An annotated English translation of the autobiography of Polish
microbiologist Ludwik Hirszfeld (1884-1954), with a focus on his
contributions to international public health.
Ludwik Hirszfeld (1884-1954), one of the most prominent serologists of
the twentieth century, discovered the inheritance and established the
nomenclature of blood groups and opened the field of human population
genetics. He also carried out groundbreaking research in the genetics of
disease and immunology. Following World War II, he founded Poland's
first Institute of Immunology in Wroclaw, which now bears his name. His
autobiographical memoir, The Story of One Life, first published in
Poland in 1946, immediately became a bestseller and has been reedited
several times since. It is an outstanding account of a Holocaust
survivor and a writer capable of depicting the uniqueness and the
tragedy of countless individuals caught up in the nightmare of 1939-45.
He recollects his time as a physician in the Serbian army in 1915 and
his satisfaction as a scientist who helped rebuild Poland after the
Treaty ofVersailles; in so doing the contrast between the world before
and the world after World War II could not be starker. Hirszfeld wrote
this book while in hiding after he escaped from the Warsaw ghetto in
1943; he buried the manuscript and retrieved it only after the war.
Drawing on interviews with Hirszfeld's former students and family, as
well as unpublished documents, this translation is annotated and has an
introduction written by two scholars with unique qualifications to
understand both the immediate setting in which Hirszfeld lived his life,
and the broader implications of his work to the history of medicine.
Marta A. Balinska is a writer and an international consultant in public
health.
William H. Schneider is professor of history at Indiana University.
