Warsaw 1939 - 1945, Page from Magazine
The destruction of Warsaw, pre-war Warsaw
A page layout from Poland of Today
Alex Chen
Poland of Today. May 1946 Issue, p. 11.
1939-1946
Page Layout, Photograph
The Marie Curie-Sklodowska Institute in Warsaw, in 1945 and 1947, Reconstruction
Polish science and medicine, Reconstruction, Warsaw
Marie Curie, with friends family, and governmental support, was able to set up the Radium Institute in Warsaw. "A prominent group of American women, close friends of Madame Curie and devoted to the cause of America's fight against cancer, donated one gram of radium to the Institute. Thus Poland was able to take up her own large-scale fight against scourge of this mankind." The Institute was a hospital, lab, and library, but was closed and then partially destroyed during the war. The hospital continued operating until August 1944, the Warsaw Uprising. The Gestapo sought the radium that was hidden in the building, (1 gram hidden, 720 mg was handed over to the Germans). After the Warsaw Uprising, the Germans destroyed the building, killed the staff and patients (or moved them to Concentration Camps) and moved expensive equipment like X-rays back to Germany. The director was able to bribe a few German soldiers and rescue the radium amidst the ruins. After the war, the statue of Marie-Curie, like that of Copernicus, was left intact underneath the rubble. The Institute was restored with the aid of UNRRA resources. The photograph on the left was taken in 1945, the image on the right was taken in 1947.
Alex Chen
Poland of Today, April, 1947 Issue. p. 12-13.
1932-1947
Photograph
Kosciuszko Hospital
Polish Medical Mission
The Kosciuszko Hospital was the joint effort of the Unitarian Service Committee's Polish Medical Team and ZUS, the Polish Social Insurance Agency. The team was tasked with repairing and restocking the hospital, including importing the latest American hospital equipment and machinery, to serve the miners in the region. The focus of the hospital was, and remains to be, traumatic surgery.
Alex Chen
Work 47. USCA, Audiovisual Records, Photographs, 1941-1986, bMS 16181/5 (6) , Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard University
1930-2015
Andover-Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Archives
Photograph
Hospital ward in disrepair, Piekary Hospital
Polish Medical Mission
By the time the Polish Medical Team had arrived, the found the hospital abandoned and empty, having been previously occupied and looted by the Germans and the Russians. There were no supplies, no equipment, and even the sinks were ripped out, except for a strange stockpile of toilet paper rolls. The Miners' Insurance company had owned the hospital, but agreed to sell it to the National Social Insurance Agency, with the Miner's Insurance company taking care of the renovations. The renovations went far beyond the estimated time, resulting in the hospital being open more than a year after the team hard arrived.
Alex Chen
Work 3. USCA, Audiovisual Records, Photographs, 1940-1980, bMS 16076/6 (20) , Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard University
1930-2015
Andover-Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Archives
Photograph