Warsaw Anatomic Institute Closed; Fear Trouble As Jewish Students Barred by Authorities

New trouble is feared at the Warsaw University as a result of the university authorities’ refusal to enroll Jewish medical students for anatomic practice. The university authorities excuse their barring of the Jewish students on the ground of the opposition to these students’ practicing only on Christian corpses while Jews scruple to supply Jewish corpses for the purpose of study. It is pointed out, however, that this excuse is untenable as only last week the university returned to the Chevre Kadisha—the Jewish Burial Society—123 Jewish corpses for religious burial following dissection at the Institute.

Professor Loth of the Anatomic Institute, whom the Jewish students approached with a protest, explained that it had been decided to close the Institute for two days in the hope that the whole question would be cleared up so as to enable the Jewish students’ regular participation in the anatomic studies at the university.

For many years the question of the provision of unclaimed Jewish bodies from the hospitals for the purposes of study at medical colleges in Poland has been a source of disturbance. It was thought, however, that a recent arrangement by which a certain number of unclaimed Jewish bodies from the hospitals and other public institutions were to be provided for dissection and subsequently handed back for Jewish religious burial, would put an end to the recurrent trouble at the anatomic institutes.