In June 1967, Israel won the Six-Day War against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The defeated Arab states had been receiving military and political support from the ussr. Immediately after the war the Soviet Union and its satellites (with the sole exception of Romania) broke off diplomatic relations with the state of Israel. This was accompanied by a vicious propaganda campaign, planned at the highest echelons of power in Moscow, and unleashed all through the Communist Bloc. In Poland, the message to the masses was delivered loud and clear: your lives are miserable? Here’s why – it’s because there are aliens among us; they hide behind false names and pretend to be good citizens, while plotting against the safety and prosperity of our country; they are part of a world-wide conspiracy network of Zionists.

Officially, the campaign had nothing to do with antisemitism; off the record, everybody understood who these Zionists were (a street joke from the time went as follows: “How do you spell Zionist? – No idea, but it begins with a J”). As a consequence, in the years 1967–1971, between thirteen and twenty thousand Jews and people of Jewish origin, mostly intellectuals, left Poland; they were stripped of their Polish citizenship, provided with a one-way “document of journey”, and banned from returning.

Forty years on, these events, part of what is justifiably regarded one of the ugliest episodes in Poland’s post-war history, are the subject of ongoing research and debate. The literature on the topic is multifaceted and growing.¹ Up until recently, however, the city of Szczecin has been missing from the picture. In 2008, Eryk Krasucki partially filled this gap with a sixty-odd-page overview of the effects that the anti-Zionist campaign had on Szczecin’s Jewish community.² Now, with Skalpel’68, we get the chance to see these effects in greater detail.

Skalpel’68 is a microstudy focusing on the members of Szczecin’s medical community. The choice of scope for the book, in terms of both geography and population, was prompted by the lack of similar publications, but was also influenced by the authors’ personal affiliations (Magdalena Ptaszyńska is a surgeon in one of Szczecin’s major hospitals, and a PhD student at the Pomeranian Medical University; Radosław Ptaszyński is a historian and sociologist, and professor of modern history at the University of Szczecin). In a brilliant combination of in-depth archival research, biographic studies, and oral history, Skalpel’68 showcases the lives of twenty-two physicians and seven medical students, who either settled in Szczecin after 1945, or were born there, and whose fates were dramatically affected by the ‘anti-Zionist’ campaign. Besides all the students, seventeen of the physicians featured in the study were affiliated with the Pomeranian Medical University when they were first made targets of antisemitic attacks. Each protagonist’s life is presented in a separate chapter, though some of these stories overlap with each other.

On the one hand, Lancet’68 is a gripping book, a true page-turner. The pacing, the style of writing, the enthralling nature of the stories themselves are features one would expect more of a top-quality political thriller, but are here found in a proper research publication. On the other hand, however, these stories can make for harrowing reading. For me, a Szczeciner born in 1971, a physician educated at the Pomeranian Medical University, and a historian of medicine affiliated with the pmu, each page contained gut-wrenching disclosures. I know many of these doctors from my own research. Some of them were the trailblazers of healthcare and medical education in post-war Szczecin. How come I have never heard about these chapters in their lives? And how come there has so far been no open discussion about the pmu’s direct involvement in these shameful events?

One thing deserves stressing: the book was published thanks to the financial support from both the Regional Physicians’ Chamber in Szczecin, and the University of Szczecin. It was also sponsored by the Voivodship of Western Pomerania. I read this as a clear sign that the will to openly discuss this dark part of our history is shared by the leaders of both Szczecin’s medical and academic community, and the local government.

Skalpel’68 begins with the description of an exhibition mounted in the main hall of the pmu’s Rectorate, as a part of the University’s 70th anniversary celebrations. It was devoted to the pmu’s professors born, raised, or educated in the pre-war Wilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania) and Lwów (now L’viv, Ukraine): “On one of the boards, pictures and bios of two men are featured, one under another: Jerzy Gelber and Adam Krechowiecki. In 1968, the former was expulsed from the university and the country; the latter was the university’s Rector.” Two days after Skalpel’68 was published, the exhibition was dismantled. Personally, I would be much happier if it stayed where it was as a permanent exhibition, with appropriate commentary added.

I have already introduced Skalpel’68 to all my Polish Program courses in medical humanities. I am deeply convinced this book should be translated into German and/or English, because of the captivating stories it contains, the top quality of research done by its authors, and the urgency of its message. I can’t say if the world would become a better place with Skalpel’68 available for non-Polish readers; I am positive it would be a better-informed place.