Jewish doctors, vets and chemists practicing in Győr before the 2nd World War

Excerpt from Zalán Biczó’s work entitled “Győr Doctor Almanac“

This post is part of a series. Zalán Biczó, local historian and librarian at Széchenyi István University in Győr, has recently published encyclopaedias based on extensive research, which provide basic information – still accessible today – on the lives and work of doctors, teachers, lawyers and engineers who lived and worked in Győr before the Second World War.

We are grateful to Zalán Biczó for compiling, at our request, a list of individuals who were most likely of Jewish origin; we are publishing this list below, where it can be read or downloaded in PDF format (in Hungarian only).

In doing so, we wish to pay tribute to these outstanding figures of the former Jewish community.

In the foreword, Zalán Biczó writes:

“I felt it was my duty to pay a fitting tribute to the doctors, vets and pharmacists of Győr and those born in Győr, both from the distant and recent past, who carried out self-sacrificing and exemplary work in the field of healthcare. This encyclopaedia is the result of my extensive research. …

The first written records of Győr’s healthcare system date back to the 16th century. Medical duties were carried out by barbers, who had a guild charter dating from 1593. This stipulates that wounded soldiers … were to be bandaged jointly by the master barbers, who were also to share the fee equally. Individual barbers were only permitted to bandage the wounded on the battlefield. Regular doctors were also trained at universities abroad. In Győr, we know of a doctor named Mihály as early as 1507, who lived in Újváros. Later, we come across several other doctors in the old records. In 1643–1644, János Klock, a doctor of philosophy and medicine, had a house near the Vienna Gate in Győr.

There was certainly a pharmacy in the town of Győr by the second half of the 16th century. The military probably had a pharmacy as well. The Jesuits, who settled in Győr in 1626, also opened a pharmacy, which was located in their monastery.

The oldest of the hospitals was the infirmary of the Knights of St John, which was regarded more as a place of refuge. However, this ceased to exist in the 16th century. …”