This file is a transcript of hand-written notes Scott Safier took at
the Holocaust Center in Pittsburgh.

\section{Reference 1}
{\bf Source: \it Book: The Nazi Doctors -- Medical Killing and the
Psychology of Genocide, Robert J. Lifton; Basic Books, Inc, New York,
NY 1986}

pg 149 -- SS Doctors (according to Hoss) were suppose to perform
abortions on {\it alien} women found to be pregnant.  Whether or not
that category was meant to include Jewish women (as opposed to their
being a special category of their own) abortions were performed on
them in secret by Jewish prison doctors when it was learned that a
diagnosis of pregnancy meant immediate gassing\footnote{based upon an
interview with Nazi and prison doctors.  Rudolph Hoss: Commandant of
Auschwitz: The autobiography of Rudolph Hoess}

pg 183 -- Some women tried to drape their clothes in ways that would
hide pregnancy (which, for Jewish women, meant being sent to the gas),
and some had secret abortions by Jewish prison doctors.  One women
told how Mengele asked her suspiciously whether she were pregnant, and
said, if she was, ``I will send you to another place with better
conditions''; she claimed to have answered, ``From what?'' and was
spared. (Mengele/Haifa: 25 Magdalena Wertesz)

pg 224-225 (prison doctors) -- There was a third form of killing that
certain doctors performed: abortions performed at various stages of
pregnancy, and the killing of newborns after secret deliveries.  These
abortions and killing of newborns were done because women (especially
Jewish women) discovered to be pregnant of to have given birth to an
infant were killed by the SS.  There have been many reports of these
clandestine events.  Dr. Gerda N., for instance, told of a courageous
prisoner physician whom she considered a ``heroine of abortions''.

On one occasion, Dr. N. herself was present when the Hungarian doctor
induced labor in a women who was not far from delivering.\footnote{Dr.
N. was not sure of the method employed (``I think she gave some [form
of] injection'' but saw her make use of a portable stand ``like a
little operating table'' and ``a little instrument... very
primitive.''}  Dr. N. said the Hungarian doctor's focus was to ``save
the life of the women'' and ``she [the doctor] did it at the risk of
her own life,'' depending upon the fact that ``Nobody talked -- there
was a silent conspiracy.''  Dr. N. spoke of the psychological pain of
everyone involved: ``For the mother [it was] something terrible.  But
it was strange enough -- the women in the end agreed.  Some said no, I
don't want it.  They [would] rather die together with the children.
But, at the end they all agreed.  Some of us said, 'Oh, you can have
another baby still [in the future], and so on.'''

There were other accounts of newborns left in the block to die and of
others being strangled or suffocated in order to avoid detection.  For
Dr. N. stressed that, had the SS found out, they would have insisted
that the Hungarian doctors and helpers --- and not they (the Nazis)
themselves -- were {\it murderers}.

Dr. Olga Lengyel has written poignantly about these matters in her
book {\bf Five Chimneys} (1947), where she describes the necessity,
when infants were delivered on the medical block, to ``make [them]
pass for stillborn.''  She tells of sneaking women on to the block for
a delivery: ``[Afterwards,] we pinched and closed the little tikes
nostrils and when it opened its mouth to breath we gave it a dose of a
lethal product.  An injection ... would have left a trace.''  Of her
own residual guilt, Dr. Lengyel says: ``Yet I try in vain to make my
conscience acquit me.  I still see the infants issuing from their
mothers.  I can feel their warm little bodies as I held them.  I
marvel to what depths these Germans made us descend.''  And who cannot
be haunted by the additional comment: ``And so, the Germans succeeded
in making murderers of even us.''

pg 42: Sterilization policies -- ``purification of the national body''
and the ``eradication of morbid heredity dispositions.''  

Sterilization  part of negative eugenics.

The commitment to {\it positive eugenics} - or {\it the battle for
births} was inseperable from {\it negative eugenics} -- sterilization
and eventually euthenasia.  Abortions were prohibited, but
sterilization courts could rule that pregnancies could be interupted
for eugenic reasons in a {\it racial emergency} situation: that is, if
the future child was likely to inherit certain defects or (in all
probability) had mixed (Jewish and non-Jewish) parentage.

\section{Reference 2}
{\bf source: \it Book: Documents on the Holocaust -- Selected sources on the
destruction of the Jews of Germany and Austria, Poland and the Soviet
Union; edited by Yitzhak Arad, Yisrael Gutman, Abraham Margaliot --
YAD VASHEM, Jerusalem 1981}

Judenrate established November 28, 1939.  Ghetto councils composed of
12 members for populations less than 10,000 and 24 for populations
greater than 10,000.  The coucil was elected by the Jews, with
replacements being elected immediately as necessary.  The council had
one chairman and one deputy chair.  It reported directly to the
subdistrict Commander who approved of the committee or ordered changes
in the membership.  The purpose of the Judenrate was to ``receive
orders from German administration and carry out [those] orders to
[the] full extent.''

Order banning births -- March 5, 1942; last date for births August 5,
1942 extended to August 15.

From the diary of E. Yerushalim, July 4, 1942 (Ghetto of Shavel): ``In
the event of a birth taking place in a Jewish family after this date
the whole Jewish family would be ``removed'' (exterminated) and the
responsibility would be left with the Jewish delegates...''

July 13, 1942: (posted in Ghetto by Shavel Judenrate) In accordance
with the order of the Security Police, births are permitted in the
Ghetto only up to August 15, 1942.  After this date it is forbidden to
give birth to Jewish children in the hospital or in the homes of
pregnant women.  It is pointed out, at the same time, that it is
permitted to interrupt pregnancies by the means of abortions.  A great
resposibility rests on the pregnant women.  If they do not comply with
this order, there is a danger they will be executed, together with
their families.  The delegates are making this matter widely known.
In warning the women of the possible consequences, they believe that
the women concerned will remember it well, and take the necessary
measures during the registration of pregnant women which will take
place during the next few days, and subsequently.

\section{Reference 3}
{\bf source: \it book: Children and Games in the Holocaust: Games amoung the
Shadows, George Eisen, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst,
1988}

from Ghetto of Siavlavi, Lithuania (posted by
Gestapo)\footnote{Eliezer Yerushalmi; Pinkas Shavli (Jerusalem, YAD
VASHEM, 1958) pp 96-97}

The time is over, it is the last minute!  The 15th of August is not
far!  Remember, Jewish women, after that time no births will be
allowed in the ghetto hospital.  Remember, after the 15th births will
be forbidden even in private homes.  A strict examination of private
dwellings will be conducted.  Physicians, mid-wives, and nurses will
be forbidden to assist Jewish women.  In the case of insubordination,
all will be punished with the utmost severity.  Do not forget the
danger you might bring upon yourself or your family!  We are warning
you for the last time!
\end{document}