Aleksiun, Cadavre

8/12/2019 Aleksiun, Cadavre

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Author’s Note: I would like to thank Professor Antony Polonsky of Brandeis University for his commentswhen the paper was first presented at the International Conference, “The Holocaust in Poland,” held at

Princeton University in October 2010. Professor AnnaMaria Orla-Bukowska of Jagiellonian Universityand Professors Marion Kaplan and Hasia Diner of New York University read and commented on an earlydraft of the article. Last but not least, I am grateful to Professor Theodore Weeks of Southern IllinoisUniversity and Professor Gennady Estraikh of New York University for sharing their notes and references.

East European Politics and

SocietiesVolume XX Number X

Month XXXX xx-xx© 2011 SAGE Publications

10.1177/0888325411398913http://eeps.sagepub.com

hosted athttp://online.sagepub.com

Christian Corpses

for Christians!Dissecting the Anti-Semitism

behind the Cadaver Affair

of the Second Polish Republic

Natalia AleksiunTouro College, New York

In this article, the author analyzes the campaign that captured the attention of medicalcolleges at Polish Universities in Warsaw, Vilno, Cracow, and Lvov during the 1920sand 1930s. The author discusses calls made by right-wing students for a regular supplyof Jewish corpses matching their percentage among the students, and the ways in whichuniversity authorities and Polish Jewish communal leaders responded to these demands.Clearly, driving Jews out of the medical profession combined traditional prejudicialthinking about Jews with modern racial science and corresponded with the more generalcall to remove Jews from free professions. However, the issue of Jewish corpses took

this line of thinking into the realm of pathology. The author argues that taking issue withJewish access to “Christian corpses” echoed perceptions of Jewish impurity. It impliedthat Jewish students constituted a danger not only to their Polish colleagues but evento the corpses of Christians, which they could somehow contaminate or violate. Thus,this campaign was based on the notion of essential difference between Jews and non-Jewseven in death. It suggests a vision of society in which any contact between Jews andnon-Jews was perceived as contaminating and dangerous.

Keywords: universities; Polish-Jewish relations; anti-Semitism; medicine

On 12 March 1930, a crowd of students from Warsaw’s institutions of highereducation attacked Jewish medical students at the Institute of Anatomy, drag-

ging them out of the dissecting room, throwing them down the stairs, and forcingthem out of the building. Several Jewish students suffered serious injuries as aresult of the incident, which ended with an anti-Jewish rally.1 Throughout the 1930s,



2 East European Politics and Societies

university campuses in Lvov, Cracow, and Vilno witnessed similar scenes of brutal-ity against both male and female Jewish students. On one occasion, a female Jewish

student was taken to a well, where Christian students poured cold water on her andthen threw her into the street with her clothes torn.2 These incidents shared as theirunderlying theme a widespread call that Jewish students should not be allowed tocontinue dissecting non-Jewish corpses.3

The so-called “cadaver affair” (afera trupia) first erupted in Vilno in 1921, whenPolish students demanded a contribution of cadavers from the Jewish community proportionate to the number of Jewish medical students at the recently reopenedStefan Batory University (SBU), threatening to block their Jewish colleagues from participating in anatomy lectures and laboratory classes if no such contribution were

made. Christian students enrolled at the medical colleges in Warsaw, Cracow, andLvov followed suit, voicing the same demand and repeating the same threat. In allcases, the student activists argued that in the face of a persistent shortage ofcorpses—which were indispensable to their instruction—the Jewish community hadunjustly avoided sharing in the responsibility for providing specimens. The non-Jewish students resented that “Jewish corpses in the dissecting room were completelyabsent, although the percentage of Jewish students was significant.”4 Indeed, in theearly 1920s Jews constituted roughly 30 percent of all medical students at Polishuniversities; in this context, the Jewish proscription against interfering with Jewish

corpses contributed to the perception of a double standard.5

Medical school complaints about a deficit of cadavers began in the early 1920sand continued to be a concern throughout the 1930s. Human remains were essentialto the instruction of all students of medicine, and were particularly necessary fortraining future surgeons.6 In addition, as the medical departments in Warsaw, Cracow,Lvov, Vilno, and Poznań expanded during the Second Polish Republic, instruction became increasingly standardized, with a detailed and rigorous curriculum consist-ing of lectures, practical exercises, laboratory classes, and examinations that had to be completed during students’ initial years.7 During the first and second years, stu-

dents listened to lectures in anatomy and participated in numerous exercises in dis-secting rooms. Legally, corpses of individuals of all faiths not claimed by familymembers within forty-eight hours could be transferred to university clinics.8 However,halakha, Jewish religious law, required that Jewish dead be buried undisturbed andregarded autopsies as a desecration.9 Therefore, the demand that Jewish communitiescontinuously provide a number of corpses proportionate to the number of Jewishmedical students meant in practice that many Jewish students would be excluded frommedical instruction or forced out of programs to which they had already devoted agreat deal of work.

Scholars of Polish-Jewish relations in the Second Polish Republic have rightlydescribed universities as spaces in which nationalists could and did test the popularityof their ideologies.10 According to Szymon Rudnicki, “A fundamental rallying cry ofthe nationalist youth, which it used to gain control at the universities, was the cam-



Aleksiun / Christian Corpses for Christians! 3

paign against what it believed to be the excessively high level of young Jews enter-ing higher education.”11 In this struggle, the medical colleges played a leading role.12

Both contemporary observers and modern historians have described the cadaveraffair as a case of “practical anti-Semitism,” reflecting the tension between the vis-ible presence of Jewish medical students and the deficit of corpses, supplied almostentirely from outside the Jewish community. However, this affair may also be con-strued as a veiled attempt to introduce numerus clausus —that is, restrictions or quotaslimiting the number of Jewish students admitted to medical schools.13 Indeed, severalmedical departments had practiced numerus clausus regarding Jewish students priorto the cadaver affair,14 so the demand that Jewish students refrain from participatingin anatomy lectures unless their communities provided Jewish corpses could be seen

as an excuse to limit, by other means, the number of Jews completing and graduatingfrom medical studies.A close investigation of the affair reveals that the protests raised against the Jewish

presence at Polish universities in the interwar period exceeded the practical concernsof the medical community. The debate went beyond the issue of proportionality: in themid 1920s, non-Jewish students, associations of Christian physicians, and Catholiccharity societies stipulated that members of each religious group be allowed to onlydissect corpses provided from their own communities. One student received a stand-ing ovation from hundreds gathered at a rally in Vilno when he demanded, “Christian

corpses for the Christians!” (Chrześcijańskie trupy dla chrześcijan).15

Eventually,enthusiasm for this movement led to calls for even more extreme measures, such asthe insistence that Jewish students work exclusively on Jewish specimens at separatetables. Thus, Christian activists envisioned a complete ghettoization of Jewish medi-cal students from their Christian colleagues. As such, the cadaver affair provides awindow onto the motives and methods of an anti-Semitic movement among the youngPolish intelligentsia.

The Arguments and the Counterarguments

Students who demanded that their Jewish colleagues should only be allowed accessto the dissecting room based on the provision of Jewish corpses relied on a variety ofarguments—civic, political, economic, religious, and racial—to demonstrate the justiceof their cause. Primarily, however, the argument that all sections of the populationshould contribute equally to the progress of science and to the training of future doc-tors was couched in terms of “fairness.” Students argued that “Basic justice [ele-mentarna słuszność] requires that equal rights match equal obligations,” and

therefore that Jewish corpses ought to be provided for the dissecting room.16

Yet thestudents also employed arguments based on notions of religious self-defense to support their cause. As representatives of the National Union of the Polish AcademicYouth argued, “Lack of cooperation on the part of Jewish society in providing corpses




to dissecting rooms constitutes an insult to the religious feelings of all Christian stu-dents and causes harmful disruption to the course of academic medical training.”17

Students argued that by making the Christian community responsible for delivery ofspecimens for autopsies, the Jews implied a false sense of religious superiority.Thus, following the rally in Vilno, medical students signed a resolution stating thatthe lack of Jewish corpses “gives rise to an impression—insulting to Christian reli-gious feelings—that only Christian corpses can be used in the dissecting room.”18 Moreover, advocates for the Christian students’ position noted that “the motivefor this struggle is rejection of the profanation of consecrated corpses,”19 and theyargued that in such a context the Jewish students implicitly tolerated the profanation ofChristian corpses. Activists attacked the “Jewish faith,” “Jewish fanaticism,”

and “Jewish superstition,” appealing to so-called “enlightened elements” in Jewish societyto take charge and stand up for fairness and progress.Indeed, students who demanded the steady and proportionate provision of Jewish

bodies for dissection presented themselves as representing the forces of “progress.”Dominik Popławski, a delegate for the activists in Vilno, declared that their mea-sures were not directed “against Jewish colleagues, male or female students. On thecontrary—solving the problem can prove beneficial for them. We are fighting againstJewish superstition.”20 Popławski compared the proscription against interfering withJewish corpses to old Christian superstitions that had been overcome in the name of

science, and he declared that Jews needed to follow the same path rather than workingagainst the interests of future Jewish physicians.21

In response, Jewish students and community leaders argued that the demand forJewish corpses had nothing to do with dead bodies but was part of an effort to hurtliving members of the Jewish community. They rejected the religious and pseudo-scientific arguments supporting the demands, and they argued that underlying theconflict was “without a doubt, an economic and cultural battle against the Jews.”22 From the start of the cadaver affair, the Polish language journal of Jewish students,Trybuna Akademicka, maintained that the affair represented an organized course of

action leading toward the development of an instrument to be used against Jews. The journal noted that the medical and legal professions had traditionally been “free” professions offering Jews secure self-employment and appropriate livelihoods,23 describing the affair as “yet another link in the anti-Semitic chain with which theywant to fetter us.”24 Trybuna Akademicka noted that wherever numerus clausus was introduced to restrict incoming Jewish medical students, their non-Jewish colleaguesno longer raised the issue of corpses. However, in Vilno, where no numerus clausus was introduced and Jews constituted 10 percent of the medical department,25 “Theanti-Semitic stomach could not quietly digest so many Jews. Thus, the issue of the

cadaver was dragged out again for assistance”26

in keeping the Jews in their place,and Trybuna Akademicka compared the demand for Jewish corpses with the “gunsthat Christian colleagues have obtained in order to guard the threshold of the Vilnodissecting room against Jewish medical students.”27




Jewish students and Jewish physicians responded to the affair with differentcounterarguments, widening the generational rift within Jewish society. Jewish doc-

tors, for their part, regularly sent petitions to the various medical schools protesting therequirement of providing cadavers.28 However, Jewish students expressed a negativeattitude toward what they considered to be superstitions regarding the potential dese-cration of corpses, invoking the demands of scientific investigation, and not outside pressures, as their primary argument. Thus, Jewish students found themselves takingsides against the explicit recommendations of their religious authorities. For example,while protesting against anti-Jewish incidents in the prosectorium in November 1926,the Association of Jewish Students at SBU requested that the university administrationfind a practical solution to the conflict, yet at the same time the group repeated its

request to the Jewish community to deliver unclaimed corpses to dissecting rooms forscientific use.29

Jewish students, the Association of Jewish Physicians ( Zjednoczenie Lekarzy Żydowskich), the local rabbinate, and the Jewish press all protested the demands andrestrictions placed on Jewish students and tried to intervene on the students’ behalf, but to no avail.30 In response to the demonstrations and violence, Jewish studentsoften appealed to university authorities for protection, and once the medical schools began segregating Jewish students and cadavers from their Christian counterparts,Jewish students responded by sending petitions protesting the policy to the heads

of Institutes of Anatomy, deans of the medical schools, and university rectors.31

Additionally, Jewish physicians appealed to medical colleges on behalf of the Jewishstudents.32 However, during the 1922–1923 academic year, non-Jewish students in Lvovdemonstrated against Jewish students and passed resolutions advocating even stricterrestrictions. At the beginning of the following academic year, in October 1923, theydecided to keep Jewish students out of the prosectorium as long as the Jewish com-munity did not provide an appropriate number of corpses. Christian students stoodguard at the door to the dissecting room, with a larger group available in case the “door-men” proved insufficient to keep Jews away. These doormen demanded that any student

entering present an identification card from the Wzajemna Pomoc Medyków, whichexcluded Jewish students from membership.33 In response, many Jewish students inWarsaw naively tried to appease their opponents by providing some Jewish corpses,fighting against the local rabbinate to obtain them.34 Other Jewish students, however,argued that it could not be their personal responsibility to provide cadavers, and offeredto work only to sway Jewish public opinion. They felt their role should be to argueagainst religious superstitions on behalf of scientific goals, while the final decision onthe matter lay in the hands of the government and the university authorities.35 Thus,Jewish students protested against a rule that would hinder the completion of their

medical training, while simultaneously criticizing the backward and inflexible positiontaken by the rabbinates.




Student Demands for Jewish Corpses

Associations of medical students played a vital role in the cadaver affair, withtheir colleagues from other disciplines joining in as the call spread from oneacademic center to the next. These associations offered their members financial andacademic assistance and opportunities to socialize together, while representing theirinterests in negotiations with university authorities. The declared goals of these groupsincluded supporting members through educational loans, library access, assistancewith summer internships and contributions to broadening their knowledge, as well asgenerally educating them to be future physicians. They also arranged lectures, man-aged a scholarly library, and served as departmental fraternities.36 A general associa-

tion of medical students in Vilno ( Koło Medyków) was organized as early as October1919, shortly after the opening of SBU.37 Although this association seems initially tohave accepted all applicants, regardless of nationality or religion, by the early 1920sits bylaws excluded Jewish students or those of Jewish descent.38

Associations of medical students were also the first to demand Jewish corpses fordissecting rooms, and they eventually forced the highest echelons of university admin-istration, the senates and the rectors, to take a stand on the matter. Christian students justified the gradual radicalization of their “struggle” by noting the lack of an accept-able response from their Jewish classmates or from the Jewish community at large. At

first, in the academic year 1921–1922, students in Vilno had simply “requested thattheir Jewish colleagues influence Jewish society in this regard.”39 When their Jewishcolleagues appeared to ignore this request, the protest escalated into organized ral-lies, again met with indifference on the part of Jewish students. Then, in 1924–1925,the students elected a Dead Bodies Commission ( Komisja Trupia), which appealeddirectly to various Jewish institutions; still, however, not a single Jewish corpse wasdelivered. In 1925–1926, a mixed commission (komisja mieszana)40 was formed,and a plan proposed to bar Jewish students from the dissecting room. When this com-mission was closed to prevent altercations, the students created a commission repre-

senting Christian students from all levels of medical school ( Komisja Międzykursowa, which can be roughly translated as the Interdisciplinary Commission). Although theolder students urged the younger ones to remain levelheaded and prudent, all agreedto act vigorously rather than “play games with conferences leading nowhere.”41 Asword of these developments spread among the universities in Warsaw, Cracow, Lvov,and elsewhere, tactics became more coordinated and actions increasingly less spon-taneous. In addition, local associations of Christian doctors and some members ofuniversity faculties began to openly support the cause.

Excluded from the majority of general academic associations, Jewish students

created parallel institutions, such as the Associations of Jewish Medical Students(Stowarzyszenia Medyków Żydów), which opened a chapter at Warsaw University in1924.42 In Vilno, Jewish students organized in 1927 under the banner of the Association




of Jewish Medical Students (Stowarzyszenie Medyków Studentów Żydów).43 Foundations for the support of Jewish students also existed at the Jagiellonian

University in Cracow,44

and local chapters were coordinated by the Union of JewishMedical Caucuses in Poland ( Związek Żydowskich Kół Medycznych w Polsce).However, these institutions lacked the level of organization and influence charac-terizing the non-Jewish associations. The latter added to and exerted their powerthrough well-planned petition campaigns and rallies—as well as through open threatsand acts of violence such as those noted earlier. The result was that university admin-istrations gradually acceded to the demand to restrict the number of Jewish medicalstudents.45

The Faculty Responds

In each major Polish academic center, the faculty of the department of anatomy played a role in negotiating over student demands. Their varied approaches to thisrole reflected somewhat differing attitudes on the part of the directors of these insti-tutes. In Cracow, Kazimierz Kostanecki (1863–1940) headed the anatomy departmentuntil 1935, followed by Zygmunt Szantroch (1894–1940). In Warsaw, Edward Loth(1884–1944) was in charge of Anatomicum throughout the interwar period. Michał

Reicher (1888–1973), who initially worked under Loth in Warsaw, later served aschair of descriptive anatomy at Vilno’s SBU.46 At Jan Kazimierz University in Lvov,Professor Józef Markowski (1874–1947) was chair of anatomy from the 1922–1923academic year until the beginning of the Second World War. Radical student nation-alists on the front lines of the struggle over Jewish cadavers claimed that these andother university authorities supported their cause and did not immediately implementtheir demands only due to “certain formal considerations.”47 In fact, faculty andadministrators appear to have been ambivalent, particularly regarding the reversal ofthe academic hierarchy implicit in students’ trespassing on the internal affairs of

Institutes of Anatomy and pressuring faculty members to run dissecting rooms in amanner dictated by zealots in a cause neither medical nor academic.48 Thus, universityadministrators expressed a general understanding of the demand for Jewish corpses,while reprimanding the students for their use of violence on campuses. At the sametime, professors, deans, and rectors recognized that their options were limited in tryingto ignore or curtail increasingly radical student demands. One response was to closedissecting rooms for periods of time when students sought to hold unauthorizedmeetings. In 1925, for example, Michał Reicher closed his faculty’s dissectingroom when Christian students warned him of their intention to block Jewish students

from participating in classes in anatomy.49

However, suspending lectures in conse-quence of student disturbances created major problems in the functioning of insti-tutions of higher education, particularly in the training of future physicians,50 sothis measure was deeply unsatisfactory to all concerned.




Although they generally rejected violence, the faculties of the schools of medi-cine appear often to have supported the Christian students’ agenda, at the very least

as a policy of appeasement. This was particularly evident in their appeals to Jewishcommunities and various state agencies for cooperation in obtaining corpses. Forexample, at the meeting of the Medical College of SBU on 7 November 1921, theUniversity Senate was advised to ask the city magistrate and the Health Departmentto pressure Jewish hospitals to transfer corpses to the Institute of DescriptiveAnatomy ( Zakład Anatomii Opisowej) on a par with the practice among Christian hospitals.51 The dean of the School of Medicine, Ernerst Maydell, urged the Senate that “thisenterprise needs to be carried through swiftly in view of the stance taken by theChristian academic youth vis-à-vis the Jewish group, a stance that could easily lead

to undesirable complications.”52

The Senate indeed complied, sending an officialletter to this effect on 12 November 1921.53 Similarly, in the fall of 1923, the rectorof Jan Kazimierz University in Lvov, the dean of its Medical School, and the headof its Institute of Anatomy remained passive when Christian students forcibly keptJewish colleagues away from the dissecting room.54

In Lvov, also in 1923, when Jewish students were prevented from entering thedissecting room, they responded by sending a delegation to the dean of their medicalcollege demanding administrative measures to safeguard their ability to study.55 The dean allegedly promised to help fight against what he considered unlawful

actions, while nevertheless describing the demands of the Christian youth as “just.” Hetherefore called upon Jewish students to join in efforts to secure Jewish cadavers forthe dissecting room, turning to the leadership of the Jewish community in Lvov forfurther support.56 Many university authorities adapted a similar attitude regarding themultiple and varied efforts to ghettoize Jewish students. Despite the autonomousstatus of the university, repeated riots forced responses from local administrations aswell as from the relevant ministries of Religious Affairs and Education ( MinisterstwoWyznań Religijnych i Oświecenia Publicznego), Internal Affairs ( Ministerstwo SprawWewnętrznych), and others, and once again, departments periodically closed dissecting

rooms to avoid disturbances.Given the constant pressure and the frequent violent disruptions to both lecturesand laboratory work in the dissecting room, the medical schools in Vilno, Lvov,Warsaw, and Cracow considered separating Jewish and non-Jewish cadavers andstudents to preserve peace and to keep schedules moving forward. Indeed, in somemedical colleges, the segregation of both corpses and students had become a socialreality by the mid-1920s, with the cadavers slated for Jewish students described as“funeral-less” (bezpogrzebowe).57 In February 1924, the Senate of Jan KazimierzUniversity in Lvov decided that Jewish students should use Jewish corpses in their

training.58

In Cracow, Jewish students for a time only received corpses once all theChristian students had been supplied with specimens.59 Later, the Cracow MedicalDepartment voted in favor of a resolution that “Christian students should be assignedwork on Christian cadavers while Jewish students [work] on Jewish cadavers.”60




In December 1926, the Academic Senate of Warsaw University passed a regulationthat Jewish students needed Jewish specimens for their work in the dissecting room.

The Senate complained that despite the fact that Jews constituted about one-thirdof Warsaw’s population, and despite agreements with Jewish institutions, Jewishcorpses had not been delivered to the university, leading to altercations betweenChristian and Jewish students. The Senate decided that “students of Mosaic Faith”would only be allowed to participate in classes at the Institutes of Descriptiveand Topographic Anatomy and Surgery “to the extent possible” and “in accordancewith delivering a Jewish contingent” of corpses.61 The Academic Senate in Vilno fol-lowed with a similar resolution on 4 February 1927.62 The argument that Jews sharedduties as well as rights eventually led to the counting of corpses and even of indi-

vidual limbs to establish how many Jewish students would be entitled to enter ananatomy lab. Neither the decision of the Academic Senate of Warsaw University nor efforts

to appease the demands of Christian students, however, put an end to the affair. On12 March 1930, riots took place at Warsaw’s Anatomicum. Students from almost allof Warsaw’s institutions of higher learning—including students from the first andsecond years of medicine and from the Medical Military School (Szkoła PodchorążychSanitarnych)—joined in.63 According to the contemporary report of DeanKazimierz Orzechowski (1878–1942), “Later, the ‘victors’ marched to the University,

and in its courtyard they organized a rally under the banner ‘down with the Jews’”( precz z żydami).64 Following these incidents, the dissecting room was closed andlectures in anatomy were suspended for two weeks. During the spring semester, nonew incidents took place; nonetheless, in his annual report, Orzechowski bemoaned“the highly unpleasant incidents [ zajścia] between Christian students and Jews[między studentami chrześcijańskimi i żydami],” which he blamed on the unresolvedissue of Jewish cadavers, complaining that the quantity of Jewish corpses still did notmatch the contingent of Jewish students carrying out anatomical exercises in the first-and second-year courses in medicine.65 In the same context, Orzechowski declared

that university circles shared the opinion of academic youth in general that the“fanaticism of certain Jewish circles” ( fanatyzm pewnych sfer żydowskich), whichhindered the flow of Jewish cadavers to dissecting rooms, ought to be overcome.Orzechowski stated that he was familiar with the position of the “entire Jewishcommunity” (całe społeczeństwo żydowskie), which wanted to have Jewish doctors but did nothing to provide them with specimens for their studies.66 He also condemned progressive Jewish circles, including physicians, who looked to the government toresolve the matter and who appeared to think that burdening Christians with the dutyof providing all corpses was “completely natural” (rzecz zupełnie naturalna).67

On 18 June 1930, the Medical College in Warsaw issued a special resolution con-demning perpetrators of violence and imploring the ministries to find a legal resolu-tion that would include punishing those who might obstruct any future bill.68 DeanOrzechowski described the prospective law as a “bridge of harmony between the two




sectors of youth” and a “step forward in the bringing together of the two communitiesin the same state.”69 He concluded that it was up to Jewish society as to whether the

university would have to take action according to the 17 September 1926 resolutionof its Senate.70 On 12 March 1930, following the riots at Warsaw University’sMedical Department, Orzechowski expressed concern over the possibility of moreserious incidents in the future. He considered closing down of the prosectorium as a preventive measure, admitting that the lectures in descriptive anatomy had only goneforward without incident because “apparently Jewish students have been so far afraidto attend in order to avoid being attacked.”71 To avoid new incidents, the dean requestedthat the rector of the university cancel the lectures until the end of the trimester.Combined with a rule that canceled the students’ right to organize meetings,

Orzechowski hoped to prevent a “growing atmosphere of excitement and the tendencyto incite riots.”72 As the conflict continued, the dissecting room was often closed to allstudents; however, Jewish medical students complained that despite official pronounce-ments to this effect, their Christian colleagues were nevertheless allowed access tothe facilities.73

Indeed, the matter of Jewish corpses resurfaced regularly into the 1930s. In 1931,an argument in the dissecting room at Jagiellonian University led to Jewish students being barred from lectures and from lab classes in anatomy, and the university shutdown all classes for one week.74 In December 1935, this matter was discussed at the

Collegium Medicum of Jagiellonian University, which decided that its dean would be responsible for negotiations regarding Jewish cadavers.75 In the mid- to late-1930s,too, the problem persisted, notably at the medical school in Cracow, where the con-flict continued, often in brutal form.76

Warsaw’s Edward Loth: “An Outstanding Anti-Semite”?

While numerous medical faculty supported the general demand for provision of

Jewish corpses, Warsaw’s Edward Loth was particularly outspoken in his support forthe separation of Jewish and Christian students.77 Loth belonged to the core facultyinvolved in the introduction of new university courses at Warsaw in the fall of 1915,while the city was still under German occupation. He played a leading role in orga-nizing the future School of Medicine and the Institute of Descriptive Anatomy at5 Chałubińskiego Street (first the Zakład and later the Katedra Anatomii Opisowej),and he lectured at the Dental Academy ( Akademia Stomatologiczna) in Warsaw.78 Inaddition, Loth was widely known to his contemporaries for his anti-Semitic views.Indeed, the socialist newspaper Robotnik described him as “one of the more popular

professors of Warsaw University, known otherwise as an outstanding anti-Semite.”79

As one of the leading authorities in his field, he was instrumental in introducing thedemand for Jewish corpses as a condition for the enrollment of Jewish students inthe Department of Medicine at Warsaw.




In the second half of the 1920s, Loth sought ways to run the dissecting room thatwould make the lives of Jewish students difficult, such as making the closely watched

provision of Jewish cadavers a condition for their participation in autopsies.80

On26 June 1926, he issued a circular stating that, due to the shortage of Jewish corpses,students of the Mosaic Faith would not be allowed entry to classes unless such corpseswere provided from the Jewish community.81 In October 1926, further conflict in thedissecting room led to the decision to temporarily close the facility. In addition, a specialinvestigative committee, with Loth as a member, officially warned Jewish students thatthey would receive no specimens until Jewish corpses were made available.82

Toward the end of 1926, in the wake of the Academic Senate’s official demand forthe provision of Jewish corpses, Loth found himself at the center of a conflict con-

cerning the division of specimens in the dissecting room. Working closely with theJewish hospital in Warsaw, Jewish students had been able to provide eight bodies.Loth, however, considered this number insufficient, stating that Jewish studentswould not be eligible to participate in his classes until additional Jewish corpses arrived.Representatives of the Jewish students complained and asked the dean of the MedicalDepartment to intervene on their behalf so they could continue with their studies.83 Inresponse, the dean formed a special commission of the Medical Department, whichinterviewed both Christian and Jewish students as well as Loth and his assistant.84 Loth protested against giving any credence to the Jewish students’ complaints about their

alleged unfair treatment. He insisted that the Medical Department should find a way to punish the Jewish students who had dared to file an official complaint.85 However,despite his protestations, the commission recognized the difficulties undergone by theJewish students in obtaining the corpses and ordered him to distribute them.86

While Loth was entirely unsympathetic to the plight of Jewish students vis-à-visthe cadaver affair, his actions during the Second World War permit a different inter- pretation of his label as an “outstanding” anti-Semite. Not only had Loth rejected theuse of violence against Jewish students on university premises before the war, butduring the war he also actively risked his own life to help potential victims of the

Holocaust. According to postwar Jewish testimony, Loth provided shelter and con-tacts to some of his Jewish former students who managed to escape from the Warsawghetto.87 One of these students asked him to explain the paradox wherein a notoriousanti-Semite became “a savior of Jews,” and Loth reportedly stated that Nazi actionsagainst the Jews constituted what he considered to be crimes against humanity and thathe had made a personal decision “to oppose such crimes to the best of his ability.”88

Conclusions

The conflict in and around the dissecting room in the Second Polish Republic broughttogether an amalgamation of arguments about science and progress, fair division ofrights and responsibilities, and an alleged Jewish sense of religious and/or racial




superiority. The students who demanded that only Jewish corpses be dissected byJewish students described themselves as Christians with religious motivations, but

their arguments often referred interchangeably to religious and nationalist categoriesand concepts. Ultimately, the deeper, underlying meaning of the cadaver affair can befound in the desire to segregate Jews from non-Jews. At Warsaw, Vilno, Lvov, andCracow universities, corpses were ultimately divided according to religious orienta-tion. The desire for such a separation was further exemplified by the enforcement of amodus operandi in dissecting rooms in which Jewish and non-Jewish students workedand studied at separate tables, with the separation of Jewish from non-Jewish cadaverssegregating Jewish bodies even after death.

As the cadaver affair echoed the clash of Christian and Jewish religious taboos and

an emerging nationalist ideology, it also reflected the growth of anti-Jewish rhetoricin Polish society. When members of the Polish medical profession raised the ques-tion of equal rights for Jewish students, they drew into the debate a complex web of professional competition and envy, religious tensions, and attempts to segregate theJewish community. As such, the affair should be viewed as a component of anti-Jewish discourse among Polish intellectuals, who hid behind a veneer of scientificobjectivity while crafting and popularizing a language in which Jews were describedas dangerous aliens.

Finally, the affair provides a window onto the political strategies embraced by various

sections of Jewish society in interwar Poland when facing hardship or persecution.From the non-Jewish perspective, the cadaver affair might have represented a means by which to force Jews to break with their own religious tradition, and hence to become in a sense “Christianized” or at least more secular and assimilated. However,despite the religious prohibition, many Jewish doctors and medical students sawlittle wrong with providing Jewish corpses. What they rejected was the use of forceor coercion to bring about such an end and the implicit or actual segregation of Jewishstudents that the affair promoted. Indeed, student organizations—Jewish and non-Jewish—may have clashed over the issue of Jewish and Christian corpses, but, in

a more general sense, their disagreement was over the place of Jewish students atPolish universities. Thus, the disturbances in and around the dissecting rooms inVilno, Warsaw, Cracow, and Lvov served as a litmus test for Polish-Jewish relationsand for competing visions of the place of Jews in the newly reborn nation-state.

Notes

1. See Kazimierz Orzechowski, Sprawozdanie z działalności Wydziału Lekarskiego UniwersytetuWarszawskiego w roku akademickim 1929/30 (od 1 września 1929 do 31 maja 1930 r.) (Warsaw: WydziałLekarski Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 1930), 13–5.

2. YIVO Archives, RG 348, f. 137, Report entitled “Anti-Jewish Outrages in Poland,” April 193[?]. 3. See Sprawozdanie z działalności Wydziału Lekarskiego Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego w roku

akademickim 1929/30, 13–5.




4. See Protocol of the General Rally of the Polish Academic Youth on 12 November 1926 in ŚniadeckiAudytorium ( Protokuł wiecu ogólnoakademickiego młodzieży polskiej w dniu 12 listopada 1926 r. w AuliŚniadeckich), LCVA (Central Lithuanian State Archives, Vilnius), 175, I A 1, folder 101, p. 13.

5. See Raphael Mahler, “Jews in Public Service and the Liberal Professions in Poland, 1918-39,” Jewish Social Studies 4 (October 1944): 342–6.

6. For example, in Cracow, the dean of Collegium Medicum referred to the issue of providing cadaversfor the anatomical prosectorium already in early March 1920. See Archiwum Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego(AUJ, Archives of Jagiellonian University), Wydział Lekarski (Medical Department, WL) II 68, Protocolsof the sessions of the medical faculty ( Protokoły posiedzeń grona profesorów nauk lekarskich w UJ),6 March 1920, l. 471; and ibid., 26 March 1920, l. 471.

7. See Andrzej Śródka, “Odrodzony Uniwersytet Warszawski,” in Marcin Łyskanowski, AndrzejStapiński, and Andrzej Śródka, eds., Dzieje nauczania medycyny i farmacji w Warszawie (1789-1950) (Warsaw: Państwowy Zakład Wydawnictw Lekarskich, 1990), 262–3. Passing exams in the first andsecond year constituted a prerequisite for a student to continue his or her studies. See the decrees ofthe Ministry of Religion and Education ( Rozporządzenie Ministerstwa Wyznań Religijnych i Oświecenia

Publicznego) of 16 March 1928 and 24 May 1930. See Halina Zwolska, “Wydział Lekarski (1849-1949),”in Jerzy Michalewicz, ed., Inwentarz Akt Wydziałów i Studiów Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego 1850-1939 (Cracow: Uniwersytet Jagielloński, 1954/1997), 142. Zwolska argued that “strong internal cohesivenesscharacterized the medical school, stemming from the very nature of studies in this field. It required theharmonious cooperation of an entire array of disciplines.” Ibid., 134.

8. See a circular letter signed by the Minister of Public Health ( Minister Zdrowia Publicznego)Hodźko, issued in Warsaw, 29 January 1923, to all the voivodes, AUJ, II S 674, p. 655, nr org 5222/23. Seealso a copy of the circular issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, issued in Warsaw, 5 September 1930,nr Z.H. 3169/30, issued to voivodes in Warsaw, Cracow, Lvov, and Vilno and to the commissar of the city

of Warsaw, LCVA, 175, IX B, 151, pp. 146–7. 9. See “Nituhei metim,” in Encyklopedia hilchatit refuit: Ha-rofe, ha-hole ve’ha-refua, vol. 5, ed.Abraham Steinberg (Jerusalem: Machon Shlezinger leheker harefua al-pi Halakha, 1996), 568–77.

10. See Celia Heller, On the Edge of Destruction: Jews of Poland between the Two World Wars (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1977), 119–25; Szymon Rudnicki, “From ‘numerus clausus’to ‘numerus nullus,’” in Antony Polonsky, ed., Studies from Polin: From Shtetl to Socialism (London:Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1993), 359–81; Emanuel Melzer, No Way Out: The Politics of

Polish Jewry 1935-1939 (Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College Press, 1997), 71–80.11. Rudnicki, “From ‘numerus clausus’ to ‘numerus nullus,’” 360.12. J. Zański, “U progu nowego roku akademickiego w medycynie,” Akademik Polski, October 1930.13. On the policies of numerus clausus in interwar Poland, see Rudnicki, “From ‘numerus clausus’ to

‘numerus nullus,’” 359–81; and Monika Natkowska, Numerus clausus, getto ławkowe, numerus nullus,“paragraf aryjski.” Antysemityzm na Uniwersytecie Warszawskim 1931-1939 (Warsaw: ŻydowskiInstytut Historyczny, 1999).

14. In the fall of 1917, the Medical Department at Jagiellonian University in Cracow decidedto “continue giving preference to Poles ahead of students of Jewish nationality,” AUJ, WL II 68,30 November 1917, l. 809.

15. See the summary of the speech delivered by Bernard Rusiecki—a delegate of Stow. MłodzieżyAkademickiej “Odrodzenie,” in the protocol of the rally of Polish academic youth on 12 November 1926(Protokuł wiecu ogólnoakademickiego młodzieży polskiej w dniu 12 listopada 1926 r. w Auli Śniadeckich),LCVA, 175, I A, 171, p. 16.

16. See letter sent by “Polonia” Fraternity in Vilno, dated 25 October 1926, L.dz. 173/26 to the Rector of

the University, signed by the secretary of “Polonia” W. Sawicki and chairman Heibert [?], LCVA, 175, I A,folder 171, p. 34.

17. See the Conclusions of the general convention of the Polish Academic Youth ( Polska Młodzież Akademicka) in Poznań, LCVA, 175, I A, folder 171, p. 79.




18. See Protokuł wiecu ogólnoakademickiego młodzieży polskiej, LCVA, 175, I A 1, folder 101, 14.19. Zański, “U progu nowego roku akademickiego w medycynie.”20. Protokuł wiecu ogólnoakademickiego młodzieży polskiej, LCVA, 175, I A 1, folder 101, 14.

21. Ibid.22. See “Trupia sprawa,” in Trybuna Akademicka 11–12:31–32(November-December 1926):

Rok IV, 6–7.23. Polish Jews at the time composed approximately 10 percent of the general population. In relation to

this figure, Jews, due to the religious commandment that all males read, write, and study, were almost always“overenrolled” at universities. Moreover, the free professions of law and medicine had always been crucialfor Jews because they comprised keys to more lucrative and secure self-employment.

24. Lem, “Zmartwychstanie trupów,” Trybuna Akademicka 8:20(November-December 1925):Rok III, 3.

25. Ibid., 4.26. Ibid.27. Ibid.28. See the Petition of Jewish Physicians in Cracow who met at a rally on 12 April 1927, AUJ, II S 674.29. See the resolution of the general meeting of Jews—students at Stefan Batory University on 13

November 1926 and sent by the board of their association to the rector of the University in Vilno, dated18 November 1926, LCVA, 175, 1 I A, folder 171, 4.

30. See LCVA, 175, I A 1, folder 101, 128. According to the contemporary lecture by one of the rep-resentatives of Christian students at Vilno, the corpse affair was initiated in 1919. However, one studentannouncement draws on the example of Romania; see Protokuł wiecu ogólnoakademickiego, LCVA, 175,I A 1, folder 101, 13.

31. In September 1936, the Association of Jewish Medical Students in Cracow (Koło Medyków Żydów

UJ) submitted a memorial, but it failed to change the resolution that had been passed earlier. See AUJ, WLII 405, 25 September 1936, l. 1218: memoriał koła medyków Żydów UJ w sprawie prac prosektoryjnych.32. In 1927 r., Jewish physicians submitted a memorandum concerning the cadavers discussed by the

Medical Department; see AUJ, WL 71, 17 June 1927, l. 973.33. “Kronika: Ze Lwowa: Sprawa zwłok żydowskich we Lwowie,” in Trybuna Akademicka

1:3(February 1924): Rok II, 8.34. Lem, “Zmartwychstanie trupów,” 3.35. Ibid., 4.36. Grzegorz Brożek, “Ruch studentów medycyny w Uniwersytecie Stefana Batorego w Wilnie w

latach 1919-1939,” Archiwum Historii i Filozofii Medycyny 62:3(1999): 208–9.37. The association was initiated by Professor Stanisław Władyczko. Overall, the Medical Caucuses

( Medyczne Koła Naukowe) in Warsaw, Cracow, Lvov, Vilno, and Poznań belonged to the National Unionof Medical Associations (Ogólnopolski Związek Akademickich Towarzystw Medycznych), which published its own press organ, Życie Medyczne. See Brożek, “Ruch studentów medycyny w UniwersytecieStefana Batorego w Wilnie w latach 1919-1939,” 209.

38. Józef Brudziński supported the establishment of Peer Aid at Warsaw University (Bratnia PomocUniwersytetu Warszawskiego) and was the first patron of the Medical Club (Koło Medyków). SeeŚródka, “Odrodzony Uniwersytet Warszawski,” 266.

39. See Protokuł wiecu ogólnoakademickiego młodzieży polskiej, LCVA, 175, I A 1, folder 101,13–4.

40. Ibid.41. Ibid., 14.

42. The same Senate meeting rejected the application for a general Jewish student organization at theuniversity— Wzajemna Pomoc Studentów-Żydów. See Dawid Fajgenberg, “Bolesna uchwała,” Trybuna

Akademicka 6:8(July 1924): 2–3.




43. See Brożek, “Ruch studentów medycyny w Uniwersytecie Stefana Batorego w Wilnie w latach1919-1939,” 214–5.

44. In October 1930, the Faculty of Medicine of the Jagiellonian University established a scholarship

foundation for Jewish students of medicine; see AUJ, WL II 72, Protokoły posiedzeń grona profesorównauk lekarskich w UJ, 4 October 1930, l. 2196.

45. Historians of Polish-Jewish relations have typically discussed this phenomenon only in the contextof one or another specific university. See Natkowska, Numerus clausus, getto ławkowe, numerus nullus; andAleksander Srebrakowski, “Sprawa Wacławskiego. Przyczynek do historii relacji polsko-żydowskich naUniwersytecie Stefana Batorego w Wilnie,” Przegląd Wschodni IX, z. 3:35(2004): 575–601.

46. According to Brożek, Reicher was hidden during the war by a surgeon at Stefan Batory University,Kornel Michejda (1887–1960), who was recognized as Righteous among the Nations in 1992. SeeBrożek, “Ruch studentów medycyny w Uniwersytecie Stefana Batorego w Wilnie w latach 1919-1939,”211–2. See also Śródka, “Odrodzony Uniwersytet Warszawski,” 264.

47. Protokuł wiecu ogólnoakademickiego młodzieży polskiej w dniu 12 listopada 1926 r., LCVA, 175,I A 1, folder 101, 14.

48. See for example the appeal issued by A. Januszkiewicz, rector of Stefan Batory University, on9 November 1931 entitled “Do ogółu Młodzieży Akademickiej Uniwersytetu Stefana Batorego,” LCVA,175, I A, folder 171, p. 36, Rektor USB, L. 1286, ex. 1931/32.

49. Protokuł wiecu ogólnoakademickiego młodzieży polskiej w dniu 12 listopada 1926 r., LCVA, 175,I A 1, folder 101, 14.

50. Professor Adam Czyżewicz, while serving as the dean of the Medical College at Warsaw, complained of four problems with which his department struggled in 1936–1937: the catastrophic conditionof classrooms and buildings, the shortage of assistants and of institutes, the lack of financial resources forresearch and experiments, and the frequent suspensions of lectures as a consequence of student distur-

bances, which was particularly problematic in the School of Medicine. See Sprawozdanie z działalnościWydziału Lekarskiego Uniwersytetu Józefa Piłsudskiego w Warszawie, w roku akademickim 1936/37 ,Opracował Dziekan prof. dr. Adam Czyżewicz (Warsaw, Uniwersytet Warszawski, 1938), 7–10.

51. LCVA, 175, I A 1, folder 101, p. 126, Medical Department of Stefan Batory University, L. 97, 10 November 1921.

52. Ibid.53. Ibid.54. “Kronika: Ze Lwowa: Sprawa zwłok żydowskich we Lwowie,” Trybuna Akademicka 1:3(luty 1924):

Rok II, 8.55. Ibid., 8–9.56. Ibid.

57. AUJ, WL II 405, 30 June 1937, l. 961: Sprawa odrabiania prac na żydowskich zwłokach bezpogr-zebowych na III r. Ref. Prof. Rogalski. See also 24 September 1937, l. 961: Sprawa odrabiania prac nażydowskich zwłokach bezpogrzebowych na III r. Ref. Prof. Rogalski. The Medical Department decided“to follow the decision made last year.”

58. See the copy of a letter sent by the dean of the Medical Department in Lvov to the MedicalDepartment in Warsaw, dated 29 December 1926, Lvov, L. 479 ex. 26/27, AUW, RP, Wydział Lekarski(Medical Department, WL), 2, p. 56. The documents pertaining to the cadaver affair in the MedicalDepartment of Warsaw University Archives were deemed “secret.”

59. See a copy of a letter from the Medical Department, Jagiellonian University, L. 1990 to the Officeof the Dean of the Medical Department in Warsaw, Archiwum Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego (Archives ofWarsaw University, AUW), RP, WL, 2, p. 57.

60. AUJ, WL II 405.61. The law was passed on 17 December 1926. See the copy in AUW, RP, WL-8, p. 41. The Senate

repeated the argument that Jews, by not providing corpses, were in practice privileged in the context of ageneral shortage of corpses. It expressed hope that the Ministry would pass a law ordering the provisionsof corpses.




62. See Professor Michał Reicher’s letter, “Do rektora,” dated 9 November 1931, pp. 34–4 verte.63. Sprawozdanie z działalności Wydziału Lekarskiego Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego w roku akademickim

1929/30, 13–5.

64. Ibid., 14.65. Ibid., 13–5. The dean reported with relief that, during the spring semester when the students were

supposed to carry out exercises on the brain, he was able to secure some Jewish brains thanks to hiscooperation with Dr. Płońskier of the Jewish hospital on Czyste Street. The dean expressed his “heartfeltgratitude” ( serdeczne podziękowanie) to Dr. Płońskier. See ibid., 14.

66. Ibid., 14.67. Ibid., 15.68. Ibid., 14–5.69. Ibid., 15.70. Ibid.71. See the letter of the dean to the rector of Warsaw University, dated 15 March 1930, L. 615/30,

AUW, RP, WL-27, p. 1.72. Ibid. Regarding the decision to prohibit unauthorized meetings of students, see the letter from the

dean of the Medical Department to the rector of the University, L. 614/30, Warsaw, 15 March 1930. AUW,RP, WL-27, p. 2.

73. See note submitted by Professor Roman Nitch on behalf of Jewish students addressed to therector of Warsaw University, expressing the complaint that Christian students were allowed to work inthe dissecting room, 18 March 1930, AUW, RP, WL-27, p. 3.

74. “Zajścia antyżydowskie,” Akademik Polski, December 1931, as discussed in Rudnicki, “‘NumerusClausus’ to ‘Numerus Nullus,’” 367.

75. See AUJ, WL II 405, 13 December 1935, l. 1861. The Medical Department decided that the dean

was to carry on negotiations with regard to obtaining Jewish corpses.76. The issue was discussed in January and October 1936; see AUJ, WL II 405, 31 January 1936, l.170. Ibid., 23 October 1936, l. 1791. In October, a special commission was established to investigate thematter, including the issue of so-called ghetto benches. On this issue see for example AUJ, WL II 405, 29October 1937.

77. According to one of his former students, Loth supported both the introduction of ghetto benchesand numerus clausus. See testimony submitted by Dr. Ludwik Marceli Sztabholz, Yad Vashem Archives,0.3, 861.

78. Śródka, “Odrodzony Uniwersytet Warszawski,” 262. See also Loth’s letter to physicians, datedOctober 1934, entitled “Wielce Szanowny Panie doktorze!” AAN, MWRiOP, 4031, p. 50.

79. “Sensacyjne pogłoski o ustąpieniu prof. Uniwersyt.,” Robotnik , 15 January 1935, AAN, MWRiOP,

4031, p. 59. Although Loth fought in Józef Piłsudski’s Legions during the First World War, he subsequentlysympathized with the politics of National Democracy.80. Władysław Bartoszewski, “Po obu stronach muru,” in Władysław Bartoszewski and Zofia

Lewinówna, eds., Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej: Polacy z pomocą Żydom 1939-1945 (Warsaw: Świat Książki,Stowarzyszenie ŻIH, 2007), 51. See also “Zamiast wstępu: Rozmowa redaktora Mariana Turskiego, prez-esa Stowarzyszenia ‘Żydowski Instytut Historyczny,’ z Władysławem Bartoszewskim,” ibid., xix.

81. “Okólnik,” Akademik Polski, 20 January 1927, as discussed in Rudnicki, “‘Numerus Clausus’ to‘Numerus Nullus,’” 366.

82. Later, a commission composed of faculty members in cooperation with associations of medicalstudents ( Koło medyków and Żydowskie Stowarzyszenie Medyków) was to take responsibility for provid-ing Jewish corpses. See a copy of the report signed by Professors Jerzy Modrakowski, Roman Nitsch, and

Edward Loth, issued in Warsaw, 28 October 1926, AUW, WL-2, p. 53.83. See a copy of a complaint filed by the Association of Jewish Medical Students (Żydowskie

Stowarzyszenie Medyków), addressed to the Council of the Medical Department (Rada Wydziału




Lekarskiego), issued in Warsaw on 4 February 1927 and signed by P. Rajchman, vice chair of the Associationof Jewish Medical Students, and by its secretary, Mieczysław Weintal, AUW, WL-2, p. 55 verte.

84. See the Protocol of the Medical Department’s Commission at Warsaw University, 5 February

1927 (Protokuł z posiedzenia komisyi Wydziału Lekarskiego UW, wybranej na posiedzeniu w dniu4 lutego 1927 dla rozpatrzenia i wyjaśnienia sprawy zatargu o zwłoki żydowskie w prosektorium, orazdla wydania, przy najdalej idących pełnomocnictwach, zarządzeń potrzebnych dla możliwie szybkiegozlikwidowania sprawy), AUW, WL-2, pp. 58–62 verte. See also the Protocol of the Second Session ofthe same commission, 8 February 1927 (Protokuł z II posiedzenia komisji Wydziału Lekarskiego UW),ibid., pp. 63–4.

85. See the Protocol of the Fourth Session of the Medical Department’s Commission, Elected on4 February 1927, 17 February 1927, pp. 69–71 ( Protokuł z IV posiedzenia Komisji Wydziału LekarskiegoUW, wybranej na posiedzeniu w dniu 4 lutego 1927 dla rozpatrzenia i wyjaśnienia sprawy zatargu o

zwłoki żydowskie w prosektorium, oraz dla wydania, przy najdalej idących pełnomocnictwach, zarządzeń potrzebnych dla możliwie szybkiego zlikwidowania sprawy), AUW, WL-2.

86. See the Protocol of the Medical Department’s Commission at Warsaw University, 5 February 1927,AUW, WL-2, pp. 58–62 verte. Loth pointed to technical difficulties in carrying out the Commission’sdecision, insisting that it belittled his prestige and allowed Jewish students to behave in an arrogant fashion.He argued that the commission should make an official statement that would make it clear that the grantingof permission to dissect was in this case merely a gesture of good will on the part of the department whilereminding the students to continue to seek Jewish corpses. See copy of Loth’s letter to the dean of the MedicalDepartment, dated 10 February 1927, AUW, WL-2, pp 66 verte. See also his letter dated 11 February 1927,ibid., 67.

87. A member of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), Loth, to this author’s knowledge, left no writtenrecord of his wartime assistance to Jews. He was killed in the Warsaw Uprising in September 1944. See

testimony submitted by Dr. Ludwik Marceli Sztabholz, Yad Vashem Archives, 0.3, 861.88. Ibid.

Natalia Aleksiun is an assistant professor of modern Jewish history at Touro College, Graduate Schoolof Jewish Studies, New York. She studied Polish and Jewish history at the Warsaw University, theGraduate School of Social Studies in Warsaw, and Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She received herfirst doctorate from Warsaw University in 2001. Her dissertation appeared in print as Where To? The

Zionist Movement in Poland, 1944-1950 (in Polish) in 2002. In 2010, she received her second PhDfrom New York University based on her dissertation entitled “Ammunition in the Struggle for NationalRights: Jewish Historians in Poland between the Two World Wars.” She has taught at Jagiellonian

University in Cracow and Collegium Civitas in Warsaw. Many of her articles have been published inscholarly journals.

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