Love, War, and Insulin

A Jewish Woman Who Made Insulin in Shanghai During WWII

Victor and Eva Saxl

In 1922, the discovery of insulin transformed Type 1 diabetes from a death sentence into something survivable. Before then, the statistics were brutal: half dead within two years, 90% within five. But this isn't a story about that medical breakthrough - it's a woman named Eva Saxl and the lengths her husband went to keep her alive in the midst of war.

Eva and Victor Saxl had barely begun their life together as newlyweds in Prague when Nazi occupation drove them from their home. They fled halfway across the world to Shanghai, China joining 30,000 other refugees in a city teeming with desperate people. Then came even more devastating news: Eva, just 19 years old, had Type 1 diabetes.

Jewish refugee community in Shanghai during WWII

At first, they managed. Victor learned to give Eva her daily insulin injections, and survival seemed possible. Then the US declared war on Japan, and everything unraveled. Medical supply lines were cut. Shanghai's insulin supplies quickly dwindled. The only remaining insulin came through the black market, which were set at impossible prices and often laced with poison. Eva faced an unthinkable choice: find a way to make insulin from scratch, or die.

(This post is in honor of November’s Diabetes Awareness Month and World Diabetes Day on November 14th)