “Syndrome K”. Once admitted, these patients were designated as “dangerously infectious.” Thus, the Nazis never asked to see who was in the rooms. Accounts vary as to how many people were ultimately saved, but it scholars place it in the dozens.
After the end of World War II, Dr. Borromeo was awarded a silver Medal of Civil Valor, and he was recognized posthumously by Yad Vashem (Israel’s Holocaust memorial authority) for protecting the family of his Jewish mentor, Marco Almaja.
Dr. Eugene Lazowski was a Polish doctor who had just finished medical school when the Nazis began their occupation of Poland. He served in the Polish resistance Home Army. As a result, he spent time in a prisoner of war camp. Once released he reunited with his wife and daughter, and began practicing medicine with his medical school friend, Dr. Stanislaw Matulewicz. He also joined the Polish Red Cross.
At this time, Typhus was spreading across Poland rapidly, killing roughly 750 people per day. The Nazis attempted to contain the disease by increasing their isolation and execution of the Polish Jewish population. Medical personnel were forbidden to treat Jewish people. Dr. Lazowski continued to treat them anyway.
It wasn’t until a Polish soldier came to Dr. Lazowski and his partner Dr. Matulewicz, begging them to help him avoid returning to the frontline of the war that they realized a dead strain of the Proteus OX19 bacteria in typhus would still lead to a positive test for the disease. A lightbulb went off for Dr. Lazowski: this could be used as a defense against the Nazis.
Dr. Lazowski created a new “vaccine” and distributed it widely. Within two months, so many people were testing positive for Typhus that he was able to convince the Nazis that it was an epidemic. As a result, the Nazis quarantined other areas with suspected Typhus cases. Dr. Lazowski was able to create at least 12 safe havens, eventually saving at least 8,000 Jewish lives as a result.
Dr. Gisella Perl was born in Sighet, Hungary. Interestingly, Sighet is also the birthplace of Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize Winner and, like Dr. Perl, a Holocaust survivor. She graduated from secondary school at 16, and enrolled in medical school in Berlin, Germany. When the Nazis came to power, Jewish doctors were increasingly stripped of their positions and removed from universities, professional societies, and government. Fortunately for Dr. Perl, she was able to return to her native Hungary where she practiced medicine and raised a family—until Hungarian Jews began to be systematically pushed out of their professional positions and public roles.
In 1944, Dr. Perl would be one of more than 400,000 Hungarian Jews sent to Auschwitz. There, her medical talents caught the eye of one Dr. Josef Mengele. Mengele [Edit: you will of course forgive me for not referring to him from here on as “doctor”] had instructed Dr. Perl to bring her medical bag with her to Auschwitz, but upon her arrival, it was taken from her by a German doctor and never returned.
Although her specialty was gynecology, Dr. Perl now found herself treating the female prisoners of Auschwitz for a variety of illnesses. And even though this new role left her feeling hopeless, her help held true value. For instance, any prisoner who was found to have a contagious disease was executed. Rather than allow them to die, Dr. Perl or another doctor would switch their blood sample with a vial of their own blood. And on days that she knew the SS would be coming to clear out the hospital beds and send the sick to the gas chambers, Dr. Perl would strategically send as many prisoners as she could back to their barracks in an effort to save their lives.
Once Mengele realized that Dr. Perl’s specialty could be used for his benefit, he decided to make the move. He told her that she must examine every pregnant woman and report her to him directly. Per Mengele, the pregnant women were going to be treated special. But one day, Dr. Perl was returning from an errand when she saw some pregnant women being beaten and then thrown into the crematorium alive. It was then that Dr. Perl made the decision that there must never be another pregnant woman at Auschwitz. [Edit: here I should mention that there was at least one other female physician-prisoner who was performing these necessary abortions in Auschwitz. Her name was Lucie Adelsberger.]
Dr. Perl made it her mission to help pregnant women avoid the fate Mengele had planned for them. When she became aware that a prisoner was pregnant, she would explain the situation to her: if the SS found out, they would end both her life and that of her baby. In the beginning, Dr. Perl did her best to hide the woman’s growing belly. When she couldn’t anymore, she provided an end to the pregnancy. There is no official count of how many women’s lives she saved in Auschwitz, but it is easily in the hundreds.
It may be true that given the circumstances, Dr. Perl was not able to follow the Hippocratic edict to “do no harm.” That said, she did everything within her power to limit the harm that was growing around her. Once liberated, it took a chance meeting with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to inspire her to return to medicine (as an OBGYN at Mount Sinaiin Manhattan), as well as publish her memoir (which was released in 1948). Her father, husband and son were murdered in the Holocaust. She was eventually reunited with her daughter, who by then was living in Israel and had a son.
Sources (just a few of many)
BBC NEWS | Europe | Italian doctor who fooled Nazis
Syndrome K: the fake WW2 disease that saved Jews from the Nazis | Sky HISTORY TV Channel
Dr. Eugene Lazowski: The Weapon of Intelligence | Lowell Milken Center
Dr. Eugene Lazowski: 1913 - 2006 (chicagotribune.com)
OUT OF DEATH, A ZEST FOR LIFE - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
The Auschwitz doctor who couldn't 'do no harm' - BBC Future
This Auschwitz Doctor Saved Women’s Lives Was Also a Fellow Inmate | HISTORY