WORTH VISITING:
On the last Sunday of each September, the medical community celebrates World Heart Day. This is the perfect day to visit Plungė and memorial plaque for doctor Borisas Efrosas on Vytautas street. Why? Because he was the first person in Lithuania, who successfully started to save the hearts of his patients and taught the next generation of his colleagues how to do so.
BRIEF HISTORY:
On the 1st of November, in 1914 in the family of Plungė Jews a boy named Borisas was born. He spent his childhood in the Plungė shtetl and as a talented boy, Borisas was sent to the gymnasium in Kaunas. Kaunas grew on Borisas – he finished gymnasium and continued his medical studies in Kaunas. In 1940 he finished the studies and worked as a surgeon both in Kaunas and in Marijampolė. During the Second World War B. Efrosas as a doctor was sent to the Eastern Front – in 1941-1945, he was the head of the Surgery Department in Balchash hospital. After the war, the young doctor returned to Lithuania and in 1945 he was appointed to the chief surgeon of Lithuanian Railways Hospital in Vilnius. This appointment meant that next to his primary work as a surgeon he had to train other young surgeons and organize the Surgery Department. Borisas Efrosas twice was the first one in the Lithuanian medical field – he was a pioneer of esophageal and pulmonary surgery and in 1958 he performed the first successful heart surgery in Lithuania. This later achievement made him famous and respected in the Lithuanian medical community.
CURRENT SITUATION:
Memorial plaque for Borisas Efrosas next to the place of his childhood home in Plungė (Vytauto str. 14) was initiated by the local community in 2009 – eight years after the death of the famous surgeon. Borisas was an active member of the society, so his memory is also commemorated in Vilnius, where he spent the majority of his lifetime. In 2002 his widowed wife organized uncovering of a memorial plaque dedicated to Borisas Efrosas and his work in the hospital at Vilkpėdės str. 3, in Vilnius. The surgeon worked here for almost fifty years.
LOOKING AROUND:
Litvak Memorial Garden, 56.062383, 21.821884
Memorial Wall in Kaušėnai, 55.921067, 21.783250
The building of Jewish gymnasium and J. L. Peretz library (S. Neries str. 6), 55.913700, 21.848991
Historical quarters of Plungė Jews