Dr. Slavko Hirsch (29 March 1893 – 1942) was a Croatian physician, founder and director of the Epidemiological Institute in Osijek. Hirsch was born on 29 March 1893 in Glina to a Jewish family of Bertold and Josefina Hirsch. After high school education Hirsch studied medicine at the Medical University of Vienna, Innsbruck Medical University and University of Prague. During World War I, as a student, he was recruited and mobilized in the Austro-Hungarian Army. He was stationed in the village Bršadin, near Vukovar. During the war, Hirsch gained extensive experience in the field of venerology and other communicable diseases. In 1919, he finished specialization at the Rudolf Virchow Hospital in Berlin, where he studied epidemiology of bacterial meningitis. In 1923, Hirsch was appointed as head