Typhus the Killer in the
Camps - 5
Zawiercie
At the time of this epidemic the population of Zawiercie
was about 44,000, so that the attack-rate was about 3 per cent. From
official figures which were given to me it appears that the Jews formed 19
per cent. of the population. According to Dr. Ryder the Christians were
attacked in a larger proportion than the Jews, as shown in the following
table, which deals with about three-quarters of the epidemic and with the
first six months of 1919: . . .
The Jews were said to be less cleanly than the
Christians, and from what I saw of them I should say that this was true.
But there were reasons for thinking that there was more concealment of
cases amongst the Jews; the authorities had had some trouble in getting
certain of the Jewish medical attendants to notify...
Causes of the Prevalence of Typhus
It is not difficult to account for the wide prevalence
of typhus in Poland since the beginning of the war on general grounds.
Constant warfare, the movements of troops, the influx of refugees from the
districts which were the actual scenes of fighting, the return of
prisoners of war, especially since the armistice, in both directions
across the country, the lack of soap and clothing and of medical and
surgical necessities in the country districts and in many of the towns the
difficulty of obtaining sufficient water, would be factors conducing to
the prevalence and dissemination of lice, that is to say of typhus, in a
country where the disease had been endemic before the war. Medical men and
nurses have been very scarce, and there has been a deficiency of food for
the poorer classes, especially in the East and South-east. The figures I
gave at the commencement of this paper showed that typhus had been
especially prevalent since the armistice. There is no doubt that when the
Germans and Austrians established themselves in Poland in 1915, they both,
and especially the former, used their utmost endeavours to keep infectious
diseases under control, not from any love they bore to the Poles, but with
the object of keeping their armies free from sickness. There can also be
little doubt that to a certain extent, especially in the country and
smaller towns, they succeeded. In spite however of their efforts there was
the large epidemic in Warsaw in 1917-18. Dr. Trenkner attributed the
epidemic chiefly to the action of the Jews. Much smuggling, especially of
food, went on from outside into the city. The smugglers, who were chiefly
Jews, hid and slept together in little groups in sheds and barns. Members
of the groups became infected with typhus and carried the disease into the
city. Dr. Trenkner on various occasions traced fresh cases to group
infection in this way. Overcrowding and want of cleanliness did the rest.
In Zawiercie the action by the Germans seems to have had more effect, and
there was not any great prevalence of disease before they left. In that
part of Poland which I visited--viz., the county of Bendzin, typhus had
become especially rampant since the armistice, as was exemplified in the
Zawiercie epidemic. Directly the Germans left there was an unrestrained
movement of population to and fro between the town and surrounding
country; released and escaped prisoners of war began to return, especially
from the East; and refugees flocked to the West from the devastated
Eastern districts. . . . The Germans had been severely thorough in their
sanitary measures. They set up de-lousing stations and forced the
inhabitants to be de-loused at the point of the bayonet. When they left
compulsion ceased and personal cleanliness diminished.
. . . . Although in Warsaw and other places the Jews
suffered more severely than the Christians, it is doubtful, in my opinion,
that they so suffered because they were Jews: the more probable reason is
because they were more densely crowded together, for, as has been
mentioned, the Jews were less attacked in Zawiercie than the Christians,
and as far as I could see from inspection of houses in different quarters
of the town, amongst the poorer classes, there was as much overcrowding
amongst Christians and Jews.
Adverse, however, as the circumstances have been in
Poland, during and since the war, it must not be supposed that the
authorities have not attempted to deal with the epidemic. As far back as
April, 1918, that is to say, six months before the Germans quitted Warsaw,
Dr.Trenkner made a great effort to cleanse the houses and their
inhabitants in the worst and most crowded parts of the city, a proceeding
to which the Germans offered no objections, as of course such a measure
was conducive to keeping their army free from infection. But the task was
a very difficult one as the people were by no means anxious to help the
authorities. If the inhabitants of a certain square for instance got wind
that their houses were going to be visited by the sanitary squad, they
cleared out and locked their rooms up. However, this obstacle was overcome
by making unexpected visits very early in the morning, taking the
passports away from the inhabitants, who were sent off to the de-lousing
station, with the instruction that they would not receive their passports
back again until they produced the certificate that they had been
deloused. Meanwhile, their homes were disinfected and cleaned. . . .23
The percentages given above for the incidence of typhus
among Jews are actually quite close, almost identical in some instances, to
those given by Zimmermann (see Appendix C) a generation later. It is,
therefore, more than likely that the German authors were accurate also.
A possible explanation for the high incidence of typhus
among Jews may be their role as merchants of old clothing. For example, in
Prinzing's classic work Epidemics Resulting from Wars, the author discusses
the possible cause for the spread of bubonic plague and typhus in Eastern
Europe during the Russo-Turkish War of 1769-72. After every trace of the
pestilence had disappeared except for military hospitals, the reemergence of
the plague later on was traced to the purchase by a Jew of a fur coat in a
military hospital in Jassy.24 Later again, in Transylvania during the same
war, "Jewish pedlars, who purchased clothes, furs, and war-booty in the
Russian camp, likewise helped to spread the disease."25 At the end of
Napoleon's Russian campaign, Prinzing tells us about the typhus epidemic in
Vilna in 1812-13 which "In a short time spread throughout the city, not so
much because the soldiers were quartered in private houses, as because the
Jews got possession of the clothes of the dead. Of some 30,000 Jewish
inhabitants, no less than 8,000 died."26
Jewish Resistance and the Torture of Bathing
The intense resistance by the local population, by Poles
as well as Jews, to the public health measures that responsible authorities
intended for their welfare is also evident in a remarkable, recent book
entitled Typhus and Doughboys about the American military experience
in post World War 1 Poland. The book is based largely upon the internal
correspondence of the American Polish Typhus Relief Expedition from 1919 to
1921. The book deals at great length with the difficulties American troops
encountered when they tried a variety of methods to induce people simply to
bathe and have their clothes deloused either with steam or cyanide.
The difficulties are illustrated by the following passage
about the efforts of one American officer in what appears from the context
to have been a predominantly Jewish community.27
The school children were next bathed and deloused,
Gorman observing that 'if the older people were as enthusiastic as these
children, typhus would no longer be a dread in Poland.' Unfortunately, the
older people were content to live in the unimaginable dirt and filth, one
old woman having been heard to cry out, 'death here in my hovel rather
than the torture of bathing.'
The book is quite valuable for its insights based upon the
actual correspondence of American officers. However, one should recognize
that the book was written recently in an age when the foulest rubbish can be
written about Poles, Germans, Austrians and even Americans with almost no
hesitation at all but when criticism of Jews is almost inevitably
accompanied with deep apologies. The following passage is informative
nonetheless.
Dixon pointed out some difficulties with the Jews,
revealing his own anti-Semitic bias. In the town of Busko, which he
inspected, he reported 'there is considerable Typhus in the town
particularly among the Jews. They are afraid to go to the hospital and use
all means to keep the disease among them hidden.' They believed, in fact,
'that at the hospital they would not be able to live according to their
religion--that they would be required to eat what the others ate--that
they could never eat with their hats on and that if one of them died there
he could not be buried according to his religion. This belief is being
overcome and the hospital now has ten Jews as patients.' Dixon also
induced local authorities in Busko to impose a fine of 500 rubles on
anyone who hid or attempted to hide a case of typhus. But, he recorded,
'it did not prove very effective as the Jews, who were afraid of the
hospital bribed the police and kept their sick hidden.'28
Except for Dixon's charge that Jews bribed the police,
there seems no reason to believe he was biased; he seemed to be simply
reporting what he saw.
The same intense resistance to the most minimal measures
which any civilized society can impose for its own survival--the simple act
of accurately reporting cases of a highly contagious disease--is evident in
Lucy Dawidowicz's The War Against The Jews for 1939-42 for the Warsaw
ghetto:29
In the Warsaw ghetto alone, epidemic typhus was believed
to have affected between 100,000 and 150,000 persons, though the official
figures were barely over 15,000. The spread of disease was concealed from
the Germans. Hospital cases of typhus were recorded as 'elevated fever' or
pneumonia. Mainly, the stricken were treated in their homes in a massive
clandestine operation, covering up the presence of the disease from German
inspection teams who periodically threatened to seal off the affected
areas.
The intensity of the Jewish resistance to the simple act
of bathing, for the 1920's at least, is illustrated in Typhus and
Doughboys by the following passage about American efforts in the town of
Wlodowa:30
. . . further difficulties were in the form of
considerable resistance among the population to bathe. The town's
officials also vacillated, whereupon the police had to be used to compel
the people to do so. Soon the town officials devised a plan whereby those
persons who had been bathed were provided with a ticket and only those who
possessed one could buy bread and potatoes in the stores. However, this
was rather ineffective as forged tickets soon appeared and also, as
Gillespie [an American first lieutenant] contemptuously charged, 'The Jews
would get their tickets, alter the name on them and sell them to some
other person.' Theft was not unheard of, and the Poles hired to assist the
operations proved the worst offenders. This necessitated daily searches by
the police.
Another passage tells us just how often the people in a
largely Jewish community took baths even under American administration.
It went without saying that none of the houses had any
modern sanitary conveniences. All refuse was poured into the gutters at
the front door, two latrines were provided by the town but were little
used. Snidow [an American first lieutenant] noted that 'in almost all of
the house areas would be found after much search an open latrine which
they jealously guarded from us by all kinds of disguises and camouflage as
the product therefrom would be used after the harvest to put on their
small patches in the outskirts of the town.' Most of the drinking water
was obtained from a sluggish creek at the edge of the town, which a mill
dam rendered more sluggish and sometimes covered the yards of some of the
houses, turning them into 'reeking swamps.' The people were inclined to
wade in the creek, as were the cattle and geese. There were a few wells,
'but all of them drained directly from the nearby latrines.' Moreover, as
Snidow recounted, 'in the first preliminary council we were assured by the
priest, the rabbi and mayor and later confirmed by two doctors that not a
soul in the town had had a bath for over a year. This statement we
considered conservative and I personally doubt if water had touched the
persons of most of them since the departure of the Germans during whose
occupation they were required to bathe at least once a week, when they
could be caught.' There was a good community bathhouse, but the people had
'formed a horror of it' from being compelled to bathe there by the
Germans, and would not use it. 31
Confirmation of the general filthiness of the Polish Jews
was even given by the Jewish Chairman of the Warsaw Judenrat, Adam
Czerniakow. In his diary, which has been highly praised by Raul Hilberg
among others, Czerniakow wrote for May 29, 1942:
I have been going through the streets with Brodt issuing
reprimands or dispensing money awards to the janitors. Considering the
level of civilization in this community, the ghetto cannot be kept clean.
People, unfortunately, behave like pigs. Centuries of slovenliness bear
their fruit. And this is compounded by the utter misery and dire poverty.
32
After World War 2, General George S. Patton described Jews
living under his military authority in southern Germany. Martin Blumenson
the editor of The Patton Papers regarded these remarks as indicative of a
growing anti-Semitic attitude. For September 17, 1945--five months after the
liberation of the last of the German concentration camps--Patton wrote:
We drove for about 45
minutes to a Jewish camp . . . established in what had been a German
hospital. The buildings were therefore in a good state of repair when the
Jews arrived but were in a bad state of repair when we arrived, because
these Jewish DP's or at least a majority of them, have no sense of human
relationships. They decline, where practicable, to use latrines,
preferring to relieve themselves on the floor . . .
This happened to be the feast of Yom Kippur, so they
were all collected in a large wooden building which they called a
synagogue. It behooved General Eisenhower to make a speech to them. We
entered the synagogue which was packed with the greatest stinking bunch of
humanity I have ever seen. When we got about half way up, the head rabbi,
who was dressed in a fur hat similar to that worn by Henry VIII of England
and in a surplice heavily embroidered and very filthy, came down and met
the General. . . .
However, the smell was so terrible that I almost fainted
and actually about three hours later lost my lunch as the result of
remembering it.33
Clearly, on the basis of the preceding passages as well as
Appendices C and D, there was some agreement among German doctors, British
doctors, Polish doctors, American military officers and even some Jews as to
the incredible filthiness of Jews in and from Poland. To some extent, the
backwardness of the Polish Jews may be explained by poverty and persecution.
But, whatever the cause, it is still difficult to comprehend the hysterical
resistance to minimal standards of hygiene and civilized living when a
modest amount of common sense should have persuaded them that it was
necessary for their own survival. An attachment to a traditional lifestyle
going back centuries, if not millennia, may have been regarded as vital to
their religious and ethnic identity.
In any event, it should be understood that Jews from
Western countries were generally quite different in their personal habits.
When these Jews were placed in camps with Polish Jews, they were as appalled
as any other Westerners would have been. It does not seem fair to attribute
the behavior of the Polish Jews to religion alone--but, religion may be
important, nonetheless.
Although medicine had made great progress in the years
between the world war, not much progress had been made with regard to
typhus. There was still no truly effective vaccine or treatment. The means
for detection of typhus had been improved but that in itself did not go very
far in preventing catastrophic epidemics except to alert authorities to be
more stringent in their delousing of people, or of contaminated areas or
trains coming from or passing through those areas. The real breakthrough
came only near the end of the war with the availability of enormous
quantities of DDT from the Americans for delousing.
Regardless of the true extent of the Jewish contribution
to the spread of typhus, it is certainly safe to say that the Germans
authorities were absolutely sincere in their statements that the Polish Jews
were a major contributing factor in the spreading of the disease. They had
not only the evidence of their own doctors to support this view but that of
British and Polish doctors as well. They can hardly be blamed for applying
severe measures to the Jews in order to control the epidemic. The severe
measures included restrictions on the movements of Jews and eventually to
the construction of a wall around the entire Warsaw ghetto. These measures
during wartime were entirely reasonable to control the spread of typhus, and
to prevent catastrophes like those which had already occurred in Poland and
Russia during and after World War 1.
In any event, it is quite clear that the high incidence of
typhus among Jews was not simply the result of persecution by the Germans,
or of the confinement of Jews first in ghettoes and then in concentration
camps. One of the main objectives of the camps was to maintain strict enough
control upon the inmates so that typhus would at least subside if not
disappear altogether. During the last months of the war, however, when
typhus reappeared with a vengeance, the Germans had no choice but to
maintain as tight control as they possibly could upon the inmates, to keep
any of them from escaping, even if they could do little to help them. When
the British took Bergen-Belsen at the request of the SS, they were appalled
at what they found and considered simply moving the inmates out of the camp
into neighboring dwellings.34 They quickly realized, however, that that
would have only compounded the disaster.
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