The Fate of the Warsaw Ghetto Medical Faculty

The Warsaw Ghetto, in existence from 1940 to 1943, was the largest ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe. The 400,000-500,000 Jews incarcerated within its walls were deprived not only of food and medicine but also of education. Nonetheless, Jewish physicians served the community as befits their profession, and against all odds obtained permission to conduct a course on sanitary measures to combat epidemics, which they transformed into a veritable, clandestine medical school. This review follows the fate of the school faculty, with an emphasis on the achievements of the survivors.