Midwife at Auschwitz (part 2 of 2)

By Matthew M. Anger (Spero News, Friday, December 05, 2008)

The Story of Stanisława Leszczyńska  (this paragraph already appeared in the February issue)
If anything can be said of accusations against the Catholic Church in World War II it is that they are as predictable as they are monotonous. Far more interesting (and revealing) is the heroism of thousands of ordinary Catholics who suffered and died at the hands of Hitler's reign of terror. The martyrdom of St. Maximillian Kolbe, who was put to death at the Auschwitz concentration camp, is well known. But such courage was not unique, as the revealed in the remarkable history of Stanisława Leszczyńska. The following is an abridged version of a study by Polish historian prof. Maciej Giertych which provides some inkling of the horrors which Polish Catholics, and other Catholics throughout Europe, underwent during the Second World War. Sadly, such accounts — though they are numerous — are generally disregarded by modern academia and the media.

Introduction to Hell
Stanislawa was arrested in Lodz on February 18, 1943, with her daughter and two sons. The sons were sent to the labor camp at Mathausen and Gusen to work in the stone quarries. She and her daughter, Sylvia, were sent to Auschwitz where they arrived on April 17, 1943. They were given the numbers 41335 and 41336, tattooed on their forearms. They would remain as mementos of the camp.
   They were deprived of all possessions, stripped, shaven, and given camp clothing – striped overalls and some underwear. Sylvia recalls that she received two left-foot slip. All of the clothing was infested with lice. Stanislawa spent two years in the women's facility at Auschwitz, working as a midwife in three different blocks. The "sick-ward" in all of these was the same: 40-meter long bare wooden barracks heated by single brick stove.
   Because the camp was situated in a low-lying area, the barracks were frequently flooded with 2-3 inches of water. Within the sick-ward were three layers of bunks, lining both sides of the building. Up to three or four women would sleep on the filth-covered bunks at a time. The straw "mattresses", ridden with vermin, had long ago been ground nearly to dust and thus provided little comfort. Most women were left to lie on nothing more than wooden planks.
   Stanislawa recalls the conditions the sick inmates had to contend with: "In the winter, when the temperatures were very low, icicles formed on the ceiling from the breath and perspiration – one silvery rod next to another. When, in the evening, the lights were put on, they glittered beautifully. They looked like one great crystal chandelier. But under these icicles, people slept and sick women delivered their babies."
   The brick stove, says Stanislawa, "served as the only place for deliveries, because no other. . . arrangement for the purpose was available. The oven was only lit a few times during the year. . . Thirty bunks nearest the oven constituted the so-called maternity ward."
  Stanislawa goes on to describe the misery of life in the camp: "In general the block was dominated by infections, stench and all kinds of vermin. Rats were abundant. . . . The victims of the rats were not only sick women but also the newborn children." There were 1,000 to 1,200 patients on average in the sick-ward. Of these at least a dozen died each day.
   "In these conditions," explains Stanislawa, "the fate of the women in labor was tragic, and the role of the midwife extremely difficult. There were no antiseptics, no dressings, and no medicine, other than a small quota of aspirin." The food, such as it was, consisted mainly of "decayed, boiled greens." Initially, Stanislawa had to manage on her own, with occasional help from her young daughter. "The German camp physicians – Rhode, Koenig and Mengele – could not, of course, 'soil' their medical vocations by giving help to non- Germans...."
   Later, she was aided by female physicians who were themselves prisoners. As evidence of Stanislawa's deep humility, she placed very little emphasis on her own remarkable work. Rather, she spoke of the "greatness of the doctors, their devotion, [which] is frozen in the eyes of those who, tormented with the bondage of suffering, will never speak again. . . . The physicians did not work there for fame, approval, nor for the fulfillment of professional ambitions. All these motives were put aside. There remained only the medical duty of saving life in every case and in every situation, compounded with compassion for human suffering."
   The illness afflicting most inmates was dysentery. Typhus also swept through the camp and, for a time, Stanislawa herself fell victim to the disease. She says that "the incidence of typhoid fever was, as far as possible, concealed from the Lagerarzt [the SS camp physician] usually by writing on the sick-list that the patient had the 'flu,' since those sick with typhoid were immediately liquidated.

Small Miracles Amid the Squalor
During her imprisonment, Stanislawa helped deliver over 3,000 babies. But there was something even more remarkable than her trying to cope amidst these hostile conditions. As she explained to her son, the Lagerarzt ordered her to make a report on the infections and mortality rate for mothers and infants. She replied, "I have not had a single case of death, either among the mothers or the newborns." The Lagerarzt's response was a look of disbelief. "He said that even the most perfectly handled clinics of German universities cannot claim such success. In his eyes I read anger and envy." In a self- deprecating manner, Stanislawa attributed this to fact that "the emaciated organisms were too barren a medium for bacteria." However, her children and fellow inmates ascribe this miraculous record to causes more than natural.

Planned Parenting in Auschwitz
When time for delivery approached, the already famished mother had to give up her bread ration for a time in order obtain a sheet which would be used to make diapers and clothing for the child. Needless to say, the Nazis did not provide such things. To make things worse, there was no running water in the barracks which made cleaning diapers a risky experience, since inmates were not permitted to move freely in the block. Any cleaning had to be done surreptitiously.
   Finally, there was no extra food or milk allocated for the infants. But simple neglect apparently did not satisfy the camp administrators. Thus, criminal inmates were employed to dispose of the troublesome infants.
   Until May 1943, all the children born in Auschwitz were drowned in a barrel. These operations were performed by Schwester [sister] Klara, a German midwife who was imprisoned for infanticide. "As a Berufsverbrecherin (one guilty of occupational crime), and thus forbidden to practice her profession," says Stanislawa, "she was entrusted with a function to which she was more suited." Later, Klara was aided by a German prostitute, the redheaded Schwester Pfani. "After each delivery, the mothers were able to hear the characteristic gurgle and splashing water" as their babies were disposed of.
   The situation changed somewhat in May 1943. "Aryan-looking" children, with blue eyes and fair hair, were spared Schwester Klara's treatment and sent to a center in the town of Naklo to be "de-nationalized." There they would end up in orphanages or were placed with German parents.
   "Hoping that in the future it would be possible to recover these children, to bring them back to their mothers," Stanislawa explains, "I organized a method of marking the children with a 'tatoo' that would not be recognized by the SS guards. Many a mother was comforted by the thought that some day she would be able to find her lost happiness." Meanwhile, the fate of those left behind was hardly improved. The infants slowly died from malnutrition. Among the countless tragedies witnessed by Stanislawa, one in particular, stands out.  "I vividly recall a woman from Vilno, sent to Auschwitz for giving help to the partisans. Immediately after giving birth to a child her number was called out. . . I went to excuse her. This did not help but merely intensified anger. I realized she was being called out to the crematorium. She wrapped the child in a dirty piece of paper, pressed it to her breasts. . . Her lips moved noiselessly.  She tried to sing her baby a song, as mothers often did there, murmuring to their infants various lullabies with which they tried to compensate them for the piercing cold and hunger, for their misery. However, she did not have the strength. . . she was unable to emit a sound . . . only large copious tears came from under her eyelids, flowing over her unusually pale cheeks and falling onto the head of the tiny child condemned to death."

   Stanislawa Leszczynska concludes her brief but terrible memoir with the following remarks: "All of the babies were born alive. It was their purpose to live." Of the infants who remained at Auschwitz, "scarcely thirty survived the camp. Several hundred were sent to Naklo. . . . About 1,500 were drowned by Schwester Klara and Pfani. More than 1,000 died of cold and hunger." These figures cover the period from April, 1943, when Stanislawa arrived, to the liberation of the camp in January, 1945.

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THE END