Saving Rozwadów Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bad breath

Typhus is a bacterial disease that is essentially caused by poor sanitation. You can get it from infected fleas, mites or lice and although it is not contagious from person to person can infect a large number of people in the same area due to the presence of the infected invertebrates. Typhus causes a rash, headache, fever and chills.

A polish man who was issued a fourteen day absence from a German work camp came to see Dr. Lazowski pleading with him to help find a way to keep him out of the camp. Dr. Lazowski and his colleague Dr. Matulewicz used this man as a guinea pig, giving him an injection of a specific substance, then testing his blood. The man tested positive for typhus and the doctors decided on their plan for a typhus 'epidemic'.

Answer: Weil-Felix test

European microbiologists Arthur Felix and Edward Weil developed a test during World War I that was able to detect typhus. The Weil-Felix test was widely used during the Second World War and so the Polish doctors utilized this test in their fake epidemic.

The doctors decided to focus on anyone who came to them with an illness. They would give first give them an injection, draw blood from their "infected" patients and await the results. They advised their patients that they were injecting them with a protein stimulation therapy.

They didn't actually make anyone sick with typhus but instead injected a substance into people that mimicked the result of a positive typhus test.

Answer: This disease had wreaked havoc on German soldiers during WWI

The Polish doctors knew what they were doing when they faked a typhus epidemic. The Germans were terrified of typhus because of the havoc it had caused in the trenches during World War One. This was a big risk though because the Nazis were known for simply shooting Jews who had contracted typhus. In the case of the village of Rozwadów the Nazis wouldn't even enter the village at first. They were so nervous about the outbreak that they decided to quarantine it instead.

Lazowski mentioned in later interviews that he couldn't fight the Nazis with guns but could fight them in other ways, and one way was through fear.

Answer: 8,000

Lazowski and Matulewicz are credited with saving about 8,000 people. In Nazi-occupied Poland, the surrounding area was terrorized as people were rounded up for labour camps, death camps or simply executed. The two doctors carried out their plan in 1942 and 1943 and used a number of different methods to keep the ruse going. One method to ensure the Nazis would not simply come to the village to execute any sick Jews was to share positive results of non-Jewish people.

This helped to ensure the village stayed quarantined.

Answer: Urinary tract infections

In 1915 it was discovered that Proteus OX-19 reacted to the same human immune antibodies as typhus and so a test was developed for this and other related diseases. Lazowski and Matulewic injected sick patients with dead Proteus which gave false positive results for typhus. Proteus vulgaris is a bacteria found in soil, water and fecal matter and can cause wound infections as well as urinary tract infections.

Answer: Death penalty

Lazowski and Matulewic were extremely brave for the ruse that they pulled off. Helping Jews during the Holocaust was a crime punishable by death and likely preceded by arrest and torture by the Gestapo. The doctors did not tell anyone, not their wives nor the villagers, what they were doing.

They infected non-Jewish villagers with dead Proteus and would send the test out to other doctors who were not in on the plan who "discovered" the typhus on their own, adding to the credibility of the epidemic. Still, Lazlowski has stated in later interviews that he carried a cyanide pill with him, in case he was arrested.

Answer: True

At one terrifying point, the Nazis became suspicious because the dead villager bodies were simply not piling up, despite being in the middle of a supposedly deadly outbreak. They sent a team of German doctors to the village to see what was happening. Lazowski and Matulewic had food and alcohol on hand for the more senior team and the Germans sent junior doctors to tour the village for evidence. Lazowski and Matulewic had arranged for anyone who looked sick to be grouped together and showed to the German doctors, who took a cursory glance, saw sick people, became nervous, and reported back to their leaders that all was in order and there definitely was an outbreak.

Answer: 1977

Lazowski, the soft-spoken young Polish doctor, was on the Gestapo hitlist, not because of his efforts in Rozwadów, but because of his activities treating members of the Polish army. He was ironically only spared because of his fight against typhus. He received a warning that he was going to be arrested and left town but even years after the end of the war, was afraid to admit what he had done.

In the 1970s he moved to the USA and it was only after moving there that he admitted to anyone, including his wife, of the activities that had taken place in Rozwadów.

Answer: Rag tied to his fence

Lazowski treated members of the Polish resistance army and helped to save many villagers who otherwise might've been killed or sent to concentration camps. Before the scheme to create the fake epidemic, Lazowski helped anyone who was sick that came to him for help. Where he lived, he backed onto the Jewish ghetto and couldn't with a good conscience ignore people who needed his help.

He devised a plan that if a rag was tied to his fence, he would know that someone needed medical attention and he would go through a hole in the fence to the ghetto to administer care.

Answer: My Private War

The full title of the book that Dr. Lazowski wrote is "Private war: memoirs of a doctor soldier 1933-1944". The book was published in 1993 and when it was released in Poland made Lazowski and Matulewic heroes. They both returned to Poland to film a documentary and were given a heroes welcome. Lazowski has stated that he felt uncomfortable with the recognition because he was simply doing what he was trained to do, save lives.