Jewish medical resistance in the Holocaust / edited by Michael A. Grodin.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Faced with infectious diseases, starvation, lack of medicines, lack of clean water, and safe sewage, Jewish physicians practiced medicine under severe conditions in the ghettos and concentration camps of the Holocaust. Despite the odds against them, physicians managed to supply public health education, enforce hygiene protocols, inspect buildings and latrines, enact quarantine, and perform triage. Many gave their lives to help fellow prisoners. Based on archival materials and featuring memoirs of Holocaust survivors, this volume offers a rich array of both tragic and inspiring studies of the sanctification of life as practiced by Jewish medical professionals. More than simply a medical story, these histories represent the finest exemplification of a humanist moral imperative during a dark hour of recent history.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In recent years, the concept of resistance during the Holocaust has been broadened to include much more than armed resistance. This work, edited by Grodin (Boston Univ. School of Public Health), fits well within this more comprehensive interpretation, enhancing readers' understanding of resistance while providing unique and valuable evidence about the often-overlooked contributions of health care providers. Grodin deliberately included chapters on resistance in ghettos and concentration camps, ranging from individual and cultural defiance to organized armed conflict; some provide first-person accounts of health care providers (primarily physicians) who were active in the resistance, and others provide scholarly analysis. The 20 chapters in this four-part volume are well researched, based extensively on primary sources, and highly readable. This book should be read by anyone interested in understanding more about resistance to the Holocaust and the complex roles that medicine played in defying the genocidal intentions of the "Final Solution." Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above; general readers. --Mary D. Lagerwey, Western Michigan University