Collections

Facilities associated with the Luba Blum School of Nursing

The badges of female students and a fork from the Jewish School of Nursing in Warsaw, which are part of the POLIN Museum's collection, are the only material trace of the Warsaw school headed by Luba Blum. Luba and Rywa, along with their six siblings, were children of Benjamin Bielicki and his wife, Lea. They came from a very orthodox family. They were born at the beginning of the 20th century in Vilnius, but tied their professional lives to Warsaw, specifically to the School of Nursing.

During her teenage years, Luba joined a socialist youth organisation called "Tsukunft"(more about the organisation: https://delet.jhi.pl/pl/psj?articleId=15665 ), where she met her future husband, Abraham (Abramsza) Blum. She gave birth to two children, Wiktoria and Aleksander. They lived at 9 Mylna Street in Warsaw.

The beginnings of professional nursing in Poland date back to the first decade of the 20th century. The School of Nursing at the Jewish Hospital on Czyste in Warsaw's Wola district (more about the hospital: https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/miejscowosci/w/18-warszawa/113-zabytki-kultury-materialnej/28974-szpital-starozakonnych-na-czystem-w-warszawie) was established in the early 1920s.

A Society was set up to organise a modern school for future nurses. Financial assistance was sought from the American Distribution Committee, which not only assisted the venture organisationally, but also delegated American physician Amelia Greenwald to help develop the facility. On 8 July 1923, the official opening of the School took place. Four nurses from England helped to run the school between 1924 and 1926, and two female instructors, Polish women trained abroad, were also involved.

Over time, the links with the Old Jewish Hospital were removed from the name, as the School was independent of it - it had its own board of trustees, budget and statutes, and was equipped with an advaned science laboratory. However, the institutions continued to cooperate with each other, and the teaching staff at the Nursing School consisted of prominent doctors from the Jewish Hospital.

The training of the female students was on a par with that conducted in other modern nursing schools in Europe and the programme was very demanding. Over time, the School has also become known abroad. The courses lasted two years and four months, and after passing the state exam, graduates received the title of certified nurse and the right to practise their profession in the Republic of Poland.

The scope of subjects and fields of study taught at the School was wide.

According to a 1928 prospectus by the then director of the School, Sabina Schindlerówna, courses included e.g., anatomy and physiology, bacteriology, personal hygiene, hospital management, pharmacology, principles and methods of nursing, bandaging, history of nursing, pathology, nursing in internal diseases, nursing in surgical diseases, diet in diseases, psychology, nursing in infectious diseases, nursing in diseases of children and infants, massage, principles of ethics, gynaecological and genitourinary nursing, nursing in orthopaedic diseases, operating theatre technique, obstetric nursing, nursing in mental and nervous diseases, nursing in skin and venereal diseases, public hygiene, emergency and rescue nursing, introduction to nursing, public health and social care, introduction to laboratory investigations, and English language.

During the Second World War, the School, which Luba was in charge of at the time, was the only legally operating college for Jewish young people - the only one permitted by the Germans.

After the creation of the Warsaw ghetto, in November 1940, it was possible to obtain from the Jewish Community the building of the Social Security Office at the junction of Mariańska and Pańska Streets, where the School was subsequently relocated.

The schoolgirls did their placements at the Bersohns and Baumans Children's Hospitals at Leszno Street and in the Infectious Diseases Hospital at Stawki Street, while community nursing placements took place at the Mother and Child Care Station at Śliska Street, where children with hunger disease were treated, and also in so-called 'refugee points'.

In the summer of 1942, during a liquidation operation, the Germans took all the nurses out to Grzybowski Square. Students of the Nursing School also worked in the small outpatient emergency clinic, allowed to be opened at a local hospital by German authorities, risking their lives to save those destined for death, especially children.

At Luba Blum's request, the Germans agreed to spare the nurses as necessary to fight the typhoid epidemic. At the beginning of 1943, Luba once again, with an almost heroic effort, managed to save nurses, schoolgirls, and patients.

Unfortunately, shortly afterwards, all the nurses were murdered by the Germans. The school ceased to exist.

Of the 350 female students and graduates of the School of Nursing working in the Warsaw ghetto, 42 survived the Holocaust, most of them in the Soviet Union.

Luba and her husband made sure to hide their children on the so-called Aryan side, so they managed to survive and live to see liberation. Her son hid with the Borkowski family in Warsaw's Żoliborz district, while her daughter, together with Luba, hid under false documents at the Rauszer family's Grzegorzewice estate near Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. Aleksander also joined his mother and sister.

During the Warsaw ghetto uprising, Abraham, Luba's husband, was killed.

Natalia Różanska

czytaj więcej