• "Jewish Fever":Myths and Realities in the History of Russia's Typhus Epidemic, 1914–22
• Polly Zavadivker (bio)

In the summer of 1916, the Great European War entered its third year. In his memoirs, Isaac Bashevis Singer, then 13 years old, recalled living in Warsaw, which had been under German occupation for nearly a year. A typhus epidemic broke out that summer and, when Singer's brother Moshe became ill, his family had to make a quick decision:

We could not keep him at home because the doctors had to inform the police of all cases of typhus. A carriage (the notorious horse-drawn ambulance) came to take him to the hospital for epidemic victims on Pokorna Street. We knew what would happen next. Gentiles in white aprons would come and spray our house with carbolic acid, then take anyone they found to the disinfection house on Szczęśliwa Street. We decided that my father and older brother would find a place to hide, and that my mother and I would go for disinfection. Sure enough, the gentiles came and sprayed our house. The air was filled with poison. A policeman ordered mother and me to come with him. . .

We were taken to a strange building, full of male and female guards and officials. I was taken somewhere with another boy and we had our heads shaved. The scissors and clippers did away with my red sidelocks and, at that moment, I knew that this would be the end of my long sidelocks. I had wanted to be relieved of them for a long time. [End Page 101]

"Take off your clothes!" a woman commanded us. Strip naked for a shiksa? I was speechless, but she, in her white apron and white nurse's cap, had no patience for any sort of shame. She tore my robe, shirt, and pants from me, and I was left standing there as naked as a newborn. Then she scrubbed me and the other boy down in a soapy bath. . . . We received new white robes and slippers, like hospital patients. . . . When I looked in a mirror I didn't recognize myself. Yidishkayt (Jewishness) had fallen away from me, along with my sidelocks and Jewish clothes.¹

Singer's account depicted in microcosm the impact of the wartime typhus epidemic on Warsaw Jewry. A coordinated sanitary regime confronted his family with a rapid sequence of invasive interventions, carried out by doctors, policemen, fumigators, bureaucrats, and nurses. The "disinfection house" was not far from where they lived in the city's Jewish quarter, but to pious Jewish families like his own, the institution signified something utterly non-Jewish and, thus, suspicious. Disinfection meant mandatory isolation for eight days, under guard, with no access to kosher food. There, people were shorn of body hair and clothing, which—from the medical authorities' view—facilitated the spread of disease. Hence, the family's strategic decision that Isaac and his mother would effectively comply so his father and older brother could abscond and, thereby, avoid the mandatory disinfection regiment.

Singer published his memoirs of life in Warsaw nearly 40 years later, for readers of the New York Yiddish daily Forverts. While he likely dramatized his experiences in retrospect, his account reflected a historical reality. Louse-born typhus became an epidemic in Eastern Europe shortly after the start of the World War in 1914, and it continued to rage across post-revolutionary Russia and Ukraine before its containment in 1922. Although attention to typhus has been historically eclipsed by the flu pandemic of 1918, it was the chief killer of populations in East European and Russian lands. An estimated 20–25 million people became infected with typhus during the Russian Civil War (1918–22), and a minimum of 2.5–3 million people died from it in those years.²

In the Polish lands under German occupation from August 1915 to November 1918, German authorities associated the disease so closely with the Jews that, in common parlance, typhus became known as "Jewish fever." Indeed, some claimed that the disease had infected nine out of every ten Jews in Poland.³ This essay treats the phrase "Jewish fever" as a subject of...

• “犹太热”：1914-22年俄罗斯斑疹伤寒流行史上的神话与现实
• Polly Zavadivker（生物）

1916年夏天，欧洲大战进入了第三年。当时只有13岁的艾萨克·巴什维斯·辛格（Isaac Bashevis Singer）在回忆录中回忆起住在华沙的生活，华沙曾被德国占领了将近一年。那个夏天爆发了斑疹伤寒，Singer的兄弟Moshe生病时，他的家人不得不做出一个迅速的决定：

我们不能将他留在家里，因为医生必须将所有的斑疹伤寒情况通知警方。一辆马车（臭名昭著的马拉救护车）来到博科纳街，将他送往医院救治流行病受害者。我们知道接下来会发生什么。白色围裙的外邦人会来给我们的房屋喷洒石炭酸，然后将他们发现的任何人带到Szczęśliwa街的消毒所。我们决定让我的父亲和哥哥找到隐藏的地方，并决定我和我的母亲去消毒。果然，外邦人来给我们的房屋喷水。空气中充满了毒药。一名警察命令母亲和我跟他一起去。。。

我们被带到一个陌生的建筑，到处都是男女警卫和官员。我被带到另一个男孩的某个地方，我们剃了光头。剪刀和快船剪掉了我的红色侧扣，那一刻，我知道这将是我长长的侧扣的尽头。我很想摆脱他们很长一段时间。[完第101页]

“脱掉你的衣服！” 一个女人命令我们。脱光衣服的希克萨？我一言不发，但她戴着白色围裙和白色护士帽，对任何羞辱都不耐心。她从我身上撕了我的长袍，衬衫和裤子，而我却像新生儿一样赤裸地站在那里。然后她在肥皂浴中擦洗了我和另一个男孩。。。。我们收到了像医院病人一样的新白色长袍和拖鞋。。。。当我照镜子时，我不认识自己。Yidishkayt（犹太人）以及我的侧锁和犹太衣服已经从我身上溜走了。^1个

歌手的叙述从微观上描述了战时斑疹伤寒流行对华沙犹太人的影响。一个协调一致的卫生体制对他的家人采取了一系列由医生，警察，熏蒸工人，官僚和护士进行的侵入性干预措施。“消毒房”离他们居住在该城市犹太区的住所不远，但是对于像他一样虔诚的犹太家庭来说，这个机构意味着完全是非犹太的，因此可疑。消毒意味着必须隔离八天，要保持警惕，不能获取犹太洁食。在那儿，人们被割破了身体的头发和衣服，从医疗机构的角度来看，这促进了疾病的传播。因此，一家人

辛格将近40年后在华沙出版了自己的回忆录，供《纽约意第绪》《福弗特》杂志的读者阅读。虽然他可能会回想起戏剧化的经历，但他的叙述反映了历史现实。出生于虱子的斑疹伤寒在1914年世界大战爆发后不久在东欧流行，并且在革命后的俄罗斯和乌克兰于1922年被遏制之前继续肆虐。 1918年大流行，它是东欧和俄罗斯土地上人口的主要杀手。在俄罗斯内战（1918-22年）期间，估计有20-25百万人感染了斑疹伤寒，在那些年中至少有2.5-3百万人因此而死。^2个

从1915年8月到1918年11月，在德国占领的波兰土地上，德国当局将这种疾病与犹太人联系得非常紧密，以致于俗语说，斑疹伤寒被称为“犹太人发烧”。确实，有人声称这种疾病已经感染了波兰十分之九的犹太人。³本文将“犹太人发烧”一词视为...的主题。