Die Geschichte eines Lebens III

The file is the third part of the autobiography of Ludwik Hirszfeld "Die Geschichte eines Lebens" (story of a life). The surrender of the city and the German occupation are described. Jews are being separated because they are supposed to be carriers of a virus they are immune to, but which is infectious in the non-Jewish population. Dr. Hirszfeld is removed from his post and he and his wife try to work from their bombed out home. He is given the opportunity to emigrate with his wife and daughter, but because of sick and dependent relatives they decide to stay. He recounts his meeting with Dr. Kohmann, one of the few Nazis who meets him on eye level and is even trying to help him stay in his house. But when the police arrive to deport them to the ghetto he is unreachable and his superior is not helpful. He describes his arrival in the ghetto, the desperation, hunger, crowdedness of the place. He describes the heroism of the little children who scavenge into the city for food for their families under danger of being shot by the German guards. The shootings happen so frequently that nobody interrupts their activities. He manages to establish a small laboratory for the study of typhus, and gives lectures to doctors and young students to give them a place to escape with their mind. He almost succeeds in creating a vaccination against typhus in the ghetto but is cut short by deportations. He tries to fight the Typhus outbreak and the counterproductive measurements, the business model on how to avoid quarantine (high bribes), and gives suggestions how to break the cycle. For some reason the outbreak ended. But other diseases especially TBC and hunger were rampant and daily thousands of people perished. He describes the situation of the refugees who just wait to die, the prison, the executions, the funerals, the cemeteries. He especially mentions the heroism of Janusz Korszack and his helpers.