When Stanisława Leszczyńska completed her midwifery degree never could she have imagined the impact it would have or the legacy it would leave. She was a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz and she tended to thousands of women as the camp’s midwife. Stanislawa delivered over 3000 babies in the concentration camp and defied orders given to her by those in charge to euthanise any new borns every single day. Rather incredibly, she managed to never kill a baby, despite the daily pressure from guards and the fact that she would certainly be punished by death if she was caught. Such an incredible feat has resulted in her being an official candidate for canonisation (sainthood) by the Catholic church.
Leszczyńska was born in Lodz, Poland, to a carpenter father and a factory worker mother. The family moved to Rio De Janeiro briefly. They were in in the City of God for just two years, moving back to Poland in 1910. Stanislawa finished her studies over the next few years and enrolled in the midwifery college in Warsaw in ten years later in 1920. She graduated in 1922 with the Alumnae Achievement Award and returned to her hometown, Lodz. Here she led a quiet life right up until the Nazi invasion of Poland in September, 1939. Like millions of other Poles, this completely changed her and her family’s life.
They were both transported to the infamous concentration camp on April 17th. On arrival, they were both registered to work in the camp’s maternity ward – daughter Sylwia was studying medicine before her arrest. It was in the maternity ward where Stanislawa met and was under the watchful eye of the abominable Dr. Josef Mengele, SS officer and Nazi physician who notoriously chose which prisoners got sent to be exterminated in the gas chambers. He also performed savage and often deadly human experiments on the prisoners in the camp. The authorities at Auschwitz never expected any babies to survive the pregnancy term whilst in the camp and they certainly didn’t think they would ever survive the birth. Needless to say they were left completely stunned – and furious – to learn that after reading report, Stanislawa had not lost a single baby during childbirth since arriving at the camp. It was because of this Dr. Mengel ordered Stanislawa to euthanise any newborns that were delivered in Auschwitz and through gritted teeth he commended Stanislawa on her skills as a midwife, regardless of the inconvenience it caused him. Instead, she would hide the babies in a bundle of wraps and put them out of sight under the mothers’ rough blankets. The usual practice, as described by Stanislawa herself, was to take the brand new babies immediately to the room next door and drown them in a barrel. This was done by the camps other midwife Schwester Klara, who prior to the war was actually arrested for infanticide whilst working as a midwife in a Polish hospital.
The sad fact remains that despite Stanislawa’s best efforts, of the 3000+ babies she delivered the huge majority of babies did not make it. It is estimated that 2500 of those that were delivered did not survive past infancy. In the later years of the war, babies that were born with blue eyes were shipped away from the camp to be ‘Germanised. This means that a total of just 30 babies that were delivered by the hands of Stanislawa managed to survive beyond the camps liberation. (1).
Stanisława remained the camp’s midwife until it was liberated on January 26, 1945.
After the camp was liberated, Stanislawa moved back to Łódź where she was joined by her other children who had been sent to labour camps. She continued to work as a midwife after the war and prayed for the children she delivered in Auschwitz that didn’t survive every day of her life. On January 27, 1970 an official celebration was held for her in Warsaw where she got to meet the female prisoners of Auschwitz, and their grown-up children, all of whom she had delivered in the concentration camp. She died four years after this event in 1974.
(1) [1] Matthew M. Anger (2005-01-04). “Midwife at Auschwitz: The Story of Stanislawa Leszczynska”. Seattle Catholic. Retrieved 2015-06-21.
I love this, but can you include some sources. The number “3000” seems to be a convenient number to round to and would love to know the specifics of her time in the camp.
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Hi Eric, that’s fair enough. Added a citation for the figures but they’re from: [1] Matthew M. Anger (2005-01-04). “Midwife at Auschwitz: The Story of Stanislawa Leszczynska”. Seattle Catholic. Retrieved 2015-06-21.
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Yes. Without quoting the source(s) this story is hardly believable. I noticed that the historywench mentions as a source a book that celebrates the woman’s achievement. Is it based on her memoir alone or are there other independent sources of information? Those happy, clean, well-fed women in the ward just don’t add up.
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I’m astonished to see that the Germans maintained a functioning and hygienic maternity ward in a concentration camp. I was lead to believe, that any person unable to work was immediately sent to the gaz chamber.
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