The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl: How Two Brave Scientists Battled Typhus and Sabotaged the Nazis

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The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl: How Two Brave Scientists Battled Typhus and Sabotaged the Nazis Page 33

by Arthur Allen


  But Banach’s wife: Frank Stiffel, interview with author, Jan. 2011; S. M. Ulam, Adventures of a Mathematician (New York: Scribner’s, 1976), 107.

  For Jews, the interwar: “Interwar Poland: Good for the Jews or Bad for the Jews?,” in The Jews in Poland, ed. C. Abramsky et al. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 130–39.

  Few Jews joined: Jim Tuck, Engine of Mischief: An Analytical Biography of Karl Radek (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), 3–6.

  Up until the start: Pacholkiv, “Zwischen,” 163.

  Eleven of 600: Samuel Drix, Witness to Annihilation: Surviving the Holocaust: A Memoir (Washington: Brassey’s, 1994), 10–11.

  When a nationalist student: Mark Kac, Enigmas of Chance: An Autobiography (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 34–35.

  Yet it is worth: Christoph Mick, Kriegserfahrungen in einer multiethnischen Stadt: Lemberg 1914–1947 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011), 411.

  The growth of institutional: Władysław Kunicki-Goldfinger to Schnelle, Aug. 27, 1978, LFZ, Unterlagen und Notizen von Thomas Schnelle; Signatur 100, Fragebogen von Thomas Schnelle, 1978–1979.

  Fleck joined an: YVA, Concentration Camp Inmates Questionnaire, “Ludwik Fleck, #4934,” courtesy of International Tracing Service.

  His lectures: “Records of the Jewish Medical Society, Lwow,” USHMM, RG 31.04M, reel 5, various frames.

  In 1933, Fleck sent: Ludwik Fleck, “Briefwechsel mit Moritz Schlick,” in Denkstile, 561–65.

  “Poor Poland, you are”: Wiktor Chajes, Semper Fidelis: Pamitnik Polaka wyznania mojzeszowego z lat 1926–1939 (Kraków: Ksigarnia Akademicka, 1997), entry for Jan. 12, 1936.

  “In that case,” Weigl said: Wiktor Weigl, “Moim Ojcu.”

  They set up their first: Ibid.; Szybalski, interview with author.

  Chapter 4: The Nazi Doctors and the Shape of Things to Come

  In 1935, the year: BA Signatur DY55/28 Gesch-Z 4/0955; Genzken, “SS Personal Bericht,” Signatur VBS286 Archivsignatur 6400041387.

  When Himmler heard: Weindling, Epidemics, 338.

  Obersturmbannführer Joachim: Florian Bruns, “Staatshygiene und Menschenversuche: Das medizinische Ethos des Joachim Mrugow-sky,” in Medizinethik im Nationalsozialismus: Entwicklungen und Protagonisten in Berlin (1939–1945) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2009), 135.

  Ding spent the better: Some of Ding’s correspondence, 1934–44, is contained in a cache of personal and work-related papers brought to Belgium by a Buchenwald survivor that were found in 2009 at the archive of the Direction Générale des Victimes de la Guerre, in Brussels. This collection is hereafter cited as DGVG-Ding.

  Schuler, she told: Else Braun to Oberstlt. Knothe, Nov. 28, 1915, DGVG-Ding, in brown folder, “personal”; Otto Petersohn to Ding, Dec. 20, 1942.

  The Dings adopted Erwin: BA Signatur DY55/28 Gesch–Z 4/0955.

  That year he also: BA VBS286 Archivsignatur 6400041387; Ding to Lotte Barthel, July 4, 1942, DGVG-Ding, green folder, “Dr. Ding, SS Untersturmführer.”

  Erwin Ding, 23 years old: BA Signatur DY55/28 Gesch–Z 4/0955; BA VBS283 Archivsignatur 6055002585.

  The Schuler family: Ding to Genzken, May 12, 1939, DGVG-Ding, in unmarked box.

  “From my earliest school days”: Feb. 2, 1938, letter to Interior Ministry, DGVG-Ding, in green folder, “Dr. Ding, SS Untersturmführer.” Also see Sept. 3, 1939, letter to Maria von Schuler in same folder.

  “Poland was literally sick”: Hirszfeld, One Life, 160.

  Fleck’s friend Chwistek: “Ein interesantes Buch,” in Fleck, Denkstile, 606.

  In Lwów, Fleck was: “Records of the Jewish Medical Society,” USHMM 31.040M, reel 5.

  “The deeper in the woods”: Ilana Löwy, Medical Acts and Medical Facts: The Polish Tradition of Practice-Grounded Reflections on Medicine and Science (Kraków: Académie Polonaise des Sciences, 2000), 106.

  No matter how science: Fleck, Genesis, 45, 54, 101–2.

  Thought collectives consisted of: Ibid., 105–6.

  “The special mood of the thought”: Ibid., 107–8.

  Democracy, he said: Ibid., 105–6.

  The parent, meanwhile, would simply: Ibid., 113–15.

  “Every communication and, indeed”: Ibid.

  This was more likely: Ibid., 92–93; Fleck, “Über den Begriff der Art in der Bakteriologie,” in Denkstile, 91–125.

  This was despite the fact: This and subsequent quotations are from Fleck, Genesis, 59–61, 41, 68–77.

  Fleck was not the only: See “Max von Pettenkofer, 1818–1901,” at http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion/vonpettenkofer.html.

  But whereas the social: Weindling, Epidemics, 201–3.

  Zeiss called his field: Thomas Werther, “Fleckfieberforschung im Deutschen Reich 1914–1945: Untersuchungen zur Beziehung zwischen Wissenschaft, Industrie und Politik unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der IG Farben” (PhD diss., Marburg University, 2004), 74–75, accessed at http://archiv.ub.uni-Marburg.de/diss/z2008/0157/pdf/dtw.pdf.

  Geomedizin was exactly: Fleck, “Wissenschaft und Umwelt” in Denkstile, 329.

  In a 1944 journal: Joachim Mrugowsky, “Beiträge zur Geomedizin: Das Seuchenspektrum,” Zeitschrift für Hygiene und Infektions-Krankheiten (1944): 679–91.

  He was responsible for: Weindling, Epidemics, 248–50.

  In Eastern Europe, with its: Werther, “Fleckfieberforschung,” 74–75.

  The louse, carrier of: Alex Bein, “The Jewish Parasite,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 9 (1964): 3–5, 19–37.

  “The Jew is a bacillus”: Werther, “Fleckfieberforschung,” 107.

  The belief that certain cultures: Fleck, Genesis, 23.

  Geomedizin’s suggestion that Jews: Hugh Raffles, “Jews, Lice, and History,” Public Culture 19 (2007), accessed at publicculture.org/articles/view/19/3/jews-lice-and-history/.

  And there were legitimate cultural: Hirszfeld, One Life, xxxii.

  Typhus wasn’t an inevitable: Friedrich Hansen, Biologische Kriegsführung im Dritten Reich (Frankfurt: Campus, 1993).

  He was also a lifelong: Peter Eyer, interview with author, May 2011; Peter Eyer, personal communications.

  As a faculty member: “Lebenslauf,” Dec. 27, 1943, BA-Berlin, VBS1 Signatur 1020025603.

  He praised the anti-Semitic: Hermann Eyer, “Die Gesundheitspflege in ländlichen Grenzgebieten,” Deutsches Ärzteblatt 68 (1938): 441–45.

  After the annexation: Peter Eyer, interview with author.

  Although Germany had been: Weindling, Epidemics, 331–32, 247; Weindling, “Between Bacteriology and Virology: The Development of Typhus Vaccines between the First and Second World Wars,” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 17 (1995): 81–90.

  In 1938–39, physicians there: See http://www.pasteur.fr/infosci/archives/e_bla0.html.

  At the outbreak of war: M. Ruiz Castañeda, “Experimental Pneumonia Produced by Typhus Rickettsiae,” American Journal of Pathology 15 (1939): 467–76; Paul Giroud and Jean Jadin, “Conceptions actuelles concernant les rickettsioses et leur vaccinations,” Annales de la Société Belge de Médicine Tropicale 3 (1961): 193–206.

  Scientists in the United States: Herald Cox, “Epidemic and Endemic Typhus,” Public Health Reports 55 (1940): 110–15; Cox, “Use of Yolk Sac of Developing Chick Embryo as Medium for Growing Rickettsiae of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Typhus Groups,” ibid., 53 (1938): 2241–49; Joseph Sadusk, “The Immunization of Troops with Typhus Vaccine and the Characteristics of Typhus in Immunized Individuals,” Yale Journal of Medicine and Biology 21 (1949): 211–32.

  In April 1939: Peter Eyer, interview with author.

  At the Red Sea port: Giacomo Mariani, “La lotta contra le rickettsiosi umani nell’ AOI Africa orientale italiana,” Opere per l’organizzazione civile in Africa orientale italiana (1939): 59–66; Mariani, “Vaccinazioni contro il tifo esantematico eseguite nel 1938 sull’altipiano etiopico con il vaccino Weigl,” Annali d’igiene 7 (1939): 316–22.

  The same month: Blanc to Pistoni, PIA, BLA2.

  He urged
that the Weigl: Richard Pankhurst, “Some Notes for a History of Typhus in Ethiopia” (unpublished 1975 manuscript at Library of Congress), 1–27.

  The possibility of a Nobel Prize: Kryski, “Cards 28,” Reminiscences of an Old Professor, accessed at lwow.home.pl/weigl/krynski.html; Wójcik, “Pakt z diablem” (Pact with the devil), Przegld tygodniowy 4 (1994).

  The university authorized a paid: Weigl papers in Lviv University archive, courtesy of Prof. Rostyslav Stoika.

  The Italians reported: Pankhurst, “Notes,” 10.

  Chapter 5: War and Epidemics

  For his state medical: Erwin Ding, “Der Pavor nocturnus bei Kindern” (MD diss., University of Leipzig, 1937).

  With his pregnant wife: Kogon, Hell, 265.

  The SS leader Theodor: Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power (New York: Penguin, 2005), 81–90.

  The first glimpse: See, e.g., Ernst von Salomon, The Captive: The Story of an Unknown Political Prisoner (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1961), 108; Shoah Foundation (all testimonies were viewed at the USHMM), 50467 Reidar Dittmann.

  “You took off your shoes”: Shoah Foundation, 17900 Horace Hecht.

  Prisoners often puzzled: Waitz, “Auschwitz I Stammlager,” in De l’université aux camps de concentration: Témoignages strasbourgeois (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1947), 438–39.

  Himmler himself stated: See Hugh Raffles, “Jews, Lice, and History,” accessed at http://publicculture.org/articles/view/19/3/jews-lice-and-history/.

  “A few weeks in Buchenwald”: Walter Poller, Medical Block, Buchenwald: The Personal Testimony of Inmate 996, Block 36 (Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, 1960), 244–45, 212, 159–60.

  Ding ably carried: Judith Hahn, Grawitz, Genzken, Gebhardt: Drei Karrieren im Sanitätsdienst der SS (Münster: Klemm & Oelschläger, 2008), 161.

  The Reverend Paul Schneider: Poller, Medical Block, 201–6; 106–8; 246–49.

  Meanwhile, Ding pressed on: Ding to Genzken, May 12, 1939, DGVG-Ding.

  Three months later: “Lebenslauf,” July 15, 1939, DGVG-Ding.

  On November 6, two weeks: Jochen August, Sonderaktion Krakau: Die Verhaftung der Krakauer Wissenschaftler am 6. November 1939 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1997).

  Around this same time: Sworn statements in support of Hermann Eyer’s release from British POW status, addressed to University of Bonn Medical School Dean Erich von Redwitz, in possession of Peter Eyer: Ortrud Kristen, Nov. 19, 1946; Robert Kudicke, Jan. 15, 1946; Hermann Eyer, Nov. 8, 1946.

  Years later, there: Memo dated 10-06-1976 from Kraków to Warsaw, IPN Files, Przybyłkiewicz, 9828/II IPN KR 010/9659 Tome I Secret; also personnel file from Sept. 1953 in same folder.

  Eyer had been told: Eyer to Redwitz, Nov. 8, 1946; H. Eyer, “Die Fleckfieberprophylaxe der deutschen Wehrmacht im 2. Weltkrieg,” Wehrmedizin und Wehrpharmazie (1979): 56–61.

  He delivered his first batch: BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/archivsignatur357; Eyer, Tätigkeitsbericht des Instituts für Fleckfieber- und Virusforschung, 6/1–7/31, 1940.

  In an accompanying pamphlet: Ibid., “Fleckfieber Merkblatt für Soldaten.”

  Jews, he wrote: Ibid.; Eyer, “Die durch Läuse übertragbaren Infektionskranheiten und ihre Bekämpfung,” Die Medizinische Welt 14 (1940): 261–64.

  In Polish cities: Shoah Foundation, 14797 Lusia Hornstein.

  The Nazi bombardment: Stefan Szende, The Promise Hitler Kept (New York: Roy, 1945), 1516; Frank Stiffel, The Tale of the Ring: A Kaddish (New York: Bantam Books, 1984), 13; Shoah Foundation, 7394 Alex Redner.

  The Eastern Trade Fair: Wacław Szybalski, personal communication.

  Three weeks of bombing: Christoph Mick, Kriegserfahrungen in einer multiethnischen Stadt: Lemberg 1914–1947 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011), 420.

  For many sophisticated: Szende, Promise, 19, 29–31; Stiffel, Tale, 30; Shoah Foundation, Hornstein; Kurt I. Lewin, A Journey through Illusions (Santa Barbara: Fithian Press, 1994), 28–30; Szybalksi testimony; Karolina Lanckoronska, “Mut ist angeboren,” in Hermann Simon, Irene Stratenwerth, and Ronald Hinrichs, eds., Lemberg: Eine Reise nach Europa (Berlin: Links Verlag, 2007), 70–73.

  Although the invasion was tragic: Hornstein interview, USHHM; Zygfryd Atlas, Just One Life (Caulfield North: Rocham, 1999), 20.

  In a kindergarten: Mali Karl, Escape a la vida (Lima: Pueblo Libre, 1989), 36; Nava Ruda, Zum ewigen Andenken: Erinnerung eines Mädchens aus dem Ghetto Lwows, 1928–1999 (Konstanz: Hartung-Gorre, 2000), 10.

  The majority of the 22,000: Dov Levin, The Lesser of Two Evils: Eastern European Jewry under Soviet Rule, 1939–1941, trans. Naftali Greenwood (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1995), 50, 196–97.

  They lifted bans or limits: Omer Bartov, Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 36–37.

  More than 50,000: Szende, Promise, 19–20.

  In November, there was a plebiscite: Ibid., 20–28.

  Many died there: Ibid., 11–36.

  Many young Jews: Stiffel, Tale, 30.

  Lwów’s mathematicians: S. M. Ulam, Adventures of a Mathematician (New York: Scribner’s, 1976), 133.

  The Soviets must have considered: YVA, International Tracing Service Documentation, Military Government of Germany, Concentration Camp Inmates Questionnaire: Ludwig [sic] Fleck, Inmate 4934; Ilana Löwy, “Ways of Seeing: Ludwik Fleck and Polish Debates on the Perception of Reality, 1890–1947,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 39 (2008): 377; Thomas Schnelle, “Microbiology and Philosophy of Science, Lwów and the German Holocaust: Stations of a Life—Ludwik Fleck 1896–1961,” in Cognition and Fact—Materials on Ludwik Fleck, ed. Robert S. Cohen and Thomas Schnelle (Dordrecht: L. Reidel, 1986), 18.

  Whatever the case: K. Leszczyska, “Ludwik Fleck: A Forgotten Philosopher,” in Penser avec Fleck: Investigating a Life Studying Life Sciences, ed. Johannes Fehr et al. (Zurich: Collegium Helveticum, 2009), 27; Franciszek Groer, “Nachruf auf Ludwik Fleck,” in Denkstile, 643.

  Fleck’s rise: “Ludwig Fleck und die innere Emigration,” in Emigrantenschicksale: Einfluss der jüdischen Emigranten auf Sozialpolitik und Wissenschaft in den Aufnahmeländern, ed. Albrecht Scholz and Caris-Petra Heidel (Frankfurt: Mabuse, 2004), 351; Plonka-Syroka, personal communication with author, May 2013.

  Intriguingly, this deal: Weindling, Epidemics, 333–34.

  It is not clear whether Weigl: Harvard University Archives, Papers of Hans Zinsser, box 2, folder 61.

  In February 1940: M. Sahaydakovskyy and S. Hnatush; “Professor Rudolf Weigl: A Life Dedicated to Science and Humanity” (publication information unknown), accessed at www.lwow.com.pl/weigl/Weigl-ukr.html; Szybalski, interview with author; Danuta Nespiak, “Profesor Rudolf Weigl był Polakiem z wyboru” (Professor Rudolf Weigl—Pole by choice), in Semper Fidelis (Wrocław: Towarzystwo Miłoników Lwowa i Kresów Południowo Wschodnich, 1994).

  During the 22 months: Sahaydakovskyy and Hnatush, “Life Dedicated.”

  “Never join the party”: Szybalski, interview with author.

  A Ukrainian professor: Stefan Kryski, “Kartki 36,” in Kartki ze wspomnie starego profesora, accessed at lwow.home.pl/weigl/krynski.html.

  The Soviet scientist: Szybalski interview; Sahaydakovskyy and Hnatush, “Life Dedicated.”

  In the first days: Mick, Kriegserfahrungen, 443.

  “They had a good sense”: Szybalski, interview with author.

  He was very sage: Wiktor Weigl, “Wspomnienia o moim Ojcu,” in Zwyciy tyfus—Instytut Rudolfa Weigla we Lwowie. Dokumenty i wspomnienia, ed. Zbigniewa Stuchly (Wrocław: Sudety, 2001), accessed at http://lwow.home.pl/weigl/turek.html.

  A November 25, 1939, memorandum: Christopher R. Browning, “Genocide and Public Health: German Doctors and Polish Jews, 1939–1941,” in The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 146.

  As the historian Christopher: Ibid., 149.

  Jost Walbaum, a longtime: Ibid., 149–53.

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sp; By the time the Nazis: Friedrich Hansen, Biologische Kriegsführung im Dritten Reich (Frankfurt: Campus, 1993), 93–95.

  The German occupation doctors: Browning, “Genocide,” 146–52.

  In 1941, the German: Janina Hera, “Konkurs na sztuk antytyfusow,” Pamitnik teatralny 46 (1997): 399–409.

  The German medical contribution: Kampf den Seuchen: Deutscher Ärzte-Einsatz im Osten (Kraków: Deutscher Osten, 1941).

  One writer, Joseph Ruppert: Joseph Ruppert, “Die Seucheninsel Polen,” in Kampf, 25–26.

  A Dr. Werner Kroll wrote: Werner Kroll, “Die Gesundheitskammer im Generalgouvernement,” in Kampf, 113.

  What was needed: Kroll, “Jüdische ‘Wunderdoktoren’ Entlarvt!,” in Kampf, 125–27.

  By cramming half a million: Hirszfeld, One Life, 211.

  The overcrowded, underfed: Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Mein Leben (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1999), 212.

  “There were even lice”: Władysław Szpilman, The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man’s Survival in Warsaw, 1939–1945 (New York: Picador, 1999). See also Charles G. Roland, Courage under Siege (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 121–53.

  Over the next 18 months: Tomasz Cieszyski, “Dzieło Rudolfa Weigla ofiarowane ludzkoci i Polsce” (Rudolf Weigl’s work for Poland and humanity), 1994, accessed at http://www.lwow.home.pl/weigl/cieszynski.html.

  Such scientific missions: Jerzy Chmielowski, interview with author, May 2011.

  They delivered it to Ludwik: Hirszfeld, One Life, 267–69; Szybalski, “Genius”; Andrzej Wincewicz et al., “Rudolph Weigl, (1883–1957)—A Scientist in Poland in Wartime Plus Ration quam vis,” Journal of Medical Biography 15 (2007): 114.

  The German doctors Robert: M. Gromulska, “Pastwowy Zakład Higieny w czasie wojny w latach 1939–1944,” Przeglad epidemiologiczny 62 (2008): 719–25.

  Kudicke’s private secretary: Edward Zubik and Irena Gamota, interview with Ryszard Wójcik, 1983.

  In Lwów, the Jewish survivor: Frank Stiffel, interview with author, Jan. 2011.

  “Dr Weigel, an outstanding bacteriologist”: Szpilman, Pianist, 17–18.

  Although the ghetto inhabitants: Raoul Hilberg et al., eds., The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow: Prelude to Doom, trans. Stanislaw Staron et al. (New York: Stein and Day, 1979), 324.

 

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