Volume 192 - Issue 11
A lifetime pursuit of diabetes through chance
Author: Wladyslaw W Smolilo
Med J Aust 2010; 192 (11): 670-671. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2010.tb03678.x
Published online: 7 June 2010
Published online: 7 June 2010
To the Editor: In the December 2009 issue of the MJA, I came across an interesting article by Dr Paul Zimmet, “A lifetime pursuit of diabetes through chance”.1 This is an account of his impressive achievements in medicine.
However, I disagree with the statement that describes his father’s situation in 1930s Poland: “He returned to an unpaid position in the Tarnopol Hospital — unpaid because Jewish doctors could not be ‘officially’ employed in Poland.”
I argue that, in Poland at that time, there was no discrimination against national minorities, and this applied to the Jewish minority as well.2 I have done some research on the subject. There were 3.5 million Jewish people in Poland before the war — 10% of the population. According to numerous historical sources, Jewish doctors represented 34% of doctors in Poland in 1938. In the Polish capital, Warszawa, this percentage was 66%. The same sources quote the percentage of lawyers of Jewish origin as 55%.3,4 These numbers are a tribute to the talents and assertiveness of Polish Jews; however, they do not support the statement by Zimmet that I am disputing.
In Polish archives, I have discovered statistical documents containing alphabetical lists of all doctors registered in Poland between 1936 and 1938.5 According to these documents, there were two hospitals in Tarnopol at that time: the General Hospital and a Jewish hospital. In the official register of all Polish doctors practising between 1936 and 1938, I have not found the name of Dr Jacob Zimmet. He was not registered as a doctor, and therefore could not legally be employed as a doctor in Tarnopol or any other Polish hospital.
References
- Zimmet PZ. A lifetime pursuit of diabetes through chance. Med J Aust 2009; 191: 632-636.
- Davies N. Norman Davies on Polish history. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OoSdnebLxw (accessed May 2010).
- Micinska M. [Jewish intelligentsia in Poland] [Polish]. The Canadian Foundation of Polish-Jewish Heritage, May 2002. http://polish-jewish-heritage.org/pol/inteligencja_zydowska.htm (accessed May 2010).
- [Webpage of the contemporary Jewish Community in Poland. History of Polish Jews. Second Polish Commonwealth.] [Polish]. http://www.badacz.org/izrael/zydzi_w_polsce/dzieje_rzeczypospolita.html (accessed May 2010).
- Digital Library of Wielkopolska. [Medical Statistics Yearbooks of the Commonwealth of Poland, 1936–1938; Official Register of Doctors In Poland, 1936–1938] [Polish]. http://www.wbc.poznan.pl/publication/55999 (accessed May 2010).