When World War II broke out, Eugeniusz Łazowski was a young doctor. At that time, in his personal history, we can find moments of struggle, arrest by the Soviets, captivity by the Germans, as well as escapes and marriage with his beloved. However, when he arrived in Rozwadów near Stalowa Wola, the fate of the doctor was forever linked with the history of thousands of rescued Jews.
- Eugeniusz Łazowski was a man full of ideas. Thanks to this skill, he managed to save thousands of people during the Second Conscious War
- Łazowski not only secretly treated Jews in the ghetto, but also found a clever way to cause a false epidemic
- A friend of Łazowski, Stanisław Matulewicz, discovered that the common and inherently harmless bacterium Proteus vulgaris OX19 gives exactly the same reactions in the Weil-Felix test as the microorganisms that cause typhus
- This test was in turn used by the Germans to verify the infection with typhus
- Łazowski therefore came up with the idea that, together with Matulewicz, they would vaccinate the inhabitants of Rozwadów and the surrounding area with a harmless bacterium, and thus cause a false typhus epidemic
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Cleverness is certainly an ability that accompanied Eugeniusz Łazowski throughout the entire period of World War II. When this broke out, the doctor was just finishing his studies. He was quickly mobilized into a Battalion of the Border Protection Corps and sent to Brest-on-the-Bug. He was arrested by the Soviets, but managed to escape during his transport to Siberia. Later, the Germans arrested him. Łazowski was then taken to a POW camp, from which he also escaped. The following years brought him even more clever ideas.
In 1958, Eugeniusz Łazowski emigrated to the United States, where he became a professor of paediatrics at the Illinois State University. He described in detail the stories of his wartime frauds in the book “Private War.” Published in the 90s. Memoirs of a soldier-doctor 1933-1944 ».
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Help first of all
When the doctor and his wife ended up in Rozwadów near Stalowa Wola, Łazowski decided to help the inhabitants of the local ghetto. To avoid the death penalty for helping Jews, he met with them in secret. That is why the needy hung a piece of white cloth on the fence of his house (adjacent to the ghetto). Seeing this sign, Łazowski went out to them at night and gave help to those in need.
Although the Germans required the doctor to keep a strict record of medical equipment and medicines, a large part of which he used to treat Jews, Łazowski found a clever solution this time. The doctor was called in to treat people traveling on trains who stopped at a nearby railway station. Łazowski used this fact to balance his balance sheet. At that time, he had a much greater use of medical supplies than in reality. However, it was Łazowski’s next idea that turned out to be particularly cunning. In a good sense of the word.
Fear of typhus
Epidemics and wars often coexist. During World War II, German soldiers were primarily afraid of typhus, as this disease was more common in Poland, and therefore the Germans were not naturally immune to it. Typhus manifests itself primarily with weakness, high fever, headache and muscle pain. The characteristic features of this disease are a brown coating on the tongue, as well as a rash on the abdomen and chest.
For fear of infection in places where there was an epidemic of typhus, no round-ups were organized among the local population, no quotas were collected, i.e. compulsory deliveries of agricultural and farm products imposed on Poland by the German authorities. People were also not deported from these places for forced labor to the Third Reich. This fact and the knowledge gained by a close friend of the doctor made Łazowski come up with an unusual idea to outsmart the Germans.
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Plague controlled
Typhus is caused by the bacterium Rickettsia prowazekii. The easiest way to spread it is through contact with infected human lice. On the other hand, the occurrence of lice is associated with poor sanitary conditions. No wonder then that during the war that was going on at that time, they occurred in many people.
During World War II, the Weil-Felix test, developed in 1916, was used to detect typhus infection. Doctor Stanisław Matulewicz, a friend of Łazowski, noticed that the Weil-Felix method could be easily deceived. Matulewicz discovered that the common and inherently harmless bacterium Proteus vulgaris OX19 gives exactly the same reactions in the Weil-Felix test as the microorganisms that cause typhus. It was this fact that Łazowski decided to take advantage of.
We can cause an artificial epidemic of typhus, scare the Germans – they will be afraid of wandering around our country, taking people to the Reich, maybe arrests and searches will cease?
– recalled Łazowski in his book, quoted by the portal «Dzieje.pl».
Matulewicz and Łazowski decided to implement this plan together. Therefore, the doctors started the vaccination process of the inhabitants of Rozwadów and the surrounding area. For years, however, the doctors’ plot was kept strictly secret. Even the patients were not informed about “false typhus infection”. To make their actions credible, Matulewicz and Łazowski selected patients showing any symptoms of disease, and assigned some of the vaccinations performed to other local doctors. Samples taken from patients were sent to a laboratory under the control of the Germans, so that they were fully aware of the scale of the developing epidemic. As expected, the test results showed a response characteristic of Rickettsia prowazekii infected.
The success with which doctors managed to cover up their actions meant that, long after the war, hardly anyone knew that for several years Rozwadow was ruled by an epidemic that did not exist. These actions allowed doctors to save about 8. people from 12 nearby towns that were quarantined, thus avoiding deportation to labor camps.
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How to cheat the Germans?
Although the Germans had full access to the research carried out and information about the epidemic in the vicinity of Stalowa Wola, the constant mortality rate of the inhabitants made the soldiers suspect some of its authenticity. That is why in February 1944 the German medical commission came to Turbia near Rozwadow.
However, Łazowski did not intend to give up. Before the commission started its inspection, the arriving guests were greeted with copious amounts of vodka. Another element of the doctor’s plot was to gather the sickest patients (not necessarily those suffering from typhus) – exhausted by disease and hunger or elderly. Fearing infection, the half-sober Germans carried out only a cursory inspection. In the twilight of the country huts, they did not even notice that the “patients” were ill with typhus, but they did not have the rash that is characteristic of this disease. Doctors ordered Łazowski to collect blood for tests. The Pole did it, but only from people who had previously been vaccinated with the Proteus vulgaris OX19 bacterium. The commission, after examining the samples, said: «Weil-Felix test positive».
The false epidemic in Rozwadów ended in the summer of 1944, when the Gestapo found out that Łazowski was helping soldiers of the Home Army. Then the doctor and his family were forced to flee immediately.
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