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The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl
- How Two Brave Scientists Battled Typhus and Sabotaged the Nazis
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
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Publisher's summary
From a laboratory in wartime Poland comes a fascinating story of anti-Nazi resistance and scientific ingenuity. Few diseases are more gruesome than typhus. Transmitted by body lice, it afflicts the dispossessed - refugees, soldiers, and ghettoized peoples - causing hallucinations, terrible headaches, boiling fever, and often death. The disease plagued the German army on the Eastern Front and left the Reich desperate for a vaccine. For this they turned to the brilliant and eccentric Polish zoologist Rudolf Weigl. In the 1920s, Weigl had created the first typhus vaccine using a method as bold as it was dangerous for its use of living human subjects. The astonishing success of Weigl's techniques attracted the attention and admiration of the world - giving him cover during the Nazi's violent occupation of Lviv. His lab soon flourished as a hotbed of resistance. Weigl hired otherwise doomed mathematicians, writers, doctors, and other thinkers, protecting them from atrocity. The team engaged in a sabotage campaign by sending illegal doses of the vaccine into the Polish ghettos while shipping gallons of the weakened serum to the Wehrmacht. Among the scientists saved by Weigl, who was a Christian, was a gifted Jewish immunologist named Ludwik Fleck. Condemned to Buchenwald and pressured to re-create the typhus vaccine under the direction of a sadistic Nazi doctor, Erwin Ding-Schuler, Fleck had to make an awful choice between his scientific ideals or the truth of his conscience. In risking his life to carry out a dramatic subterfuge to vaccinate the camp’s most endangered prisoners, Fleck performed an act of great heroism. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with survivors, Arthur Allen tells the harrowing story of two brave scientists - a Christian and a Jew - who put their expertise to the best possible use, at the highest personal danger.
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Story
David Oshinsky, whose last book, Polio: An American Story, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, chronicles the history of America's oldest hospital and in so doing also charts the rise of New York to the nation's preeminent city, the path of American medicine from butchery and quackery to a professional and scientific endeavor, and the growth of a civic institution.
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Fascinating
- By Jean on 12-14-16
By: David Oshinsky
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Masters of Death
- The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Neil Hellegers
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In Masters of Death, Richard Rhodes gives full weight, for the first time, to the Einsatzgruppen's role in the Holocaust. These "special task forces", organized by Heinrich Himmler to follow the German army as it advanced into Eastern Poland and Russia, were the agents of the first phase of the Final Solution. They murdered more than one and a half million men, women, and children between 1941 and 1943, often by shooting them into killing pits, as at Babi Yar.
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Good book...but...
- By Disintegrator on 08-26-19
By: Richard Rhodes
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Flu
- The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It
- By: Gina Kolata
- Narrated by: Gina Kolata
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
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Feeling feverish, tired, or achy? Listening to Gina Kolata's engrossing account of the 1918 Influenza epidemic is sure to give you the chills. A gripping work of science writing, Flu addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and considers what can be done to prevent it.
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overexcited
- By Marilyn on 07-23-03
By: Gina Kolata
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Operation Paperclip
- The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America
- By: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In the chaos following World War II, the US government faced many difficult decisions, including what to do with the Third Reich's scientific minds. These were the brains behind the Nazis' once-indomitable war machine. So began Operation Paperclip, a decades-long, covert project to bring Hitler's scientists and their families to the United States. Many of these men were accused of war crimes, and others had stood trial at Nuremberg; one was convicted of mass murder and slavery.
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The Osenberg list
- By Jean on 08-07-14
By: Annie Jacobsen
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The Holocaust
- A New History
- By: Laurence Rees
- Narrated by: Eric Vale
- Length: 19 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Laurence Rees has spent 25 years meeting the survivors and perpetrators of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. In this sweeping history, he combines this testimony with the latest academic research to investigate how history's greatest crime was possible. Rees argues that while hatred of the Jews was at the epicenter of Nazi thinking, we cannot fully understand the Holocaust without considering Nazi plans to kill millions of non-Jews as well.
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FANTASTIC BOOK, BUT HORRIBLE READING
- By Aspen on 08-31-17
By: Laurence Rees
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One Long Night
- A Global History of Concentration Camps
- By: Andrea Pitzer
- Narrated by: Andrea Pitzer
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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For over 100 years, at least one concentration camp has existed somewhere on Earth. First used as battlefield strategy, camps have evolved with each passing decade, in the scope of their effects and the savage practicality with which governments have employed them. Even in the 21st century, as we continue to reckon with the magnitude and horror of the Holocaust, history tells us we have broken our own solemn promise of "never again".
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Important subject. Horrible narration.
- By wmorrison on 07-04-19
By: Andrea Pitzer
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Hanns and Rudolf
- The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz
- By: Thomas Harding
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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May 1945: In the aftermath of the Second World War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. One of the lead investigators is Lieutenant Hanns Alexander, a German Jew who is now serving in the British Army. Rudolf Höss is his most elusive target. Hanns and Rudolf reveals for the very first time the full, exhilarating account of Höss' capture, an encounter with repercussions that echo to this day.
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I Read This Marvelous Book...
- By Douglas on 01-04-14
By: Thomas Harding
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Ravensbruck
- Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women
- By: Sarah Helm
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 32 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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On a sunny morning in May 1939, a phalanx of 867 women - housewives, doctors, opera singers, politicians, prostitutes - was marched through the woods 50 miles north of Berlin, driven on past a shining lake, then herded in through giant gates. Whipping and kicking them were scores of German women guards. Their destination was Ravensbrück, a concentration camp designed specifically for women by Heinrich Himmler, prime architect of the Holocaust.
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My mother was a Ravensbruck survivor.
- By Stephen Sean Campbell on 07-06-20
By: Sarah Helm
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Asleep
- The Forgotten Epidemic That Became Medicine’s Greatest Mystery
- By: Molly Caldwell Crosby
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1918, a world war raged, and a lethal strain of influenza circled the globe. In the midst of all this death, a bizarre disease appeared in Europe. Eventually known as encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness, it spread worldwide, leaving millions dead or locked in institutions. Then, in 1927, it disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. Asleep, set in 1920s and '30s New York, follows a group of neurologists through hospitals and asylums as they try to solve this epidemic and treat its victims - who learned the worst fate was not dying of it, but surviving it.
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Scary, and still unsolved, medical mystery
- By joyce on 12-14-14
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The Family That Couldn't Sleep
- A Medical Mystery
- By: D.T. Max
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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For 200 years, a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. What these strange conditions share is their cause: prions.
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A great scientific mystery
- By David on 11-04-06
By: D.T. Max
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The Rape of Nanking
- By: Iris Chang
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In December 1937, in the capital of China, one of the most brutal massacres in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking and within weeks not only looted and burned the defenseless city but systematically raped, tortured and murdered more than 300,000 Chinese civilians. Amazingly, the story of this atrocity- one of the worst in world history- continues to be denied by the Japanese government.
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Powerful
- By Douglas on 09-05-09
By: Iris Chang
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The Pharmacist of Auschwitz
- The Untold Story
- By: Patricia Posner
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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The Pharmacist of Auschwitz is the little-known story of Victor Capesius, a Bayer pharmaceutical salesman from Romania, who, at the age of 35, joined the Nazi SS in 1943 and quickly became the chief pharmacist at the largest death camp, Auschwitz. Based in part on previously classified documents, Patricia Posner exposes Capesius's reign of terror at the camp, his escape from justice, and how a handful of courageous survivors and a single brave prosecutor finally brought him to trial for murder 20 years after the end of the war.
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I respect every victim of the Holocaust to....
- By LisalouRN on 08-26-17
By: Patricia Posner
What listeners say about The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anna J. Taylor
- 04-07-18
History and science
It's not easy story to hear, but it tackles a small part of history during world war two that people should benefit from knowing better.
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- Loly
- 12-04-22
Great History Lesson
Great History Lesson , one hopes it should never be repeated. Great listen. Especially because I have been privileged to know two of the gentlemen who worked in Dr. Weigl's lab in Lwow. They both passed before being witness to the current atrocities in their beautiful city.
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- Mmarks
- 01-23-15
Great story, terrible narration.
This story is extremely interesting and inspiring... but the narrator delivers it as if it were the evening news. His emotion is the same whether he is explaining a fascinating scientific concept or describing the brutality of a concentration camp. Such a shame! I highly suggest reading the story in actual book form; I wish I had!
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- Gotta Tellya
- 08-20-14
Good story, not quite "fantastic."
I bought this Audible edition in order to learn more about 1) the struggle of scientists to find a vaccine for typhus, and 2) how some of those pioneering scientists used their knowledge against the Nazis during WW II. The author addresses both themes quite thoroughly, with a bit too much detail and repetition. So many Germanic, Polish and eastern European names are mentioned that I sometimes found it difficult to keep track of who was whom and which side individuals were on. The story line jumps back and forth through time, creating further confusion.
Dennis Holland's narration was excellent. However, I feel that the complicated nature of the information in this book is better served by the written version. It is no simple matter to go back through an audio version in order to clarify facts or the time line. A text version would facilitate sorting through the abundance of material.
As for the title, while Dr. Weigl and his lab were indeed fascinating, I didn't see anything fantastic about either. That part of the title must have been constructed to catch the eye of potential readers. It would have been more accurate to stick with the second portion of the book's title. Even that part only hints at the depth of material in this book and gives no sense of the large number of people involved in the story.
Immediately before listening to this narration, I read "The Illustrious Dead," by Stephan Talty, a book about the effect of typhus on Napoleon's troops during his attempt to conquer Russia in 1812. Though the Russian climate and that country's valiant soldiers both had significant impacts on Napoleon's army, it appears to be typhus that decimated and conquered his troops. It was very satisfying to follow that read with Arthur Allen's book. I suggest that anyone interested in the nature of typhus, one of the great killers of all times, should do some preliminary reading about its effects over the centuries before taking on this book. That would add some helpful perspective to Allen's work.
All in all, I am glad to have listened to Arthur Allen's book and plan to revisit it again, when I have time. It is the sort of work that benefits from an investment of time and focus.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Jean
- 09-01-14
An Unforgettable book
This book provides an over view of the history of Typhus. The author goes into more detail of the typhus epidemics of WWI and WWII. Some scientists call typhus the war disease. Allen tells the story of Rudolf Weigl who developed a vaccine for Typhus. Typhus is caused by the bacterium Rickettsia prowazekii. The Rickettsia is in body lice and unlike in other diseases the Rickettsia also kills the host lice. The body lice live on unclean people and clothing; therefore it flares up when there is social collapse. It is estimated that three to five million people were killed by Typhus in Russia and Poland in WWII. Allen covers in-depth the problems of Typhus in WWII. He stated that the Nazis were obsessed about the disease because of particularly odious aspect of their world view. “The louse carrier of Typhus was the symbol of the Jew in Nazi racial ideology”. The Reich was determined to protect Aryans, especially its military from the malady.
The Nazi turned to Dr. Weigl an ethnic Austrian, and Dr. Ludwik Fleck a Polish Jew to help them with a vaccine. Rudolf Stefan Weigl (1883-1957) had his doctorate in zoology and was drafted by the Austrian-Hungarian Empire during WWI to fight Typhus. In 1921 he established a research institute in Lwow Poland now called Lviv in Ukraine. He was successful in creating a vaccine. His laboratory and “lice farm” is still active today in Lviv Ukraine. Weigl saved many lives of Jews and intellectuals by hiring them in his lab.
Ludwik Fleck (1896-1961) doctorate was in immunology. He joined Weigl in 1919 to work on the typhus research. In 1921 he developed a test to diagnose typhus. He was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp in 1943 to work on the typhus vaccine. He developed two vaccines one was worthless serum he shipped to the SS troops at the front. The effective one he used to secretly treat the prisoners.
Weigl and Flick’s post WWII lives were under the communist rule of Ukraine. Weigl had a jealous supervisor who kept blocking his nomination for the Nobel Prize. Fleck was forced to move to Lublin Poland to teach in the University. He was accused of collaborating with the Nazis and suffered anti-Semitism. In 1957 he managed to immigrate to Israel and died in 1961.
The book does not cover the work of the American and British scientist who also developed a vaccine or the use of DDT to kill the lice. Allen writes without sanctimony and never simplifies the people in the book. He just states provable facts. When writing about the Holocaust it is often difficult not to let emotion get in the way of the facts but the author did an excellent job staying to clinical detail. Allen avoided writing a depressing narration with a masterful attention to detail, Allen has assembled a story of tragedy, courage, scientific creativity and ethics.
Dennis Holland does a good job narrating the book. If you are interested in scientific history or WWII history this is an excellent captivating story for you. I barely covered the highlights of the story you will need to read the book to fully understand the complexities of the story.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Alison
- 02-08-17
Fascinating story, told well and read well
I learned about Dr. Weigl's story a while ago from a radio story when the book came out. The book is amazing in the way that it follows several very complicated stories -- the histry of typhus and of Polish science and of WWII and the Holocaust and the Resistance and vaccinology and public health in the first half of the 20th century. It is a story that is not well-known and well worth learning about.
One caution I would have about the audio version is that there are lots of individuals whose stories contributed to this. I did have some trouble following all the names through the various phases of the history. I referred to the print copy of the book for some things, just to help me connect the various characters. It is not strictly necessary to do this, but I was glad I had access to the book and audio version at the same time.
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