I went to explore the outcome. I found that typhoid had almost decimated the residents of the ill-fated building. In the past fortnight, about 80 people were diagnosed with typhoid. When I learned of this, I fled the building. Too tragic was the result of our work for me to feel satisfaction that I had rightly predicted it. I ran out of the tenement as if it were haunted; I made no attempt to inspect other interesting cases—I avoided it as if it were a painful wound. I only know that that inadequate “sulphur” had been used for nearly two weeks. This means a few hundred chambers. What effect it had on the development of the epidemic was difficult for me to determine. I do not think, however, that a tremendous increase in the severity of typhoid at that time was merely a coincidence. The day after I had been interrogated by Dr. G. regarding the “crime” I had committed, I was transferred to a Penal Colony for the brigade members who operated the typhoid chambers. [13] I was stuck in that exile until full-time employees working in that section were given a 100% pay raise. Then I was once again transferred to the brigades as a lower-level employee.
I found working in typhoid chambers interesting, even though it was dangerous and had some very unpleasant elements, because I could learn a new aspect of life and work. I was perhaps hurt by the very fact of relegation, but I was so disheartened and frightened by the incomprehensible actions of my superiors, which went against everything I believed in, that I preferred to wait and watch their effects from a distance. I am not one who sees greed and avarice as the driving force of life, but I cannot resist quoting certain information which I have not yet confirmed, but which reached my ears too often to be untrue.
A company that provides disinfection materials for the Department of Health is “Chemika” on Leszno street. It is a company owned by several people, including Mr Gold, Dr. G.—the brother of the director of disinfection columns, Mr Goldwaser—the director of the sanitary depot of the Health Department, who at that time was the [14] head of the sulphur section, and (only one person said this) the director of the Department of Health, Dr. S[yrkin] B[insztajn]. I have not confirmed this information. If it were confirmed, it would lend the whole matter such a grim nature that even philosophers have never dreamed of.
I mentioned above that the work of the brigades had no point whatsoever (except, of course, in cases where it was doing actual harm). It would be
