1940, graduates of the course were invited to the Department of Health, where Dr. Gold offered them work on a voluntary basis for the time being, promising that they would be approved as paid employees in the future. At first, about 20 people accepted the offer. At that time, there was little work and incidences of typhus were scarce (57 in January 1941), so members of the brigades worked an average of 2 or 3 days a week. After two weeks of voluntary work, [5] brigade members received 4 zlotys per each day of work. In view of the escalation of the epidemic in the subsequent months, column members worked 6, or even 7, days a week, and new members were employed in the brigades; graduates of the course were the first to be offered employment.
(June 1942)
ARG I 428 (Ring. I/221).
Description: original or duplicate, handwritten, ink, Polish, 180x214, 175x150 mm, minor damage and missing fragments, 5 sheets, 5 pages.
[1] In February, the cold was fortunately not very severe. I left for work at 6 o'clock in the morning. The city was still enveloped in the darkness of the night. Here and there, the scarce street lamps were casting a meagre light. I liked those night-time walks to the assembly site, with the snow crunching under my feet. My work was generally quite tedious. Before long, I mastered the art of sealing windows and furnaces. I would be very bored if not for the opportunity to penetrate and explore an alien and unfamiliar environment.
I liked talking to tenants. Sometimes it seemed to me that I had been transported to Exotic Lands. Many a time was I a confessor to beleaguered people, or a witness to intimate family banter and strife. Almost each time I asked about the “steaming,” people lamented that they were innocent victims of a doctor’s error. Nobody at home had typhus, God forbid, it was just a touch of pneumonia, someone fell down the stairs and hit his head, or ate
