The Warsaw Ghetto Hunger Study was a study taken up by Jewish doctors imprisoned in the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...

in 1942. The

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

s, intent on starving the ghetto within months, allowed no more than a daily intake of 180 calories per prisonerless than 10% of the recommended energy intake for a healthy human being while withholding vaccines and medicine that would be necessary to prevent the spread of disease in the dense ghetto. This resulted in a thriving

black market A black market is a Secrecy, clandestine Market (economics), market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality, or is not compliant with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the set of goods and services who ...

which supplied about 80% of the ghetto's food, and a network of 250 soup kitchens operated by the

Joint A joint or articulation (or articular surface) is the connection made between bones, ossicles, or other hard structures in the body which link an animal's skeletal system into a functional whole.Saladin, Ken. Anatomy & Physiology. 7th ed. McGraw- ...

, which at one time had served as many as 100,000 meals per day. In February 1942 a group of Jewish doctors headed by Israel Milejkowski decided to use the famine, which was out of their control, to study the physiological and psychological effects of hunger. Using smuggled supplies, they commenced on a deep study of the various aspects of hunger: metabolic, cardiovascular, ophthalmological and even immune system changes, to name a few. Despite the lack of resources, the risk of execution (Jews being prohibited by the Nazis from scientific work) and their own poor physical conditions, the 28 doctors managed to keep a strict study protocol including isolation,

glycemic load The glycemic load (GL) of food is a number that estimates how much the food will raise a person's blood glucose level after it is eaten. One unit of glycemic load approximates the effect of eating one gram of glucose. Glycemic load accounts for ho ...

testing, and even

pathology Pathology is the study of disease. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in the context of modern medical treatme ...

. The study had ended in August 1942 with the ''

Grossaktion Warsaw The ''Grossaktion'' Warsaw ("Great Action") was the Nazi code name for the deportation and mass murder of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto during the summer of 1942, beginning on 22 July. During the ''Grossaktion'', Jews were terrorized in daily ro ...

''. The study manuscript was smuggled out of the ghetto and kept by the Polish doctor . Immediately after the end of the war it was published in Polish and French (1946), and then in English in 1979 by Myron Winick of

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. According to Winick:

References

See also