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The Jewish Doctor Who Tricked The Nazis

one of the darkest times in the history of medicine occurred during the Holocaust in the midst of World War II Nazis performed horrific experiments on Jewish prisoners one of the worst was using Jews as guinea pigs for various vaccines that would ultimately be sent to the Nazi soldiers fighting on the front lines while these accounts are tragic it's actually not the entire story what the Nazis didn't realize is that within the walls of a single concentration camp one team of starving Jewish prisoners POS a scientist pulled off a daring and deadly act of sabotage this is the story of those Heroes by 1941 Hitler had taken all of Poland his tanks rolled through the cities and villages with ease claiming the land for the Nazis the Outlook was Bleak for the poles especially the Polish Jews who were forced into ghettos with barely any food or medicine needed to survive amongst the thousands of prisoners confined to these walls was Dr Ludwick Fleck a Jewish biologist he had been a prominent member of the academic community in Poland with a lovely wife and son at home he witnessed his homeland get rocked by the war it was threatened by the Nazis then taken by the Soviets then taken back by the Nazis again surrounded by death either from famine sickness or the end of a Nazi rifle Flex dayto day was terrifying but his work never came to a close while leaving the ghetto meant almost certain death fle had protected status thanks to his academic Mentor a man named Dr Rudolph wiel similar to Oscar Schindler who saved the lives of 1200 Jews in the war by hiring them to work in his factories Dr wiel similarly protected as many Jews as he could by enlisting them in the fight against the only threat that could rival the Nazis a disease known as typhus you see living conditions within the ghettos were a nightmare with thousands of freezing hungry people crammed into the few remaining houses and apartments this made it a breeding ground for all sorts of disease one of the worst was called typhus humans typically get sickened by the typhus bacteria from body lice this is different from hair lice that you commonly get checked for in school you see body lice live inside clothing waiting for an opportunity to attach themselves to a host life in the ghettos was harsh and cold meaning people would go weeks if not months without removing their clothes so they could stay warm after a long while body lice would eventually emerge from the clothing fibers and begin feeding on their blood once full the lice would leave their tyus ridden waist on the skin and crawl back into the clothes for Sleep their bites would turn into itchy sores causing people to scratch creating micro tears in the skin and an entry way for the typhus bacteria to get into the bloodstream several days later a headache and fatigue would ensue a few more days and skin would turn pale and reflexes would slow tiny red circles would pop up on the arms shoulders and torso a raging fever up to 108° ravaged their bodies with loss of control of bowels and the worst symptom of all hallucinations patients would lie in bed for days covered in sweat and human waste tossing and turning as they screamed into the void lashing out at imaginary people and vocalizing horrific nightmares the more well equipped hospitals use straps to tie patients to their beds so they wouldn't attack the staff or leap through glass windows and attempt to escape the nightmares one doctor likened a typhus War to an insane asylum for those lucky enough to fight off the infection they were sometimes left deaf or with a profound loss of their own memory typhus impacted virtually every corner of the European side during World War II killing thousands of Jews including Anne Frank to combat tyus Dr wiel worked with Dr Fleck to develop potential vaccines he employed a small army of his own called Lous feeders who were permitted to leave the ghettos every day and sit in rooms where lights were intentionally allowed to fight them however these were clean lights that didn't carry typhus this was a crude way to sort of harvest the bacteria in order to facilitate the creation of a typhus vaccine being a Lous feeder was not exactly glamorous work but it was considered a job in the eyes of the Nazis which would keep another Jew alive together Dr wegel and Dr Flex spent countless hours working on this vaccine mastering the craft they had something that worked but it needed fine-tuning unfortunately despite their efforts the Nazis continued to tighten their grip though wigel and Fleck had made enormous progress on the typhus vaccine Fleck and his family were sent to owitz a notoriously brutal Nazi death camp while wigel under threat was forced to continue helping the Nazis meanwhile the Nazis were panicking typhus wasn't just ravaging ghettos but also Nazis fighting on the front lines they went months without bathing huddled in Russian trenches never changing out of their filthy uniforms for fear of freezing the Nazis may have been winning the war against Europe but they were certainly losing the battle against Mother Nature it was going to take a brilliant Nazi scientist to save the day which sounded like the perfect opportunity for Dr Ding the Nazi army is full of Infamous characters but few were as pathetic as a weasel named Irwin ding a hustler who quickly Rose through the ranks of the Nazi party he began his career as a diligent member of Hitler's secret police maintaining meticulous notes about his assignments and expense reports for which he received High marks Dr Ding didn't want to be a cop though he always dreamed of being a world-renowned physician a path he hoped to achieve by climbing through the military ranks of the Nazi party ding did fumble his way through Nazi medical school and wrote a dissertation on night terrors in children he skated through a cushy residency at the secret police barracks in Berlin and was ultimately assigned to be the main doctor at binwall a labor camp designed to extract work out of Nazi enemies until they died despite his success in Nazi la enforcement he didn't exactly make for a brilliant doctor but he knew that if he could solve the naz's typhus problem he'd be a hero in the eyes of Hitler so what's a bad doctor to do if he's trying to end a pandemic well he was a Nazi so he lied and cheated Dr Ding scoured buen Wald looking for imprisoned Jews who also happened to be doctors he pulled them off their labor Crews locked them in Block 50 until they could find a cure for typhus one that he would ultimately take credit for of course it might have worked too had he not been so stupid that the prisoner secretly nicknamed him Dr dumpu I don't think you need a direct translation to get that one his first mistake he didn't actually pull together a group of world-class scientists his All-Star team was actually composed of a few doctors a physicist a politician a pastry chef and a gym teacher when asked if they had experience in developing vaccines they all kned their heads an easy lie to tell if it gets you off work duty and an easy lie to get away with if your boss is a dump cuff nevertheless the team got to work and actually they had some decent tools at their disposal while the Nazis had bulldozed their way through Europe they didn't destroy everything and had actually filled block 50 with some of the finest laboratory equipment they'd stolen from the best universities across the continent there were also instructions on how to make the vaccine born out of the work that Dr wigel and Dr Fleck had done in Poland years prior but they weren't simple first Dr Ding would have to intentionally give tyus to jewi Jewish prisoners their blood would then be drawn and passed on to guinea pigs then mice then rabbits where it found a home in the rabbit's lungs and could be collected as a weakened form of typhus that could be used as a vaccine in humans the booken Wald scientists followed instructions to the best of their abilities but as you can tell it wasn't a straightforward process they tried over and over but they couldn't get it to work Dr Ding was getting furious but what was he going to do he wasn't smart enough to create the vaccine himself and he had already pulled together the smart gym teachers in the concentration camp he needed help so he picked up the phone and started recruiting from other concentration camps anyone got a good scientist the team at owitz answered the call they had a scientist working in their lab they'd be happy to send over his name Dr Ludwick Fleck sound familiar after being taken from Poland Fleck along with his wife and son had been prisoners working at a lab in owitz for most Jews a trip to owitz was a death sentence oddly enough it may have actually saved flex's life as going to a death camp that had a lab in need of Staffing was a reprieve one day the oswit officers grabbed Fleck and tossed him in a private car Jews here didn't usually get dragged out of the camp which made him really confused Ludwick stared back as he was driven away not knowing where he was going and fearing he'd never see his wife and son again the terrified Fleck arrived at the gates of buken Wald and was introduced to Dr Ding the Nazis needed a typhus vaccine so badly they had plenty of resources and in a production process they assured him would work there was a team of brilliant scientists in the lab waiting to go and help they just needed someone with more experience to take control and tell them what they've been doing wrong could he possibly help well yes of course he could this was a vaccine process Dr Fleck had helped develop he knew it inside and out Dr Ding smiled his dreams of being rewarded by Hitler were closer to becoming true he would receive medals he'd get a big salary maybe he'd even have his face put on the new Nazi currency everything was coming up ding so he tossed Fleck into the lab and shut the door it was time to get to work Dr Fleck reviewed the entire manufacturing process auditing every step of the routine and double-checking everyone's work turns out the team had made a simple mistake what they thought were typhus bacteria were actually just rabbit white blood cells they'd been putting rabbit cells into the vaccine not typhus Fleck had done it he'd identified the problem and once corrected would be able to start producing typhus vaccines for Nazis fighting on the front lines that's when things got really interesting as Fleck began to walk towards Dr ding's office with the great news the group stopped him maybe they shouldn't tell him it was there in that moment that a group of Jews trapped inside a concentration camp began one of the most brilliant cases of sabotage throughout the entire war they'd created a working vaccine against typhus and they were going to keep it for themselves they got started immediately Fleck went to Dr Ding with a false update he' corrected the production issues and they were now producing a functional vaccine Dr Ding beamed and demanded they swing into full production what do you need he asked rabbits Fleck responded lots of them and so the ruse began Fleck and the scientist began producing fake vaccines with white blood cells from rabbits and shipping them out to Nazis on the front line thousands of Nazi soldiers received the vaccines assumed they were immune from typhus and caught it anyway meanwhile Fleck and the scientists created a real vaccine marked it with a red dot on the label and distribute it amongst themselves using it on their fellow Jewish prisoners and all the rabbits after they were used to create effect the vaccines they were secretly cooked and shared amongst the starving Jews Dr Ding had no idea he began taking all the credit for the vaccine he thought was going to win them the war that was until he got a phone call from the Nazi headquarters in Berlin your vaccine it doesn't work his boss is Scream the soldiers on the front lines were dying just like before ding looked like a fool he hung up the phone stormed into the lab demanding Fleck explain himself despite his life being on the line Fleck remained calm he was ready for this impossible Fleck insisted our vaccine does work they must have ruined it during Transportation or administered it improperly Fleck handed ding a small sample of the real vaccine here send this to Berlin for testing it works I promise and of course it did Dr Ding was exonerated and no longer look like a fool all ding had to do is wait for the Nazis to win the war and Hitler would shower him with praise not if the Jews had something to say about it Fleck and his team of scientists continued their sabotage for 16 months they were able to save the lives of countless Jews in buken Wald and Aid in the pain and suffering of countless more Nazis on the front lines in April of 1945 the Americans liberated buen Wald and the war came to a close the story isn't quite over Dr Ludwick Fleck survived the Holocaust and was miraculously reunited with his family who had survived after being left in owitz he spent several years continuing his research in Poland until growing anti-Semitism drove him out he spent his final years with his family living and working in Israel in peace Dr wiel was not as lucky despite his countless efforts to save Jews and smuggle vaccines into the ghettos his reputation suffered after the war as many blamed him for working too closely with the Nazis he died in 1957 with an unfairly stained reputation the Nazis never even found out about Flex sabotage at least not until the war ended the truth didn't come to light until 1947 during the nurg trials where Nazis were tried for their horrific war crimes during a case about medical abuses two members of fleck's Team revealed what Fleck had done that he had given Nazis fake vaccines and kept the real ones for the Prisoners the Nazis standing trial were absolutely stunned Dr magowski a Nazi official who responsible for providing poison gas that killed millions of Jews was outraged in the courtroom saying these are some of the most curious remarks I have heard here their attitude has nothing in common with the concepts of humanity expressed by the gentleman here today the irony of this genocidal maniac's response criticizing Dr Fleck for his lack of medical ethics was not lost on the courtroom who broke out in laughter Dr magowski was found guilty of his crimes and sentenced to death currently typhus hasn't been eradicated entirely but it appears far less frequently than it used to these days we have better access to showers laundry and fresh clothes which prevents typhus carrying lice from embedding themselves in the fibers of our shirts and pants that being said typhus does emerge during specific conditions like War zones where people lose access to proper hygiene fortunately a simple dose of the antibiotic doxy cycl can be used to treat typhus an accessible cure Dr Ding could have only dreamt of 80 years ago but what if Dr wnding unfortunately for his victims he never stood trial for his crimes because he didn't make it that far de ding was arrested by American forces and was imprisoned while awaiting trial in his final letter written from jail he expressed fear for his wife panicking over how she would care for herself with all of his belongings seized by the authorities for whatever reason not long after Dr Ding was no longer living a year later his wife died of typhus Dr IGN smice was the first person to realize washing your hands could save your life and he was punished for it click here to check out that story and as always stay happy and healthy [Music]

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