Die Geschichte eines Lebens I

Ludwik Hirszfeld was a Polish microbiologist and serologist, and the co-discoverer of the inheritance of ABO blood types. The file is the first part of his autobiography “Geschichte eines Lebens” (Story of a life). He starts his memoirs with the chapter “Die grosse Schuld” (The great debt/guilt) which is meant to be “a fighting plea against war and racial hatred”. Hirszfeld was born on August 5, 1884 in Lodz into a Jewish family. In 1902 he left Poland to study medicine in Würzburg and in 1904 he transferred to Berlin to also study philosophy. He finished his studies in 1907 cum laude and started to work at the University of Heidelberg at the institute of cancer research. There he met Emil von Dungern. A lifelong, close friendship and working cooperation began. After three years he moved with his wife to Zurich where he became a professor in 1914. After the first year of the war he decided to go to Serbia to help fight a typhoid fever epidemic. He describes the situation of the Serbian people and their struggles during the war. He was with the Serbian army when it retreated to Albania. From there he and his wife returned via Italy to Switzerland. Shortly after, they decided to go to a field hospital in Thessaloniki. There he contracted Para typhus A and Malaria, which almost killed him. Nevertheless, he continued his work and also had time to research the heredity of blood types. He also managed to give courses in bacteriology to doctors of different nationalities. After the war he and his wife decide to return - after 17 years of absence - to their liberated homeland, Poland. They also convert to integrate better into Polish society.