Ophthalmology research in the Warsaw Jewish ghetto—hunger disease and the story of Szymon Fajgenblat, MD

During World War II, scientific studies were conducted in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw (Poland). This research, focusing on hunger‐induced disease, was embedded in circumstances of omnipresent hunger and starvation. Ophthalmologist Szymon Fajgenblat (1900–1944) was one of the involved physicians and wrote a manuscript about ophthalmological changes during starvation. The background and the findings of his research are discussed in this article. The Hunger Disease Studies are a unique written medical and historical monument of the Jewish physicians of the Warsaw ghetto. Ophthalmologist Szymon Fajgenblat was one of them and left behind an ophthalmological study as his legacy.