Parówki were conducted by the Department of Health of the Jewish Council whenever spotted typhus was diagnosed by a block doctor or a private practitioner in some house, and after such a case was reported to the Department of Health. By the way, most doctors failed to comply with the obligation to report all such cases to the Department of Health, and there were 2 reasons for that:
1. Reporting spotted typhus resulted initially in the so-called fight against the illness (2-week quarantine for all residents of the premises where infection was diagnosed; sealing the patient’s flat; placing the patient in a hospital). Thanks to such strict regulations, the doctor reporting a case of typhus would lose his practice not only with the reported family, but his name would gained considerable notoriety and become a warning to other people.
After a certain period of time, the German authorities changed the procedure in cases of spotted typhus: they were no longer sending people into quarantine, but, after sending the patient away, the quarantine was held in the flat where he had been staying.
Since most private doctors still did not report cases of typhus, the Department of Health assigned the duty to the so-called block doctors, who were responsible for the health of individual houses. Most block doctors performed their tasks in the following way: if the disease were found in a poor-person’s flat, they would file a report to the Department of Health; if the disease were found in a wealthy household, for appropriate remuneration they would either treat the sick person in secret, or tolerate a private doctor, not involving themselves in the treatment. Therefore, figures presented by the Department of Health regarding the number of spotted typhus patients in hospitals do not correspond to the actual incidence of the disease.
