Janusz Bardach (July 28, 1919 in Odessa – August 16, 2002 in Iowa City) was a

gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

survivor, author, and noted plastic surgeon. He was the younger brother of Polish legal scholar

Juliusz Bardach Juliusz Bardach (3 November 1914, in Odessa – 26 January 2010, in Warsaw) was a Polish legal historian. Professor of the University of Warsaw, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He specialized in the history of governance and law of L ...

. Survivors include: his wife, Phyllis Harper- Bardach of Iowa City, Iowa; his daughter, Ewa Bardach and her husband Hani Elkadi of Iowa City; his granddaughter, Nina Elkadi of Iowa City.

Early life

Janusz Bardach was born in Odessa to Polish Jews Ottylia and Mark Bardach. At the age of one, his father Mark moved the family back to Wlodzimierz-Wolynski, Poland (now

Volodymyr-Volynskyi Volodymyr ( uk, Володи́мир, from 1944 to 2021 Volodymyr-Volynskyi ( uk, Володи́мир-Воли́нський)) is a small city located in Volyn Oblast, in north-western Ukraine. It is the administrative centre of the Volodymyr R ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

). Mark Bardach was a dentist, and his uncle, Jakov Julievich Bardach, was a doctor. Janusz grew up in Poland as a secular Jew and was a strong supporter of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. As a teenager, he suffered from anti-Semitic attacks and joined Jewish and left-wing groups.

The war and the Gulag

When, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Poland was partitioned between

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and the

, Bardach was drafted into the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...

. He became a tank driver. Sarcastic political remarks in training and an accident during a scouting mission that resulted in an overturned tank caused him to be court-martialed for counter-revolutionary activity. He was condemned to execution, but the sentence was commuted to hard labor in the

. While in the transit camps leading to the gold mines, Bardach experienced anti-Semitism from fellow Polish inmates. In order to escape the Polish sector he faked stomach cramps and went to the camp doctor. The doctor was impressed that Bardach already knew the diagnosis and treatment from his feigned symptoms, and asked Bardach if he was a medical student. Bardach lied and claimed to be one, drawing on medical knowledge gleaned from his father, and was made a ''feldsher'', or doctor's assistant, in the camps. Later, Bardach was sent to the infamous gold mines at Kolyma. While being transferred, his truck's furnace exploded, killing the driver, guards, and many prisoners. Using this incident and his previous record as a doctor's assistant, Bardach talked his way into working in the camp hospitals, where he continued to pretend to be a medical student. After the war, Bardach's sentence was commuted, and he moved to Moscow to attend medical school.

Medical career

In 1950 Bardach graduated from the Moscow Medical Stomatologogical Institute, and completed his residency there as well in 1954, specializing in reconstructive maxillofacial surgery. After residency and marriage, he returned to Poland, moving to

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of cant ...

, where he worked on procedures for cleft lips and palates. Eventually, he developed the procedure known as the Bardach palatoplasty. Anti-Semitism and Communism drove him to escape Poland, and in 1972 he joined the Department of Otolaryngology at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 col ...

and later became chairman of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery of the Head and Neck. During those years he could not speak freely about his experiences during the war nor return to Poland, as both could cause the arrest of his family members remaining in Poland. After the fall of Communism he wrote his two memoirs, listed below.

Selected works

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bardach, Janusz 1919 births 2002 deaths Odesa Jews Gulag detainees Polish plastic surgeons University of Iowa faculty 20th-century surgeons Physicians from Moscow Soviet emigrants to Poland Polish emigrants to the United States