Health Care Organization of the Central Committee of Jews in Poland Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia Ludności Żydowskiej w Polsce przy Centralnym Komitecie Żydow w Polsce (TOZ), Sygn. 324

Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia Ludności Żydowskiej w Polsce (Society for the Protection of Jewish Health in Poland) – TOZ: the Jewish organization established in Poland in 1921, derived from the Russian OZE organization (Obszczestwo Zdrawoochranienija Jewriejew). TOZ provided health care, especially for children, by establishing a network of infirmaries, sanatoriums and clinics. It financed summer camps for children from poor families, popularized hygiene and sport, for example by issuing pamphlets and periodicals on this topic. It contributed to combating the epidemics of typhus and tuberculosis. TOZ was financed by OZE and American Joint Distribution Committee (a welfare organization), as well as by many private funders. The president of TOZ was Gerszon Lewin. In 1939, TOZ had 300 units in 50 cities in the whole Poland. It was also active during WWII – it endeavored to help the starving and the sick in ghettos. In 1942 it was dissolved by order of German authorities. It was re-established in October 1946 within Central Committee of Jews in Poland. In 1950 it was again dissolved by the communist authorities of People’s Republic of Poland, and its units were taken over by the Ministry of Health.

Forms part of the Claims Conference International Holocaust Documentation Archive at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This archive consists of documentation whose reproduction and/or acquisition was made possible with funding from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Source of acquisition is the Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. Emanuela Ringelbluma (ŻIH), Sygn. 324. In 1950 Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia (TOZ) was liquidated and its archives moved to the regional offices and headquarters in ŻIH (the Jewish Historical Institute) in Warsaw, Poland, and placed together with other files of the Central Committee of the Jews in Poland. However, the TOZ archives are not complete; there are some gaps. The survived files mainly relate to Łódź, Warsaw, Dzierzoniów, Wrocław, Kraków, and Szczecin. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the filmed collection from the ŻIH via the United States Holocaust Museum International Archives Project in Feb. 2005.