THOUSANDS SAVED BY AN EPIDEMIC

Doctor Eugene Lazowski, also known as "The Polish Schindler" was born in Czestochowa Poland in the year 1913. He was a doctor who served as a Polish army second Lieutenant on a red cross train army. He had just finished medical school when the Nazi's invaded Poland in 1939. He played on German phobias on hygiene and saved approximately 8,000 Jewish people.

 Typhus was spreading across the country. He discovered a particular bacteria strain (Proteus OX19) that when injected into a person would cause them to test positive to Typhus without actually suffering the illness. On seeing this, he used his position as a doctor treating people travelling through a nearby station to conceal his supply of medicine.

 Lazowski started injecting non-Jews, he knew that the Germans will immediately kill Jewish people injected with Typhus. He then sent blood samples to German labs. Once Typhus was detected, the Nazi's immediately quarantined the area. Due to the number of soldiers that tested positive to the disease, plans to move approximately 8,000 Jews to concentration camps during the holocaust failed.

He kept his actions a secret, not even his wife knew about it. In 1958, he moved to America and settled in Chicago where he had to undergo an additional training to get his medical license. In 1976, he became a professor of Pediatrics in the University of Illnois. After his retirement in the late 1980's, a producer Ryan Bank filmed a documentary of him titled "A Private War". The documentary was released in the year 2000. He died on the 16th of December 2006 in Oregon, USA.

SOURCES:

LowellMilkenCentre

JewishVirtualLibrary