Professor Józef Rydygier

The underground medical service in wartime Warsaw has not been discussed in a comprehensive monographic study so far, yet a lot has already been written and published on the subject. Also, the relevant literature commemorates many physicians and other staff of the Warsaw hospitals of that period. As the editors of Przegląd Lekarski — Oświęcim have decided that Professor Józef Rydygier, a commendable doctor and researcher of those times, is one of the individuals who deserve a tribute, I am presenting him in this biographical article.

Professor Józef Rydygier. Source: Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1983. Click the image to enlarge.

Józef Rydygier was born on 12 October 1905 in Zawiercie. He attended the local eight-year grammar school with a curriculum focusing on the humanities, which he finished on 30 June 1923, having passed his school-leaving examination. In the same year he began his studies at the Medical Faculty of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. On 21 May 1930 he graduated with the degree of Doctor Medicinae Universae.¹

As a student, he was interested in more disciplines than just medicine and attended the lectures of various eminent professors, specialists in philosophy, history, and art history, branches of learning which fascinated him throughout his life. In his leisure time and during the summer vacations he went rambling, hiked in the mountains, and engaged in water sports. He pursued those pastimes for many years to come and earned the mountain hikers’ gold badge.² Józef Rydygier made friends with many of the great minds of his day, such as writers Jan Parandowski,³ Leopold Tyrmand,⁴ Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński,⁵ and Władysław Broniewski;⁶ the sculptor Alfons Karny;⁷ the architect Jerzy Hryniewiecki;⁸ and the paediatrician Mieczysław Michałowicz.⁹ He loved the theatre and classical music. Photography was another of his hobbies. He had a great sense of humour and was open–minded.

This was the mindset with which he started his career in medicine. On graduation, he worked for three months as a volunteer in Prof. Tadeusz Tempka‘s¹⁰ ward in the Kraków Internal Diseases Hospital. Then he moved to Warsaw, where he started work on 1 December 1930 as a volunteer assistant in the Second Clinic of Internal Diseases of the University of Warsaw. The Clinic was located in the Infant Jesus Hospital on Nowogrodzka and its head was Prof. Witold Orłowski.¹¹ At this time (April–May 1931), Rydygier completed a training course for school physicians, which was offered by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education; a course in nutrition therapy for internal diseases, run by the Medical Faculty of the University of Warsaw (15 January-15 April 1932); and from 1 October 1931 to 1 July 1932 he worked on a research project supervised by Prof. Seweryn Cytronberg¹² on the effect of gold salts on induced cancer in rats. He received a scholarship from the Institute for Promoting Science¹³ for his contribution to the project.

As he was working on a voluntary basis in Warsaw, he received no salary, so in order to earn his living, he had to take up another job in Skierniewice. From 1 July 1932 to 1 October 1934 he was head of the of internal and infectious diseases ward in the local powiat¹⁴ hospital, and he also managed the local tuberculosis clinic. He worked for ten months as a volunteer in the Warsaw Municipal Institute of Hygiene,¹⁵ studying the effects of Zuber mineral water from the mountain resort Krynica on bacteria in vitro, under the supervision of Prof. Aleksander

Ławrynowicz,¹⁶ who was murdered by the Germans during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.¹⁷

In Skierniewice he was trained how to perform a therapeutic pneumothorax on a course organised by the Polish Association for Fighting Tuberculosis¹⁸ (15 March-8 April 1933). He and Dr Janina Misiewicz¹⁹ and Dr Łabędzki²⁰ prepared and carried out a study on the prevalence of TB among the rural population in the Powiat of Skierniewice. In February 1934 he attended a medical rescue and anti-gas civil defence course, which was offered by the Warsaw Regional Board of the Polish Red Cross.²¹

On 1 October 1934 he finally received a full-time job as senior assistant to Prof. Orłowski in the Second Clinic of Internal Diseases at the University of Warsaw. On 1 September 1938 he was promoted to adjunct in the same institution and worked in that capacity also after the War, until 1 September 1948. He published eleven scientific papers during his pre-war employment in this Clinic. After the War, his articles appeared in Polish and foreign specialist journals. During the War, Józef Rydygier wrote his post-doctoral habilitation²² dissertation. On 21 January 1938 the Warsaw Medical Association²³ granted him the Maria and Jan Gieller scholarship²⁴ for his dissertation on modern views on the pathogenesis and conservative treatment of gastric and duodenal ulcers.²⁵ In 1939 he was nominated for the Association’s award for his work on metabolism in Cushing’s syndrome.²⁶ During the War he conducted lectures and classes in medicine within the Polish underground education system,²⁷ and after the 1944 Warsaw Uprising he evacuated the Clinic to Brwinów and Milanówek, where he ran it in Prof. Orłowski’s absence. Subsequently, he helped Prof. Orłowski re-establish and manage the Clinic in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, where it functioned until the military operations in the region were over in 1945.

As I have outlined the biography of Prof. Rydygier until the end of the War, I can now go back and discuss 1939-1945 in more detail. In September 1939, when the War broke out, he volunteered to join the army. His first duty assignment was to No. 101 Military Hospital, but as it was not opened, Dr Rydygier was assigned to work as a consultant internist and also attend patients requiring minor surgery in a military hospital accommodated in the Tadeusz Kościuszko grammar school in Łuck.²⁸ In the autumn of 1939 he returned to his flat in Warsaw, which was located at aleja Przyjaciół No. 8. In November 1939 Zofia Gapińska (nom de guerre Ela Weber), who worked for the intelligence service of the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ²⁹), was billeted in his residence. After a few months she moved to a different safe house for security. Rydygier’s flat served as a printing workshop: copies of underground news bulletins, first of Wiadomości Radiowe, and later of Biuletyn Informacyjny, were produced there on a hectograph (a gelatine duplicator).

In mid–1940 he joined the ZWZ, which was later transformed into the AK (Home Army³⁰). At his oath-taking ceremony, witnessed by Dr Jankowski and Krystyn Zawadzki, Rydygier took the nom de guerre Rafał Olbromski.³¹ Initially, he worked for the ZWZ (and later AK) intelligence service, collecting materials from armaments factories and warehouses in Silesia and the Dąbrowa Basin, and transporting them to Warsaw. Rydygier could travel by train via Poraj station into the Polish territories that had been incorporated into Germany; Aleksander Gryszczuk of Zawiercie procured a special border pass for him. Subsequently, he worked for Prof. Marian Gieysztor³² in the AK Directorate of Civil Resistance, Department of Education and Culture of the Bureau of Information and Propaganda,³³ commissioning tasks to members of the medical profession. Dr Rydygier, Jan Wojno and Janina Ołdakowska operated a short-wave radio station communicating with the Polish government-in-exile in London.³⁴ They had to receive and broadcast messages using various locations and for some time they worked in his laboratory on Nowogrodzka.

Throughout the war years, Dr Rydygier distributed Wiadomości Radiowe and Biuletyn Informacyjny as well as other underground papers in his workplace, bringing them in from his flat at aleja Przyjaciół 8. He was evicted from that residence when the entire neighbourhood was turned into an exclusively German district, and moved to a flat at Hoża 42, which operated both as a printing house and a venue for meetings of the Directorate of Civil Resistance. Working with Dr Andrzej Trojanowski,³⁵ Dr Rydygier admitted Home Army casualties as well as Jewish people to the Infant Jesus Hospital. He also visited sick Jews, entering the ghetto illegally (without a valid pass) via the courthouse.³⁶ For some time, Rydygier worked for Kazimierz Gorzkowski³⁷ and his unit, whose task was to stay in contact with those imprisoned in the Pawiak jail. When Zofia Gapińska was arrested by the Gestapo, he tried to abduct her from the Infectious Diseases Hospital (its chief physician at the time was Dr Jan Trzebiński). Gapińska was hospitalised after she had been deliberately infected with typhus in prison. The bacteria culture came from Prof. Aleksander Ławrynowicz and had been sent to the prison. The plan failed, because the sick woman developed a typhus-induced psychosis and refused to leave with the resistance soldiers.³⁸ However, another patient, Stanisława Weinz,³⁹ seized the opportunity to escape from the Gestapo. Gorzkowski’s unit also planned the rescue of Dr Michał Frank from the Second Clinic of Internal Diseases, and this time the project was successful. Frank was transferred from the Pawiak jail to the First Surgical Clinic and then to the Second Clinic of Internal Diseases, for “treatment” under the care of Rydygier. All the time, the prisoner was under police guard. Yet the plot was designed well and Frank managed to leave the hospital. Afterwards, Rydygier was questioned by the Gestapo in their headquarters on aleja Szucha, but luckily he was not arrested.

AsI have said before, during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising Rydygier continued to run his clinic despite the dramatic circumstances. After evacuating, he helped Prof. Orłowski re-open it in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, where he worked as an adjunct until liberation in 1945.⁴⁰

He was awarded the Cross of Valour⁴¹ and the Grunwald Badge⁴² for his wartime effort. During his extremely dangerous resistance work, he never showed fear, but was always prepared for the worst. He believed that it was his duty to fight for his country’s freedom. Of course, he was also employed as a doctor and, as I have said, he was writing his habilitation dissertation. He saw patients in his surgery, made home visits, and took care of his family, that is his mother and sisters, who lived with him.

After the War, having completed all the formalities for the habilitation degree, on 6 July 1945 Rydygier received the right to lecture as an assistant professor at the University of Warsaw. His degree was confirmed by the Ministry of Education on 15 September 1945 on the grounds of his dissertation on the composition and physical and chemical properties of bile in persons with a healthy digestive system, and patients suffering from chronic exudative cholangitis, which was published in Rozprawy Wydziału Lekarskiego Polskiej Akademii Umiejętności in 1946 (fascicle 7, pp. 81–162⁴³). From 1 October 1945 to 31 August 1949 he was head of the internal ward in the Ministry of Health Hospital in Warsaw.

From 5 January to 1 July 1948 Rydygier was a beneficiary of a scholarship granted by the World Health Organisation for study in the United States and Canada. He conducted research on hypertension under the supervision of Profs. Goldring and Chasis, and on allergies under Profs. Cook and Grown in the Bellevue Hospital Center, New York (Prof. Tillett⁴⁴ was its chief physician at the time). He took post-graduate courses at Cornell University and New York University on the methods of teaching medical students and providing continuous education for doctors. In New York Hospital, whose physician-in-chief was Prof. David Barr⁴⁵ of Cornell University Medical College, Rydygier learned how this research institution was organised and worked in the specialist wards of its internal department under the guidance of Prof. Ephraim Shorr,⁴⁶ focusing on endocrinology. He visited the Division of Experimental Medicine at McGill University in Montreal (head: Hans Selye), the Internal Diseases Hospital in Ottawa (head: Prof. Antony Fidler, Prof. Orłowski’s colleague in the Polish School of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh during the War), the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and the Bethesda Naval Hospital near Washington. Rydygier mentioned this experience in some of the twenty-three articles he published after 1945. He also delivered papers at numerous specialist conferences, and the fact that he spoke several foreign languages, English, German, and French (apart from having a knowledge of Latin) was a tremendous help in these activities.

When Prof. Orłowski left the Second Clinic of Internal Diseases, Prof. Rydygier followed him to Warsaw’s Hospital No. 2 on Leszno, which was a dermatological centre. From 1 September 1949 to 1 December 1952 he was its deputy head. On 1 April 1954, when his habilitation degree was confirmed, he was appointed to an independent academic post at the Second Chair of Internal Diseases of the Warsaw Medical Academy,⁴⁷ where he worked until 31 May 1959.

In 1951 the Ministry of Health appointed him head of a temporary medical team that had to fight epidemic foci in some industrial plants.⁴⁸ In 1958 he was employed as the physician of the Polish Cabinet delegation that travelled across the Soviet Union and some Asian countries (China, India, Burma, Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia, and Mongolia).

In 1934 he became a member of the Warsaw branch of the Association of Polish Internists⁴⁹ and delivered papers and presented his patients at meetings. In 1936 he joined the Warsaw Medical Association.⁵⁰ In 1949 he was appointed a member of the Commission on Experimental Medicine at the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kraków.

On 1 October 1960 he became head of Internal Ward 2 in the Bielański Hospital in Warsaw, where he worked until 30 August 1972. Apart from managing the institution and treating its patients, he was also concerned about the further education of his staff, training his junior colleagues, helping them develop their research interests, encouraging their academic ambitions, and actually turning his ward into a teaching hospital. Despite the modest resources for serious study, as equipment and reagents for laboratory work were scarce, he fostered and supervised many scientific careers.

When he retired in 1972, he continued to practise as a medical officer for the Mieczysław Michałowicz Hospital⁵¹ in Warsaw. Right up to the last weeks of his life, in spite of a serious disease, he continued to work for the common good, providing medical care to the members of the Warsaw branch of ZBoWiD.⁵² He sat on the ZBoWiD medical board for the district of Śródmieście.

Professor Józef Rydygier died on 30 May 1980, fifty years after he had graduated as a physician.

Besides his extensive knowledge of medicine, which he was constantly furthering, he had a unique intuition as a doctor always ready to help his patients, and was endowed with the gift of establishing a good working relationship with them. His careful and undivided attention and tactfulness let him build up an efficient rapport with an ailing person. He always said that what counts in the medical service are not only the medical professional’s clinical and nursing skills, but also his approach, his ability to see patients as individuals, and his mastery of the methods of psychotherapy. For Professor Rydygier, a patient was not just a case, but a person in need of assistance. Professor Rydygier knew how vital such an approach had proved during the War. He wanted to instil those principles in his students and junior colleagues and show them how to apply such a highly moral attitude in practice. He postulated that Poland should restore its Medical Chamber⁵³ as a body to supervise the work ethic within the medical profession.

He was unable to perform his tasks half-heartedly; he was fully committed to all of his duties. Time did not matter and he worked night and day, ignoring his own tiredness. Regardless of the assignment, he always aimed for perfection, so when he wrote his scientific papers, he was concerned not only for their content, but also for their form, language, and the lucidity of his argument. This disposition was patent in everything he did, not only in his academic or clinical work, but also in his hobbies, and he had many of them. Perhaps it was Rydygier’s exactitude that prevented an exposure of his underground activity to the Gestapo and his arrest.

I hope readers will forgive me for adding some personal remarks at this point. I met Józef Rydygier on Wednesday, 6 August 1941, when he was suddenly summoned to see my father, who had had a massive heart attack. For the long weeks of my father’s illness, we would see each other at his bedside. Thirty-nine years later, when Rydygier fell very ill himself and I was looking after him, he often recalled those moments and observed that our life together had come full circle and spanned a time marked out by incidents of infirmity. I was an eye-witness of his work during the War.

We got to know each other in a very difficult period. I had a job and was also studying at the underground Polish university, but we saw each other almost every day. I knew about his resistance work, helped him to distribute underground prints, and hid various documents at home. On the day the Uprising broke out (1 August 1944), we said good-bye at noon and went our several ways: he to his hospital and I to the Mokotów district, where I worked as a nurse in the insurgents’ infirmary at Rakowiecka 21.⁵⁴ After the Uprising had been suppressed, we found each other at Milanówek and later both of us worked for the Second Clinic of Internal Diseases in Grodzisk Mazowiecki; I had the job of a purveyor of supplies. We were married on 9 June 1947. My first husband, a reserve officer of the Polish Army, had died in Starobielsk,⁵⁵ and only after the War was it possible for me to complete all the legal procedures and re-marry.

Ever since we met, one of my duties was typing my husband’s papers. So we often worked together all night long: he at his desk and I at my typewriter. I had a chance to observe the psychological traits of this popular and respected doctor and therefore I hope I have been able to write about him objectively, although I vividly remember how deep our relationship was, how strong our friendship was, and how integrated our lives were.

Józef Rydygier had a very complex personality. He was withdrawn, subtle, and tactful; also uncompromising, which made his life tough, especially after the War.⁵⁶ He immediately sensed dishonesty, deceit, hypocrisy, injustice, and disregard for social bonds. This is why he wanted to make our home a safe haven, which we built together after the War, buying all the furnishings and cherishing every new purchase. Józef liked to have elegant objects and agreed with Prentice Mulford that what pleases the eye refreshes the mind, and what refreshes the mind also refreshes the body.⁵⁷ He had an impressive collection of books on various disciplines of the arts and sciences, and on the Second World War, as well as purely literary works, and even crime stories, which he often read for entertainment. He needed solace and joie de vivre after the disturbing wartime years and the German occupation of Poland, though he did not shun matters connected with that difficult past.

When I consider his biography, I have in mind the words penned by Władysław Biegański,⁵⁸ one of the most eminent Polish doctors and philosophers who authored several aphorisms related to the medical profession, which have been collected in the volume entitled Myśli i aforyzmy o etyce lekarskiej, 1899, Warszawa: Księgarnia E. Wende i Spółka: “Choosing your profession, like choosing your spouse, should be the result only of love and attachment. Your profession, just like your wife, will be inseparable from you for your entire life; and likewise, it can make your life easier or harder.”

*

This article about Professor Józef Rydygier is based on the extant documents that are in my possession, such as his own CVs and personal data forms as well as official correspondence, job appointments, certificates, notes, and a list of scientific publications. The attempted but thwarted escape of Zofia Gapińska from Pawiak and the successful escape of Dr Michał Frank⁵⁹ are described in more detail by Leon Wanat in Apel więźniów Pawiaka (1976, Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, pp. 284–285) and in the book Z dziejów tajnego nauczania medycyny i farmacji 1939– 1945 (1977, Warszawa: PZWL, p. 22). I have also drawn on my own memories as well as on the recollections of his students, colleagues, and patients in the letters they sent me after my husband’s death. His scientific legacy has been discussed more extensively in another article, entitled “Józef Rydygier (1905–1980) lekarz — humanista,” published by Polski Tygodnik Lekarski (Vol. 37, 1982, issue 17, pp. 501–504).

***

Translated from original article: Rydygier, H. “Doc. Dr Józef Rydygier.” Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1983.

1. Doctor Medicinae Universae was the official title of the degree awarded in Poland at the time to graduates of medicine.^a
2. Presumably the GOT (Górska Odznaka Turystyczna) badge, which was founded in 1935 and is still being awarded to climbers and hikers today.
3. Jan Parandowski (1895–1978), Polish writer and scholar and translator of the Classics, best known for his Polish compendium of classical mythology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Parandowski^c
4. Leopold Tyrmand (1920–1985), Polish novelist, journalist and jazz fan with Jewish roots. Survived the War in Vilnius under Red Army occupation. After the War collaborated with the Communists in Poland for a time, but sought political asylum during a spell of travel abroad on the 1960s and never returned to Poland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Tyrmand^c
5. Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński (1905– 1953), Polish poet, satirist, and writer of song lyrics. Fought in the Polish defence campaign of 1939 against the German invasion, taken prisoner and held in a German POW camp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstanty_Ildefons_Ga%C5%82czy%C5%84ski^c
6. Władysław Broniewski (1897–1962), Polish poet and literary translator; fought in the Polish–Bolshevik War (1919–1920) and was awarded the Virtuti Militari Order for military valour. Held leftist views. After the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, he was arrested, deported to the USSR and imprisoned in the Lubianka jail. Released in 1941, following the Sikorski–Mayski Agreement, and left the USSR to serve in the Polish forces under Gen. Anders. Returned to Poland after the War and worked for the Communist regime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C5%82adys%C5%82aw_Broniewski^c
7. Alfons Karny (1901–1989), Polish sculptor. Exhibited his bronze and granite statuary abroad and was awarded gold medals in Paris and Brussels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfons_Karny^c
8. Jerzy Hryniewiecki (1908–1989), Polish architect and town planner; designer of industrial, sports, and other public facilities, professor of the Warsaw University of Technology. Fought in the Polish defence campaign of 1939 against the German invasion, taken prisoner and held in a German POW camp. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Hryniewiecki^c
9. Mieczysław Michałowicz (1876–1965), Polish paediatrican and social and political activist; professor and rector of the University of Warsaw. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mieczys%C5%82aw_Micha%C5%82owicz^c
10. Tadeusz Tempka (1885–1974), Polish internist and haematologist, professor of medicine at the Jagiellonian University. Arrested by the Germans with nearly 180 other academics on 6 Nov. 1940 and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in the notorious Sonderaktion Krakau operation. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_Tempka^c
11. Witold Eugeniusz Orłowski (1874–1966), Polish university professor of internal medicine. During World War II he served as dean of the Medical Faculty of the secret University of Warsaw, training students after the Germans had closed down all of Poland’s universities, colleges, and secondary schools. https://www.ipsb.nina.gov.pl/a/biografia/witold-eugeniusz-orlowski^c
12. Seweryn (Sucher) Cytronberg (1892–1957), Polish internist (with Jewish roots) and army officer (fought in the 1919–1920 Polish–Bolshevik War). Emigrated to Mexico in 1938. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seweryn_Cytronberg^c
13. Original name: Instytut Popierania Nauki. The institute was at the time the largest and most important Polish scientific organisation. Originally named Kasa im. Józefa Mianowskiego (literally “Józef Mianowski Fund”), it was founded in 1881. Throughout the interwar period the institution was known as Instytut Popierania Nauki.^c
14. In Poland the second-tier territorial administrative unit is called a powiat.^a
15. Miejski Instytut Higieny w Warszawie.^a
16. Aleksander Ławrynowicz (1889–1944), Polish bacteriologist; member of the resistance movement during the War; took part in the clandestine educational system (see earlier notes), and treated wounded insurgents in his institute. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksander_%C5%81awrynowicz and https://www.1944.pl/powstancze-biogramy/aleksander-lawrynowicz,55376.html^c
17. Not to be confused with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 1943.^a
18. Polski Związek Przeciwgruźliczy.^a
19. Janina Misiewicz (1893-1958), Polish physician and TB specialist.^c
20. Wiktor Łabędzki (misspelled as “Łabęcki” in the original Polish text; 1882-1940), physician and social activist.^c
21. Polski Czerwony Krzyż (Polish Red Cross)—a humanitarian aid organisation established in 1919, a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. https://pck.pl^c
22. The habilitation is a post-doctoral degree awarded in Poland and other Central European countries to scholars aspiring to continue their academic career after the doctoral stage.^a
23. Warszawskie Towarzystwo Lekarskie.^a
24. The obituary of Jan Gieller, an entrepreneur and philanthropist who died on 4 August 1913, was published on the back page of the 21 Aug. 1913 issue of the Polish Silesian newspaper Głos Śląski. http://www.sbc.org.pl/Content/149162/iv4428-1913-100-0001.pdf^a
25. Original title: “Nowoczesne poglądy na patogenezę i leczenie konserwatywne wrzodu żołądka i dwunastnicy.”^a
26. Original title: “Przemiana materii w chorobie Cushinga.”^a
27. In line with their racist policy, the German authorities occupying Poland closed down all the country’s universities, colleges, and secondary schools. Polish educationalists set up a system of secret university and grammar school education.^a
28. Now Lutsk, Ukraine.^a
29. ZWZ, Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Union of Armed Struggle), one of the earliest Polish armed resistance organisations. Precursor of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa).^a
30. Armia Krajowa (AK, the Home Army) was the largest combat resistance organisation in occupied Europe during the Second World War.^a
31. “Rafał Olbromski” is the name of the main character in Stefan Żeromski’s novel Popioły.^a
32. Marian Gieysztor (1901–1961), Polish zoologist and hydrobiologist, professor of the University of Warsaw. Veteran of the Polish 1939 defence campaign against the German invasion, and later during the war head of the ZWZ/AK cultural department. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Gieysztor^a
33. Kierownictwo Walki Cywilnej, Dział Oświaty i Kultury Biura Informacji i Propagandy.^a
34. After the German and Soviet invasion of Poland, the Polish government left the country and continued its activities in exile, first in France, and when the Germans invaded France, it moved to London. Under the German occupation of Poland, it was illegal for Poles even to have a radio set, the “offence” was punishable by deportation to a concentration camp or even by death. https://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/o-sprawiedliwych/kim-sa-sprawiedliwi/kara-smierci-za-udzielanie-pomocy-zydom^a
35. Andrzej Trojanowski (1905–1964), Polish physician, during the war provided medical aid for Jewish children successfully removed from the Warsaw Ghetto, and carried out plastic surgeries for about 30 Jewish patients to change their “Semitic looks.” https:/new.getto.pl/en/Osoby/T/Trojanowski-Andrzej http://archiwum.otwock.pl/gazeta/03_02/03_02_20.htm^a
36. The courthouse was at No. 53–55, ul. Leszno (pre-war address; now al. Solidarności 127), on a street that ran along the wall of the ghetto. You could get into the ghetto from the “Aryan” side unnoticed through the building’s front entrance and leave via a back door and a secret entrance into the ghetto. See maps of the ghetto area, e.g. at http://elektronik.bytom.pl/nie-bylo-zadnej-nadziei-powstanie-w-getcie-warszawskim-1943 (with today’s street names).^a
37. Kazimierz Gorzkowski (1899–1983), Polish Army officer, combatant in the Polish independence struggle (1915–1918), the Second World War, and the 1944 Warsaw Uprising; held in a German POW camp from which he escaped and returned to Poland; arrested by the Communists in 1946 and sentenced to 15 years. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimierz_Gorzkowski https://www.1944.pl/powstancze-biogramy/kazimierz-gorzkowski,14725.html^a
38. Ławrynowicz was involved in the resistance movement (see note 16) and the story sounds like a deliberate attempt to free a member of the resistance movement from prison by getting her into hospital with an infectious disease.^a
39. See Stanisława Weinz’s statement on Chronicles of Terror: https://www.zapisyterroru.pl/dlibra/show-content–id=215&navq=aHR0cDovL3d3dy56YXBpc3l0ZXJyb3J1LnBsL2RsaWJyYS9sYXRlc3Q_YWN0aW9uPVNpbXBsZVNlYXJjaEFjdGlvbiZ0eXBlPS02JnA9MjUy&navref=Njg7NXcgNDM7M3IgNmI7NXo&format_id=6
40. This part of Poland was “liberated” by Soviet troops in January 1945.^a
41. Krzyż Walecznych.^a
42. Odznaka Grunwaldzka.^a
43. Original title: “Skład chemiczny i cechy fizyko-chemiczne żółci u osób ze zdrowym narządem trawienia oraz z przewlekłym zapaleniem nieżytowym układu żółciowego.”^b
44. William Smith Tillett, MD (1892–1974), American internist and microbiologist, professor of medicine at the New York State University School of Medicine, best known for the discovery of C-reactive protein and the streptokinase. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Tillett^a
45. David Prestwick Barr, MD (1889–1977), American physician. Served in the rank of captain in the US Medical Reserve Corps in World War I. https://www.nytimes.com/1977/11/03/archives/dr-david-p-barr-88-a-leading-physician-professor-emeritus-at.html^a
46. Ephraim Shorr, MD (1897– 1956), American endocrinologist, professor of Cornell University Medical College. https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/handle/1813/17892/Shorr_Ephraim_1956.pdf–sequence=2&isAllowed=y^a
47. Now Warszawski Uniwersytet Medyczny, the Medical University of Warsaw^a
48. Perhaps the disease concerned was smallpox. Vaccination against smallpox became mandatory in Poland in 1951. Alternatively, it might have been typhus or diphtheria, epidemics of which occurred in Poland during the War and in the early post-war years.^b
49. Towarzystwo Internistów Polskich.^a
50. Warszawskie Towarzystwo Lekarskie.^a
51. Państwowy Szpital Kliniczny nr 4 im. prof. Mieczysława Michałowicza w Warszawie.^a
52. ZBoWiD, Związek Bojowników o Wolność i Demokrację (the Society of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy), the main Polish war veterans’ association under the People’s Republic/^a
53. Naczelna Izba Lekarska (the Polish Supreme Medical Chamber) was founded in 1921 and pursued its activities until the outbreak of the Second World War. After the War it endeavoured to resume its activities but, as an independent body, did not find favour in the eyes of the Communist regime, which abolished it in 1952. It was not restored until 1989 (i.e. the period when the political system in Poland changed). https://old.nil.org.pl/dzialalnosc/o-samorzdzie-lekarskim/z-kart-historii^a
54. The name of this street is misprinted in the original Polish text.^a
55. Hanna Rydygier’s first husband was held in a Soviet POW camp and was murdered in 1940 by the NKVD in the Katyn Massacre.^a
56. After the War, i.e. when the Communists seized power.^a
57. Prentice Mulford (1834–1891), American writer, best remembered for his aphorisms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prentice_Mulford^b
58. Władysław Biegański (1857–1917) was a Polish specialist in internal medicine. He was also interested in the philosophy of medicine, the logic of medicine and psychology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C5%82adys%C5%82aw_Biega%C5%84ski^a
59. Another biography of Dr Frank was published in the newspaper Dziennik Bałtycki: https://dziennikbaltycki.pl/historia-michala-franka-to-on-relacjonowal-dla-polskiego-radia-jedyny-przedwojenny-mecz-polskich-pilkarzy-na-ms-w-1938-r/ar/c2-15279144^b

a—notes by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa, Head Translator for the Medical Review Auschwitz project; b—Translator’s notes; c—notes courtesy of Anna Marek, Expert Consultant for the Medical Review Auschwitz project.

A publication funded in 2020–2021 within the DIALOG Program of the Ministry of Education and Science in Poland.