Typhus

   Typhus, also known as spotted fever, is a feared epidemic disease caused by poor hygiene, filth, famine, and extreme cold. The louse (pediculis corporis) is the vector of typhus and breeds in times of disaster such as in wartime and in overcrowded conditions. The Nazis believed that typhus was innate to the Jews and that the disease was spread by the Jewish population. For this reason, the Germans forbade Aryan doctors to treat sick Jews because of the belief that they would directly or indirectly infect the Aryan population. Jews contracted typhus, stated German health officials, not because of the unsanitary living conditions in the crowded ghettos, but because Jewish blood and genes predisposed Jewish bodies to infection. In fact, typhus caused only 3 percent of the deaths in the ghettos. Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, however, both died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen in March 1945. Diseases associated with crowded and unsanitary conditions, such as typhus fever, dysentery, tuberculosis, and starvation, constituted the vast majority of Jewish deaths in the ghettos of Poland.

   In the spring of 1943, an exhibit opened in Warsaw that had as its theme the association of Jews with typhus and lice. It is estimated that more than 50,000 people attended the exhibit, including children whose attendance was made compulsory. Literature was distributed that warned that Jews were to be feared because they were the primary carriers of typhus-infested lice and that Jewish flesh poisoned all those who touched it. One handout cautioned that coming anywhere near a Jew caused illness, fever, and possibly death.