This lecture examines the unique medical challenges and healthcare systems established by Jewish partisans in the forests of Lithuania and Belarus during World War II. It highlights how doctors, nurses, and medical staff operated behind enemy lines under extreme conditions and without proper infrastructure.
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and the subsequent breakout of Jews from ghettos into the dense forests, escapists faced severe environmental hazards. The constant humidity, harsh winters, poor nutrition, and lack of sanitation led to widespread illness, including scurvy, intestinal infections, frostbite, skin ulcers (such as furunculosis), and heavy infestations of body lice.
In these out-of-the-ordinary conditions, medical personnel had to display remarkable ingenuity and resourcefulness. Due to an acute shortage of supplies, medical teams smuggled equipment from ghettos or carried out raids on nearby villages to seize instruments, clothing, and medicine from hospitals. Many individuals who had not even finished their medical studies—such as medical student Shlomo (Sulka) Gorfinkel in the Rudnicki forest—became authoritative figures, performing complex surgeries like amputations and bullet extractions by candle power, often without proper anesthesia or surgical instruments, using homemade alcohol (samogon) to ease pain.
Prevention and hygiene were critical components of survival. Medical staff ordered the construction of underground bunker clinics (zemlyankas), steam bathhouses, and strict kitchen sanitation protocols to curb epidemics. Parachute fabric was frequently repurposed for bandages, sterilization equipment, and interior clinic lining. Ultimately, the lecture demonstrates that the provision of medical care and the preservation of human life in the partisan forests constituted a profound form of resistance against the Nazi extermination machine.
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