Rudolf
Stefan Weigl (1883–1957) was a prominent physician, biologist, and immunologist
known for inventing a vaccine against epidemic typhus. Due to the significance
and recognition of his scientific achievements, Weigl became a professor and
head of the Department of General Biology at Lviv University in 1920. The
Typhus Research Institute, known as Weigl’s Institute, was established within
this department. Both during the Soviet occupation of Lviv and after the
arrival of German troops, Professor Weigl remained the head of this institute.
The scientist retained his position because the vaccine he had developed was
intended for military use. Initially, the Institute was located at the Faculty
of Biology of the Jan Kazimierz University (ul. Św. Mikołaja, now vul.
Hrushevskoho). During the war, the institute was provided with an additional
large building — the premises of the former women's gymnasium (now the
Institute of Blood Pathology of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine at vul.
Henerala Chuprynky 45).
The professor soon realized that the identification
card of an employee of his Institute could basically protect one from a sudden
arrest, as the Gestapo avoided contact with people potentially infected with
typhus. This disease occupied a special place in the Nazi racial ideology as it
was believed that typhus, transmitted by lice, was characteristic of "parasitic
inhumans." Nazi propaganda often portrayed Jews as carriers of typhus.
Professor Weigl began hiring people who were in particular danger, most notably
members of the resistance movement and left-wing intellectuals. The certificate
of his institute employee could save from persecution or forced deportation to
the Third Reich. The technology of vaccine production required cultivation of
the desease carriers in large quantities. They needed to be fed on humans. For
this purpose, special bracelets with a membrane were created, which were worn
on the arm or on the leg of "lice feeders." There was a huge staff of
vaccinated "donors" who fed these insects. In addition to the
certificate, the employees of the institute also received some food aid, which
was very valuable in the conditions of wartime food shortages. According to
various estimates, Weigl saved about 5,000 people (including Jewish scientists
such as Ludwik Fleck and the Maisls). The vaccine, produced at the Institute,
was smuggled to the Lviv and Warsaw ghettos, concentration camps and Gestapo
prisons. Thus, Zbigniew Stuchły, an employee of the Weigl Institute, recalled
as follows:
At
the initial stage of the Lviv ghetto creation, Weigl commissioned me to give a
lecture for Jewish doctors on the typhus vaccine there. In addition, as long as
it was possible, he kept in touch through me with Dr. Adam Finkel, our
researcher, who was locked up in the ghetto and then in the camp on ul. Janowska.
(Zbigniew
Stuchły, Wspomnienia o Rudolfie Weiglu, 1959)
After the war, Professor Weigl lived in Krakow
and continued his studies at the Jagiellonian and Poznan universities. Despite
his significant scientific achievements and worldwide fame, his career
opportunities in the Polish People's Republic remained limited due to his
German origins and constant accusations of collaborating with the Nazis. Weigl
died in 1957 in Zakopane. In 2003, he was named one of the Righteous Among the
Nations for rescuing Jews during the Holocaust.
