The epidemic affected the residents of Bolesławiec after 1945, when living standards had deteriorated significantly. Typhoid fever affects poor, chronically undernourished communities with very low standards of hygiene. The typhoid bacillus enters the digestive tract through the consumption of contaminated food or water, or through contact with an infected person.
In the face of the growing danger posed by the epidemic, local authorities took steps to find a suitable building that could serve as an isolation facility for the sick. Unfortunately, after the premises had been selected and cleaned, it turned out that the building was not fit for use. Part of it had been occupied by a Soviet military unit, while the remaining equipment had been dismantled. As a result, the efforts of the municipal authorities, who tried to intervene, produced no results. A letter written in Russian to the commander of the Soviet unit went unanswered.
On October 26, 1945, the city administration once again attempted to restore the building to a usable condition. As many as 40 people were hired to renovate the hospital and bring it back into normal operation. Unfortunately, this initiative too was thwarted by the Soviet army, which once again took the workers away for its own work, leaving only six people to look after the facility. In this case as well, there was no response from the Russian command, further intensifying the frustration and impatience of the representative, who bitterly observed that the army seemed to be deliberately obstructing the organization of the isolation facility.
In the face of such a dramatic situation, the authorities decided to launch a campaign of compulsory vaccinations. They covered both the German population remaining in the city and the arriving Poles. A group of Polish doctors came to help with this critical mission, which was urgently needed, as residents could rely in their daily lives on only three foreigners: a Dutchman, a Belgian woman and a German man, who were still very young and had little work experience.
Fortunately, at the beginning of December 1945, the difficult fight against the typhoid epidemic began to produce results. After intensive efforts, the number of new cases fell, and the epidemic was finally brought under control. This was an important step toward restoring normality, but the memories of the hardships and obstacles encountered by the local authorities remained as a painful lesson in dealing with public-health crises.