(Eds.). Lviv in the era of Adolf and Henryk Beck

Abstract

Each generation of students and professors of the Medical Faculty of Lviv University, now known as Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University, makes a considerable contribution to the development of world science through dedicated service to the ideals of truth, education, reputable and responsible performance of their professional functions and Lviv was Beck's favorite city, there they spent half of their life, but for a great number of unfavorable circumstances they remains to be unknown to many citizens of L'viv and the general public. This year we mark the 120th anniversary of birth and the 70th anniversary of death of Henryk Beck, which is a good symbolic occasion to commemorate the doctor and the master by way of implementation of the international project «Roads of Henryk Beck: medicine and art» (the initiator and coordinator of the project - professor Oksana Zayachkivska), that will provide an opportunity to become familiar with the unique common heritage of world significance. The unique physician, who was able to quickly transform his knowledge for the needs of the challenges of time, having headed the military field hospital in Warsaw in September of 1939, Henryk Beck bravely pulled up his strength and resources to help the suffering people and oppose the Nazis. Preserving human dignity and spiritual freedom under the Nazi occupation of L'viv and Warsaw doctor Beck by his convictions and actions continued to be a doctor even without all the necessary medical means. During 110 days of hiding in the city ruins after the defeat of the Warsaw uprising, as one of the Warsaw's «Robinson Crusoe's» suffering from their social mission. The proof of this is the path of life, professional activity and accomplishments of father and son - Professor of Physiology Adolf Beck (1863-1942) and professor of obstetrics and gynaecology Henryk Beck (1896-1946), graduate of Medical Faculty of our University in 1920. Gynecologist by profession, who worked, consulted and taught in the clinics of Warsaw (1921-1939), Lviv (1940-1942) and Wroclaw (1946), a student of the famous obstetrician-gynecologist hunger and dehydration, Adam Ferdynand Czyżewicz, Henryk Beck was a highly educated clinician, a specialist with a wide range of scientific interests, an excellent teacher who boldly introduced in clinical practice the unique and special techniques that up till now are known in verbal narratives. We do believe that the reader will be interested in our publication, full of the unique documents published for the first time, personal stories of life of Henryk Beck and his father Adolf Beck, reproducing both, collisions of life and medical environment in the interwar and wartime periods in L'viv, Warsaw and Wroclaw. We do believe that the reader will be interested in our publication, full of the unique documents published for the first time, personal stories of life of Henryk Beck and his father Adolf Beck, reproducing both, collisions of life and medical environment in the interwar and wartime periods in L'viv, Warsaw and Wroclaw. The marvelous catalogue of the complete collection of the works by Henryk Beck from the Warsaw collections of the Central Medical Library and the Institute of Jewish history published this year ˗ a unique brilliant true-to-life «documentary» of the author ˗ is yet another display of respect helping to understand better the recipe of life, aesthetic diagnosis of the time, culture and horrors of war from the unique symbiosis of the talent of the Doctor and the Master presented in our book.