Very few things in life can compare to the strength of a mother`s love. Although many recognize the victims of the Holocaust and sympathize for the pain they had to endure, not many take the time to acknowledge what it was like to be a mother during this horrific time in history. Bearing the child you love into a world of war, hatred, and evil seems unfathomable and unfair. Could you even imagine the agony and torture it would take to give birth to a child in a concentration camp? In “Born in Auschwitz: How one woman delivered 3000 babies during the holocaust”, Abby Norman uses the elements of order and body language to depict the circumstances some women had to endure throughout this traumatic time in history, as being not just victims, but mothers. She uses this image to argue how women have been overlooked throughout the course of history in general.

Although the Holocaust was an extremely traumatic massacre for millions of people of every age, size, and gender, women in particular, had to experience a uniquely horrific occurrence. On top of facing the brutality and cruelty that naturally came from experiencing a concentration camp and the horrors of WWII, women had to endure the pain of domestic chores, loss of femininity, sexual violence, and pregnancy and motherhood. Being Jewish and being a woman in the Holocaust doubled one's vulnerabilities as an individual in that environment. Surviving women described feelings of sexual assault when they are forced to endure body searches and invasive “examinations” of intimate parts of their bodies. One SS officer had mentioned that he had the custom of standing at the doorway and feeling the private parts of the young women entering the gas bunker. On top of that, women were often raped right before being murdered. It is sickening how all respect for women and their bodies was lost throughout this awful time in history.

Even though all women in general had to endure a unique experience throughout this awful time, mothers and soon to be mothers, reached a whole new level of hardship. In addition to being exhausted and malnourished from the circumstances of the concentration camp, pregnant women were given no form of pain medication, antiseptics, dressings, or tools in order to ease the pregnancy. Often times, after the baby was delivered Nazi officials would have the child drowned or killed. Other times the child would be forced away from the mother and sent to an orphanage to be adopted by German families. Even if in some case, the baby survived and stayed with the mother, he was born into a world of disaster and suffering. Other particularly cruel experiments that the “doctors” performed included taping the breasts of breast-feeding mothers so that they would not be able to feed their newborn babies. They would then measure the endurance of the mothers and the babies. The agonized mothers were forced to participate until their babies were starved to death. Times were often so bad for Holocaust victims, that one could not help but wonder if a mother would even want to bring her new child into a world of such despair.

In the image of “Born in Auschwitz: How one woman delivered 3000 babies during the holocaust”, Abby Norman uses order and body language to depict the sadness and struggle of what it meant to be pregnant or a mother throughout the Holocaust. The fact that every woman in the picture is lined up in a row, portrays the discipline and structure that the Nazis withheld throughout the concentration camp. Pregnancy is already a time when a woman is experiencing hormones, anxiety, and emotions of all kinds. It only makes the matters worse when you are being controlled and ordered around by stern and unsympathetic men. Being told where to go and what to do at a time when a human life is growing inside of you is something that nobody should ever have to experience. Each horrific day that passed in a concentration camp, pregnant women or mothers had to not only worry about their own life but the life of those they were brining into this cruel world as well. Because of this sad truth, each woman in the picture has a defeated demeanor. Abby Norman uses the element of body language, as well as order, to depict what these women had to go through. The way they are standing with hunched shoulders and each looking off into different directions shows their nervousness and fear of what is to come. No victim ever knew what to expect or when their last breath might come. By the looks of hopelessness and dirt on their faces, the viewer can observe that mothers in the Holocaust were not given any sympathy nor a sense of comfort. It is astounding just how malign a human could be, in order to put mothers, who pervade nothing but unconditional love, through the torture and suffering that they did. 

Even though the Holocaust was filled with sickening stories of loss, darkness, and evil, there were still some hearings that gave a little hope to humanity. The article that correlates with the image of the pregnant women describes a woman named Stanislawa Leszczyńska, who miraculously birthed around 3000 babies during the Holocaust. As a midwife, she had to be pragmatic and resourceful in order to deal with the awful conditions that made up the concentration camps. She warned new mothers to ration their bread for weeks prior to the birth in order to trade in for cloth that could be used for diapers and blankets. She herself sacrificed some of her food as well to help the struggling mothers. Despite the terrors that surrounded them, Leszczyńska did everything in her power to make the woman in labor feel comfortable, relaxed, and prepared for the birth of her new born baby. She barely rested, and instead would wait awake with women, making sure they were at ease. She was calm and collected and soon received the nickname “Mother”. She was so good at what she did that she even shocked the Nazi soldiers. The article states, “The Nazis assumed that the babies would never survive to term–let alone labor and delivery, but when they acquired Stanislawa’s progress reports they realized that she had not lost a single baby — or mother — since she had begun practicing midwifery in the camp” (Norman 2). Because of this they were skeptical and instructed her to drown the babies after they were born. Putting her own life on the line, Leszczyńska refused. Unfortunately, the job was given to someone else, but she made sure that her hands did not harm a single child she delivered. She continued to deliver thousands of babies into the world one by one, aggravating yet at the same time impressing the Nazis. She remained humble and spoke little of the amazing work she was doing even though the women at the camp could not be more grateful for her loving and comforting spirit, especially during a time when they were surrounded by nothing but terrors. 

The Holocaust was a horrific time in history that resulted in the torture and deaths of millions of innocent people. Women and mothers endured a unique experience that is displayed through Abby Norman’s, “Born in Auschwitz: How one woman delivered 3000 babies during the holocaust”. When acknowledging the victims of the Holocaust, people often fail to recognize the specific heartache and trials women, and even more specifically, mothers had to endure. The fact that these burdens of womanhood are often overlooked when thinking about the Holocaust correlates to how women, still to this day, are fighting to receive the rights and acknowledgements they deserve. 
