JDC Archives Fellow Lectures on Holocaust Survivors and “the Right to Health”

On Wednesday, March 4, Sara Silverstein delivered an engaging lecture at the Center for Jewish History entitled, “Jewish Rehabilitation, European Reconstruction: Holocaust Survivors and the Right to Health.” An awardee of the Fred and Ellen Lewis/JDC Archives Fellowship, Silverstein used the JDC Archives to research the way Jewish Eastern European doctors in the mid-twentieth century shaped national and international health services, as well as the understanding of social and human rights in the post-Holocaust period.  Silverstein is completing her doctoral dissertation at Yale University.

Jewish doctors from Eastern Europe, many of whom were refugees themselves, played a prominent role in providing health for survivors in the Displaced Persons (DP) camps after World War II. Chief among them were Zalman Grinberg, Samson Gottlieb, and Boris Pliskin.These practitioners recognized the need for long-term rehabilitative care for the chronically ill.

When medical personnel arrived at the DP camps, they first provided emergency care for those in need. Afterwards they set up a health services system, replete with medical facilities. Finally, they provided rehabilitation for the chronically ill. In providing care for survivors with tuberculosis and other long term illnesses, they realized that everyone should have the right to proper healthcare. By advocating for these patients with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the International Refugee Organization, Grinberg, Gottlieb and Pliskin helped expand the concept of “human rights” and allowed even the ailing to take their place in society.