TIME IN CONTEXT – THE POLISH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND PADEREWSKI POLISH HOSPITAL IN EDINBURGH 1941 TO 1949

1 Dr W. Tomaszewski published his memoirs on the 35th anniversary of the inauguration of the PMS where he worked from beginning to end. They were printed in Polish and to my knowledge have not been translated: Tomaszewski W. Na Szkockiej Ziemi. London: White Eagle Press; 1979.

2 Davies N. Europe. Oxford: OUP; 1996; 1005.

3‘As we did want to eat dinner, three doctors would work in the kitchen each day, peeling potatoes.’ Tomaszewski op. cit. ref. 1, 58.

4 Rostowski J. History of the Polish School of Medicine. Edinburgh: Gilmour and Dean Ltd; 1955; 2.

5 Brodzki J , editor. Polish School of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. London: Oliver and Boyd Ltd; 1942; 2.

6Lieutenant Colonel Crew had made acquaintance with Poles before: Polish assistants worked for him before the war, one of whom was later tragically murdered by the Nazis in Poland.

7Brodzki, op. cit. ref. 5, 2.

8Dr Tomaszewski mentions that a Polish professor, one T. Sokolowski, claimed in his memoirs to have suggested the idea of the PMS to Prof. Crew. There is, however, no other record of this claim and furthermore the school and hospital were a logical progression from the attachments at the military hospital at the Castle: both men may therefore have made the same induction.

9Brodzki, op. cit. ref. 5, 2-3.

10Ibid., p. 4.

11Ibid., p. 6.

12Ibid., p. 10.

13 Eastwood M Jenkinson A. A History of the Western General Hospital. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd; 1995; 76.

14Brodzki, op. cit. ref. 5, 22.

15Ibid., p. 12.

16Rostowski, op. cit. ref. 4, 9.

17Minutes of Public Health Committee Meeting of March 18th 1941. Edinburgh City Chambers; 159.

18The Scotsman, 18 October 1941.

19Tomaszewski, op. cit. ref. 1, 132.

20The Scotsman, 18 October 1941.

21Tomaszewski, op. cit. ref. 1, 128.

22Outlining the facilities of the hospital at the time, Professor Jurasz wrote on 13 November 1941 that the hospital had

80beds, with 60 surgical beds also allocated within the main building of the Western General. Letter held at Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections Division: Edinburgh University Archives DRT 95/002.

23Tomaszewski, op. cit. ref. 1, 132.

24Ibid., pp. 127-8.

25A letter from Lady Abingdon to Sir Thomas Holland, dated

25 November 1941, regarding lists of Edinburgh graduates in the US who could be approached for possible contributions. Held at Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections Division: Edinburgh University Archives, DRT 95/002.

26Tomaszewski, op. cit. ref. 1, 130.

27Communication with Dr D.H. Stapleton, Director of the Rockefeller archives, by electronic mail, dated 26 September 1999.

28The Scotsman 1947; date unknown. Edinburgh City Library Archives; Polish Medical School Press Cuttings. Spokesman for the Western General Hospital mentioned that following the Paderewski Hospital’s closure its modern surgical equipment had been used to train their nurses.

29Tomaszewski, op. cit. ref. 1, 111-4.

30Eastwood, Jenkinson, op. cit. ref. 13, 73.

31Medical Faculty Minutes 1942. Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections Division: Edinburgh University Archives, Da 43.

32This decision was reached after much deliberation. A letter dated 6 July 1945 from Sir John Fraser, Principal of the University, to Anthony Eden at the Foreign Office reads: ‘If the University has some justification in anticipating that the PMS will be accommodated in Poland within one year from Oct 45, then it could see fit to admit more. On the other hand if there is a possibility of the school remaining for an indefinite period, then no more admissions could be made.’ This opinion was backed up by the Interim Treasury Committee for Polish Questions which was set up to administer the affairs of the late Polish Government in London. In a letter dated 15 August 1945 it states it will pay for students who have completed one year or more but for no new admissions. Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections Division: Edinburgh University Archives, DRT 95/002.

33The quotation is from a letter dated 6 October 1945, from Sir Sydney Smith to the Secretary of the Old College. Held at Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections Division: Edinburgh University Archives, DRT 95/002.

34Rostowski, op. cit. ref. 4, 23.

35Letter from Sir Sydney Smith to the Secretary of the Committee for the Education of Poles in Great Britain, dated 24 April 1947. Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections Division: Edinburgh University Archives, DRT 95/002.

36Tomaszewski, op. cit. ref. 1, 133.

37Ibid., p. 236.

38Ibid., p. 131. Accounts of Jurasz’s tour of the US were also printed in The Scotsman, Edinburgh Evening News and other newspapers.

39Ibid., pp. 135, 221. Tomaszewski mentions Polish beds at the Ballochmyle Hospital, naming Dr Kraczewski and Dr Janikiewicz among staff who worked there. Further, he notes discussions as to whether the hospital should move to Poland, later attempts to move it elsewhere and then the sale of the equipment, the money raised being diverted to the Paderewski Fund’s other causes.

40 Reddaway WF JH Penson Halecki O , editors. The Cambridge History of Poland. Cambridge: CUP; 1950; 346.

41 Seliga S Scotland Koczy L. and Poland: a chapter of forgotten history. Glasgow: Stanislaw Kostka Matwin; 1969; 19.

42Dyboski, op. cit. ref. 40, 346.

43Seliga, op. cit. ref. 41, 26.

44‘Three bursaries of £19 per annum; restricted to students who require pecuniary aid in obtaining a university education. A preference is given to members of the Church of Scotland.’ Records in the University calendar of 1967/8. Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections Division: Edinburgh University Archives; p. 928. Contacting various people in the financial/grants department of the University, the Faculty of Divinity and the Special Collections Office in the University library did not clarify the exact fate of the bursary – it may have been pooled into a central amalgam.

45Seliga, op. cit. ref. 41, 27.

46Polish Medical History and Science Bulletin 1957; 1(2).

47I would like to make it clear that I am in no way criticising individuals who held those opinions, simply trying to explore their origins beyond the atrocities inflicted by the Germans during World War II.

48 Meissner RK Hasik JM. Polski wklad w medycyne swiatowa. Poznan: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza; 1989; 73.

49 Skarzynski B. Philosophy at the turn of the nineteenth century. The Polish Medical History and Science Bulletin 1959; 2(6):25.

50 Wrzoszek A. The Development of Medical Schools in Poland. Polish Medical History and Science Bulletin1959; 3(3):2.

51Rostowski, op. cit. ref. 4, 16.

52Hansard; 389; 1219.

53The Scotsman, 15 February 1950. Letter from Sir George Waters, formerly chairman of the local advisory committee for the Paderewski hospital.

54No wartime references to the PMS or Paderewski Hospital in The Times and The Scotsman newspapers that spoke ill of them were found.

55The Scotsman, 20 February 1941, p. 3.

56The Scotsman, 12 December 1941.

57Edinburgh Evening News, 12 September 1941.

58Edinburgh Evening News, 20 February 1943.

59The Scotsman, 20 February 1943.

60The Scotsman, 7 September 1999, p. 3.

61Tomaszewski, op. cit. ref. 1, 213. Dr Tomaszewski mentions arrest and subsequent demise of a professor and a priest who returned from the UK. Poles felt increasingly uneasy about the possibility of their fate following a similar course should they return. Sir Sydney Smith, having been visited by a pair of PMS students aspiring to attain British degrees, seemed confident of the future. On 4 December 1945 he wrote: ‘I fully expect to receive applications from all or nearly all the Polish graduates for permission to take the examinations for University medical degrees.’

62‘They [the Soviet leaders] denounced the Polish Government-in-Exile, which was the accepted authority on Polish matters in everyone else’s eyes and they confined their dealings in Poland to persons and institutions appointed by themselves in their own image. They began by attacking all non-communist Resistance groups, especially those who had assisted the Soviet advance, and by appointing local administrators subservient to themselves, in every town and village throughout Poland. Figures of course, are not available; but the victims must certainly be counted in tens of thousands. Perhaps the saddest scene of the entire Liberation occurred at Majdanek near Lublin in the late summer of 1944, when Soviet authorities made use of the former Nazi extermination camp to house detainees of the Polish Home Army. The culmination of the process came in March 1945 when the remaining leaders of the Resistance were arrested and deported for trial. Sixteen such leaders, including the former Vice-Premier and delegate of the Government-in-Exile, Jan Stanislaw Jankowski and the last Commander of the Home Arm, Gen. L. Okulicki, were sentenced in Moscow in June 1945 as ‘saboteurs and subversionist bandits’, at the very time their ostensible patrons, the Western Powers, were pressing Poles of all persuasions to settle their differences.’ Davies N. God’s Playground. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1981; vol. ii; 471.

63Tomaszewski, op. cit. ref. 1, 212. Sir Sydney Smith apparently communicated personally with the Home Office on the subject of the PMS so that it may stay open after the war. Dr Tomaszewski writes that this was kept secret, having found out only later by an indirect route.

64‘the Polish army in Italy is being brought to this country . . . decision to disband the Polish army and form the Polish Resettlement Corps . . . to absorb into the civilian population. [On Polish students:] It may be expected that those entering their third year in October will not keep our own ex-servicemen out of places, but this may not be so true for those who will enter their second year in Oct. It would be helpful if some expression of opinion could be given whether or not particular groups of Poles or individuals should be allowed to continue their studies.’ This document is to be found in the correspondence of the PMS held at Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections Division: Edinburgh University Archives, DRT 95/002.

65Two PMS students consulted the Principal on these matters in November 1945, then again as representatives of an Association of Graduates of the PMS in May 1946. Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections Division: Edinburgh University Archives, DRT 95/002.

66Letter dated 15 June 1945, from the Foreign Office to Sir John Fraser, Principal of the University. Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections Division: Edinburgh University Archives, DRT 95/002.

67Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections Division: Edinburgh University Archives, DRT 95/002.

68So far I have been unable to ascertain if there was indeed a bill in Congress relating to the PMS. A disinterested employee of the American Embassy in London did not find anything, other attempts enjoying similar success.

69 Wrzoszek A. The Development of Medical Schools in Poland. The Polish Medical History and Science Bulletin 1959; 3(3):2.