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...A physician in the ghetto:
Overcrowded living conditions, conscription for labor, rampant infectious disease, deportations to Belzec
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At the time of the German invasion, Frey was living on Syktuska Street, in a fashionable district of the city. The Germans divided Lvov into three districts: a German district, a district for non-German "Aryans" (Poles and Ukrainians) where Frey was for a time permitted to reside, and a Jewish district. Until August 1942, even Jews in the "Aryan" section were allowed to stay in their homes. Beginning in August, however, a German officer coveting any home in the city could obtain approval from his superiors to appropriate the dwelling for his own use by ordering its owner to vacate. This probably happened to Frey. Her permanent address appears on her Fragebogen (dated
September 25, 1941) as number 6 Balonowa Street, room 12, almost a year before the mass, forcible enclosure of Jews into the ghetto... |
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It was in the middle of what would become the official ghetto. The room was, at best, three square meters in total area. If the apartment was typical of others on Balonowa Street, she and Danuta shared it with at least eight other people. It seems unlikely that Frey voluntarily abandoned the luxurious Syktuska Street for the apartment on Balonowa Street.
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...when Frey was asked for the place of her employment, she answered "II Jewish Clinic,"
specifically using the Polish word for "clinic," not "hospital." Many other medical personnel responded to the same question with the Polish or German word for "hospital." It is possible that Frey was employed at this outpatient clinic. Diseases such as typhus were rampant due to the lack of medicines and to the inadequate sanitary conditions. |
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The odds for survival of a woman in Frey’s situation were not favorable. From the photo on the Fragebogen, Frey appears to be a slightly built female. She was nearly 52 years old when she filled out the document. It seems unlikely that she would have been selected for hard labor. Her best chance at survival lay in the possibility of a need for her medical skills. |
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On question 10a of her Fragebogen when Frey was asked "What was your citizenship from 1 Oct. 1939 to 1 July 1941?" she answered "occupied Soviet." Technically, this answer is the most accurate response she could have provided. Those formerly Polish citizens of Galicia became Soviet citizens without necessarily giving their consent after the Soviet occupation.
It is possible that this seemingly innocuous answer could have led the Germans to associate Frey with the detested Bolshevist regime. On other Fragebogen, medical professionals responded to the same question with "Polish," or left the line blank. This notation made in November 1941, does not seem to have adversely affected her chances at survival at least until April 1942.
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A birthday gift:
woman and doctor > Dr. Lucja Frey: Renowned scientist and researcher into a medical condition that bears her name > The occupation of Lvov, Frey’s hometown: The arrest and disappearance of Lucja's husband under Soviet occupation after World War II began; plunder, brutality, pogroms, isolation, ghettoization following the German invasion > A physician in the ghetto: Overcrowded living conditions, conscription for labor, rampant infectious disease, deportations to Belzec The fate of Lucja Frey Gottesman: Only a small number were spared... > Epilogue: A window into a forgotten life > |
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