Bersohn-Bauman Children's Hospital

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The Bersohn Bauman Children's Hospital in Warsaw, 1930

The Bersohn Bauman Children's Hospital in Warsaw was a Jewish medical facility that operated from 1878–1942 at ulica Śliska 51 / Sienna 60 in Warsaw .

In 1942 a branch of the hospital was opened at ulica Leszno 80/82. After the so-called “Small Ghetto” was dissolved in August 1942, the hospital was relocated to the Umschlagplatz in the building on 6/8 Stawki Street.

history

The idea of ​​building a hospital for the treatment of Jewish children arose in the early 1870s. In 1873 the two families Majer and Chaja Bersohn and their daughter Paulina Bauman bought a plot of land to build a hospital together with her husband Salomon. Initially, the facility was intended for 27 children. The hospital was built on the property between two parallel streets: ulica Sienna and ulica Śliska (therefore a double address is usually given: ulica Śliska 51 / Sienna 60). Thanks to the financial resources of the Bersohn and Bauman families, the entire hospital complex was built in the years 1876–1978 according to a project by Artur Goebel. Ludwik Chwat was the hospital's first chief physician.

The hospital building today, view from ulica Śliska

In the years 1905–1912 Janusz Korczak worked in the hospital as a pediatrician .

During the First World War , the hospital's financial situation changed drastically because the testamentary and constitutional provisions were devalued. In 1923 the facility was closed. The situation changed after numerous interventions by the doctor Anna Braude-Hellerowa , thanks to which the hospital buildings, which belonged to the Bersohn and Bauman Foundation, were taken over by the Society of Children's Friends (pol. Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Dzieci ) in 1930. Efforts were soon made to expand the hospital complex. The expansion was financed from funds from the Warsaw Jewish Community and the Joint Distribution Committee . After the expansion, the number of beds was 150.

The hospital complex from the Sienna street side

On the day the Second World War broke out , the hospital had around 250 beds available. The buildings were not destroyed during the Battle of Warsaw . In November 1940 the hospital was incorporated into the Warsaw Ghetto . The German authorities appointed Wacław Konieczny from Inowrocław as hospital administrator.

Due to a huge increase in the number of children suffering from typhus fever , the hospital was overcrowded. In October 1943, thanks to the efforts of Anna Braude-Hellerowa, his branch was opened at ulica Żelazna 86/88 on the corner of ulica Leszno 80/82. The new hospital could accommodate 400 patients.

Entrance to the south pavilion

From February 1942, the hospital staff took part in the scientific research of starvation disease in the Warsaw ghetto. The research was conducted in secret from the Germans. The bodies of patients who died of starvation were examined in a shed in the Jewish cemetery on Okopowa Street , where they waited to be buried in mass graves. Some of the manuscripts with the results of the research were delivered to the “Aryan side”. The research results were published in 1946 in a book by Emil Apfelbaum, “Hunger illness. Clinical studies on hunger in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942 ”published.

Due to the downsizing of the ghetto on August 10, 1942 (dissolution of the "Small Ghetto"), the hospital and its patients were evacuated from Sienna Street. On August 13th, the facility was relocated to the buildings of the former primary schools at ulica Stawki 6/8, which were already in the area of ​​the Umschlagplatz . Doctors and nurses lived in a house on 22 Pawia Street. After careful control, the hospital staff were able to enter the transshipment point in a column.

On the Umschlagplatz, the Bersohn-Bauman Hospital was connected to another Jewish hospital on the ghetto area - namely the Jewish Hospital in Czyste. On September 11, 1942, the patients and most of the hospital staff (around 1,000 people) were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp . Adina Blady-Szwajger gave the children morphine so that they could die immediately without experiencing the suffering of the displacement.

During the war, at the beginning of 1943, the abandoned hospital building was home to the children's clinic that used to be on Litewska Street. It was in operation until the Warsaw Uprising . From August to October 1944, the hospital was the only professional medical facility in central Warsaw. The hospital buildings were damaged during the Warsaw Uprising.

After the end of the Second World War, namely in 1946–1950 and after the facility was rebuilt, the hospital buildings housed the headquarters and apartments of the Central Committee of Jews in Poland ( Centralny Komitet Żydów Polskich ). The buildings were later adapted to meet medical needs again so that they could serve as a hospital for children with infectious diseases. In the years 1988–1993 all buildings were rebuilt and modernized. Later they housed the State Infectious Disease Hospital called the Warsaw Children. In 2000 the facility was connected to the Children's Hospital in Dziekanów Leśny, where all departments were gradually relocated. In 2016, the owner of the property, the local government of the Masovian Voivodeship, put the emptied property up for sale. In 2017 the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage asked the government of the voivodeship to lease the former hospital for 30 years and to set up the Warsaw Ghetto Museum there.

memorial

On April 20, 2001, a plaque commemorating Anna Braude-Hellerowa, the hospital's director from 1930–1942, was unveiled on the wall of the main hospital building (on ulica Śliska).

Hospital staff

  • Anna Braude-Hellerowa
  • Adina Blady-Szwajger
  • Marek Edelman
  • Teodozja Goliborska-Gołąb
  • Hanna Hirszfeldowa
  • Janusz Korczak
  • Julian Kramsztyk
  • Henryk Kroszczor
  • Henryk Makower
  • Anna Margolis

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joanna Olczak-Ronikier : Korczak: próba biografii . Wydanie I edition. Wydawnictwo WAB, Warszawa 2011, ISBN 978-83-7414-077-5 .
  2. ↑ Junichiro KOYAMA: ISSN (International Standard Serial Number), ISSN Network and Japanese National Center for ISSN . In: Journal of Information Processing and Management . tape 50 , no. 3 , 2007, ISSN  0021-7298 , p. 144-154 , doi : 10.1241 / johokanri.50.144 .
  3. ^ Emil Apfelbaum (red.): Choroba głodowa. Badania kliniczne nad głodem wykonane w getcie warszawskim z roku 1942 . Warszawa: American Joint Distribution Committee, 1946, p. 16.
  4. ↑ Leociak, Jacek, Weszpiński, Paweł E., Stowarzyszenie Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów ,: Ghetto warszawskie: przewodnik po nieistniejącym mieście . Wydanie drugie, zmienione, poprawione i rozszerzone edition. Warszawa, ISBN 978-83-63444-27-3 .
  5. ↑ Blady-Szwajgier, Adina, 1917-: I więcej nic nie pamiętam . Świat Książki, Warszawa 2010, ISBN 978-83-247-1830-6 .
  6. ^ Zofia Podgórska-Klawe: Szpitale warszawskie 1388-1945 . Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1975, p. 309.
  7. ↑ Petrozolin-Skowrońska, Barbara .: Encyklopedia Warszawy . Wydawn. Nauk. PWN, Warszawa 1994, ISBN 83-01-08836-2 .
  8. ↑ a b Tomasz Urzykowski. Never wszystko na sprzedaż. In: Gazeta Stołeczna. P. 2, July 25, 2016.
  9. ↑ Tomasz Urzykowski: Muzeum getta w starym szpitalu. In: Gazeta Stołeczna. P. 1, November 15, 2017.

literature

  • Barbara Engelking, Jacek Leociak: Ghetto warszawskie. Przewodnik po nieistniejącym mieście . Warszawa: Stowarzyszenie Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów, 2013, pp. 292–298, ISBN 978-83-63444-27-3 .