This thesis was created as part of the Manovill Holocaust History Fellowship.

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Women’s Reproductive Health: The Holocaust and Today

J. Fukumoto

“We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced.” ﹘Malala Yousafzai^[1] Although this phrase by Malala references her fight for female education, it is applicable to many other women studies and focuses. Reproductive rights, according to the United Nations Population Fund, is “the state of complete physical, mental and social well-being in all matters relating to the reproductive system. It implies that people are able to have a satisfying and safe sex life, the capability to reproduce, and the freedom to decide if, when, and how often to do so.”^[2] Since the early 1770s, when Roe v Wade passed, women, including many men, have pushed activism to new levels where both pro-choice and pro-life are permitted powerful platforms to discuss reproductive rights. However, in terms of reproductive health, especially in the United States, there has been a step backward due to the recent changes by several state governments actions towards women’s reproductive health rights. It has been nearly eighty years since the largest worldwide genocide, the Holocaust. Only now has the United States government begun changing a woman’s reproductive rights in favor of not the woman, but of Church and state. In the First Amendment, it states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”^[3] Simply, the government cannot create laws that follow a certain religion because then that law is imposed unto every citizen, making it unfair for every citizen who does not believe in that religion. In this paper, I will utilize 4 different female individuals and groups who fought and fight for women’s reproductive rights. A woman’s reproductive health has always been in the hands of men, in the Holocaust and today, but men have never had to worry about their reproductive rights because of how the structure of society has been formed and held. Within the past eighty years to now, female resistance groups have fought to obtain and receive their deserved reproductive health rights.

Before World War II, women in Germany were primarily responsible for taking care of their children and the household while men worked to earn money.^[4] But, in the early years of Nazi Germany, Jewish women were brought more work and responsibility. They still had to manage their households, but they also had to work because many of the Jewish men left their families due to humiliation. “…when the first anti-Jewish laws were passed, and Jews were dismissed from their jobs and professions, Jewish men were affected most directly. Men who had spent their whole lives working were suddenly fired and cut off from their work, their co-workers, and their daily routines.”^[5] Women were practically handed this responsibility because of the lack of men in the families to help provide. This responsibility of taking care of one’s family should already be known, not something given just because men are no longer available. When more anti-semitic Jewish German policies were created, they specifically targeted Jewish women. For example, in Lithuania, a German policy prohibited the pregnancy and birth of Jewish children. Jewish doctors in Lithuania were required to report all pregnancies and perform an abortion to kill the baby. If any woman or doctor were non-compliant, they were both sent to their death. There were women in the Kovno ghetto who went against this order and remained pregnant. These women didn’t want the Germans to define them and think that they could order them to do whatever the Germans wanted. Women’s role in society changed from a housewife to a working woman who had to provide for their own families and some women even disobeyed new-written German policies to protect their families.

Abortions and experimentation on women and babies was a common practice during the Holocaust because Hitler wanted to find a way to produce more of his superior “Aryan” race. Hitler considered an “Aryan” to be a pure-blooded German with blond hair and blue eyes; Hitler himself was not Aryan according to his set standards. To fulfill this desire, he had several of his trusted male Nazi doctors study women prisoners at certain camps. There was only one women’s camp, Ravensbrück, located fifty miles north of Berlin that tortured, murdered, and experimented on women. The conditions of the camp were no better than some of the other concentration and death camps. Ravensbrück was only designed to hold 5,000 women, but it ended up holding more than 132,000 within the camp’s six year existence. The materials the women received constantly decreased due to the increasing number of new women coming into the camp; so, less and less materials were allowed to be given to the women to conserve as much as possible. A necessity that each women received less of was their food ration. Within in a short period of time, the women became malnourished due to their reduced food intake. Menstruation for every woman stopped because they all lacked the necessary nutrients and vitamins for the process to take place. The pregnant women in the camp especially suffered because without food, neither the mother or child could survive. “Pregnancy could be punishable by death, or at least by forced abortion… women in various camps helping other women to miscarry or abort, in order to save the life of the mother… women who killed their newborn infants, because there was no hope for the babies, and their presence could cause suffering or death to others.”^[6] In the majority of camps, it was common that women were used for rape and sexual abuse. However, specifically in Ravensbrück, women served as prostitutes and many of them became pregnant with a soldier’s baby, even though a German law “made it illegal for ‘Aryans’ to have sexual relations with Jews…”^[7]; the soldiers just denied that they had sex with a prisoner. A racial law against the Jews like this was thought to protect the Jews from being sexually harassed, but the soldiers must not have cared. In this situation, the soldiers went against the law, used the women for sex as if it was something that could easily be taken, and did not get punished for it. Not only was abortion used, but also the experimentation on prisoners, a common medical practice. Experimentation on twins caught Hitler’s eye because if a woman was able to birth two Aryan babies, two is better than just one Aryan baby. Dr. Josef Mengele, one of the most notorious doctors under Hitler, studied the phenomena of twins.^[8] Hitler wanted to have the ability to defy science and create his Aryan race, and this process of experimenting on identical and fraternal twins was one possible way he could reach his dream. Twins had their organs cut out, eyes removed, and unknown, dangerous injections. All these different science experiments, on young children, was a gruesome technique just to find a way to produce more Aryans, “the master race.”

Gisella Perl, an individual who stood up for women during World War II, was a doctor who performed abortions to save the lives of women in Auschwitz, the largest concentration and death camp. As a young girl, she was gifted with great intelligence which eventually led her to pursue a passion in medicine. She became a gynecologist, a doctor who specializes in women’s reproductive health. When Hitler came into power, Perl was directly affected by the Nazi regime because of her religion, Judaism. Her husband, son, parents, other relatives, and herself were sent to Auschwitz, where Perl was separated from her family. She later learned her husband was beaten to death and her son died in one of the gas chambers. Dr. Josef Mengele decided to utilize her skills as someone in medicine for his medical experiments, but he didn’t learn about her medical specialty until later. Perl’s work included encouraging inmates to donate blood for the German army. Every single prisoner in the concentration camps was malnourished and weak; so, there was no way for those people to be able to donate any blood because they needed every drop of blood to even stay awake. Nonetheless, Mengele did not care what would have happened to any of the inmates in Auschwitz. But, when Mengele learned about her work as a gynecologist, he ordered her to report all pregnancies to him directly because he experimented on twins and pregnant women. He told Perl that all the pregnant women would be sent to another camp where the women would get better care; Perl knew this was a lie. She had to make a decision. She knew if she delivered the babies near the Nazi physicians, the physicians would hear the babies’ cries and kill everyone as a punishment, but if she turned in the pregnant women to Mengele, they would suffer and die from his experiments anyway. Perl followed her instincts and started performing abortions in the barracks. Since she had to help these women secretly, she had no materials or tools whatsoever to help the women give birth.^[9] Even with her work at risk and her knowing the consequences, Perl, throughout her whole time in Auschwitz, fought to protect as many pregnant women as she could from getting killed and being experimented on. Gisella Perl was able to save more than two thousand women’s lives during her time in Auschwitz and said: “No one will ever know what it meant to me to destroy these babies… I loved those newborn babies not as a doctor but as a mother and it was again and again my own child whom I killed to save the life of a woman.”^[10]

In Ravensbrück, the all-female camp, women prisoners banded together to form their own non-violent female resistance. The aim of the group was to keep every women connected to their culture and to remind them of their old lifestyle before they were brought to the camp. As strong women, they did not want the German soldiers to think that they, the men, could defeat the women in this camp. They were able to achieve this by talking about foods that they cooked, creating art, singing songs, writing poems, performing theatre, and most of all, being kind to one another. This is not like any other kind of resistance group; the women just wanted to be connected to their roots and sharing with one another her culture gave the women the sense of feeling of home.

A lesser known, but very powerful individual, Brittany Mostiller, the executive director of the Chicago Abortion Fund, fights to eliminate the barriers of second-trimester abortions through service and education. Mostiller went through an abortion as well. In 2007, after she became pregnant, she knew that she could not financially and mentally take care of another child because she already had three daughters. The decision of abortion was the right one for her because she wanted to be able to provide for her children, and if she had another baby, she wouldn’t be able to do just that. By using her own story to inspire and educate women, she is able to influence and create change for women and their abortion rights. Mosteller said, “I think it’s really important that we hear that and that we see that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with us for making that decision for ourselves.”^[11] Brittany Mosteller is not afraid to represent women who might not have or do not have the resources to get an abortion.

A leading, women-led movement today is the Women’s March. Their mission “is to harness the political power for diverse women and their communities to create transformative social change.”^[12] Their unity principles include ending violence, reproductive rights, LGBTQIA rights, workers rights, civil rights, disability rights, immigrant rights, and environmental justice. Focusing more on the reproductive rights, Women’s March says: “We believe in Reproductive Freedom. We do not accept any federal, state or local rollbacks, cuts or restrictions on our ability to access quality reproductive healthcare services, birth control, HIV/AIDS care and prevention, or medically accurate sexuality education. This means open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion and birth control for all people, regardless of income, location or education.”^[13] The Women’s March movement accomplishes this by peaceful protesting and organizing their social platforms. Women’s March brought together 70 movement leaders to create their federal policy priorities, forming the foundation of the 2019 Women’s March on Washington. Women’s March began in 2017 when Donald Trump became president of the United States. The idea for this movement actually began on Facebook when a Hawaiian woman shared her opinion that a pro-woman march was necessary to combat Trump’s vote into office. Hundreds of thousands of people showed up, wearing pink clothing, to show the power of women. This nationwide movement started with just one woman’s Facebook post, which led to thousands of women and men to come together to fight specifically for women’s, but also everyone’s rights.

Since the Holocaust, there have been many technological and medical advances like computers to stem cell implants. In World War II, devices like these would have helped any country involved win the war. Computers, phones, and social media have allowed women today to speak up against all the injustices that we are faced with. Imagine if the female resistance women and groups were given resources like these, and even male resistance groups, the rise of the Nazi Regime could have been more easily stopped. With today’s technology, women stand up strong to fight for what they believe they deserve, like their reproductive health rights. Women are not held down by men; they use their voice and social media platforms to create social and political change in favor of women to help protect other women whose voices may not be heard. In the Holocaust, women were still thought as housewives, but today, women are almost seen as equals.

Today, there are several states in the United States to have created new laws that ban abortion; the first two states being Alabama and Georgia.  Alabama’s governor, Governor Kay Ivey, signed an abortion law that could punish doctors who perform abortions with up to ninety-nine years in prison. There are only two exceptions in this bill: if there is a serious health risk for the mother or if the unborn baby has a lethal anomaly. A lethal anomaly is when there is “a birth defect caused by a structural abnormality or a marked deviation from the average or norm.”^[14] Women who experience rape or incest are not exempt from this law, meaning, women who live in these states are forced to keep a rapists baby, even though it may cause her future trauma. Similarly, Georgia’s governor, Governor Brian Kemp, signed the “fetal heartbeat” bill, also known as the HB 481, which outlaws abortion after six weeks. However, most women do not know they are pregnant until after six weeks because her pregnancy isn’t anticipated or confirmed and periods can be unpredictable.  According to Dr. Jen Villavicencio, an OBGYN at the University of Michigan Medicine and a fellow with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, says 45%-49% of all pregnancies are unexpected.^[15] Villavicencio also states that women on birth control have a chance of getting pregnant because there is a margin error of 1%-2%, meaning if there are 100 people, there is a chance of 1 or 2 people getting pregnant. A woman might know if she is pregnant is if her period doesn’t come, but irregular periods are very common. A woman cannot be expected to know that a missed period means a pregnancy. The Office on Women’s Health at the Department of Health and Human Services gives many reasons to why periods do not work like clockwork: eating disorders, weight changes, stress, medicines, and more.^[16] This bill also subjects women who get illegal abortions to life imprisonment and the death penalty. HB 481 was created to stop doctors from terminating any pregnancy after the doctor can detect any embryonic or fetal cardiac activity. These laws have become some of the most restrictive abortion bills passed in United States history.

Women in Alabama and Georgia have had to work especially hard to get an abortion, even before these states passed the new abortion laws. The majority of the abortion clinics in both these states are in the cities, making it difficult for women who live in rural areas to travel to the clinics. Alabama only has five clinics across 52,419 square miles. Only one of these five clinics are open on the weekends, so some women might have to take a day or two off from work to stay for counseling and waiting periods to prepare for and after the abortion procedure. Some women cannot afford to take off work because they need to provide for their family; especially if she is a single mother, she is the only source of income for her and her family. According to Elizabeth Nash at Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that studies reproductive health and rights, says only 59% of women in Alabama in 2014 lived in counties with no women care clinics.^[17] Also, Guttmacher Institute released data on the number of clinics in Georgia. Comparably, their data showed that 58% of women in Georgia in 2014 lived in counties without women care centers.^[18] Since abortions are illegal in these two states, women are forced and will travel to other states to get this abortion. A woman should not have to take such great steps in order to help herself feel more secure.

Female resistance in the Holocaust and today has greatly impacted society in many ways. In the Holocaust, women were able to utilize their little materials to help other women and families survive. With improved technology today, women are able to help other women on a larger scale, reaching more people than what women in the past were able to do. The government’s efforts today to illegalize abortion has greatly eliminated, not fully, the work that female resistance groups have fought to earn for women in the United States. Gisella Perl, Brittany Mostiller and the Women’s March movement are empowering examples of how women use their skills to benefit women in our harsh society. By increasing the fight for reproductive health rights, women have been able to obtain some of their rights throughout history. With the Holocaust, there were actions to use women’s reproductive health for population control while today, there are actions to limit birth control and abortion options for women. Either way, society has used women’s reproductive health as a means of control whether it is to make the population all Aryan by eliminating the majority of others or for moral grounds. “We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.”﹘Maya Angelou

 

^[1] Juma, Norbert. “60 Inspirational Quotes for Women on Strength and Leadership.” Everyday Power. May 28, 2019. Accessed June 02, 2019. https://everydaypower.com/inspirational-quotes-for-women/.

 

^[2] Nations, United. “Sexual & Reproductive Health.” United Nations Population Fund. Accessed May 25, 2019. https://www.unfpa.org/sexual-reproductive-health.

 

^[3] “First Amendment.” Legal Information Institute. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment.

 

^[4] Weitzman, Lenore J. Women in the Holocaust. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1998.

 

^[5] Weitzman, Lenore J., p. 53

 

^[6] Saidel, Rochelle G. The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. Madison, WI: Terrace Books, a Trade Imprint of the University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.

 

^[7] Saidel, Rochelle G.

 

^[8] “Auschwitz-Birkenau: Nazi Medical Experimentation.” Nazi Medical Experimentation at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Accessed June 03, 2019. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nazi-medical-experimentation-at-auschwitz-birkenau.

 

^[9] Perl, Gisella, Phyllis Lassner, Danny M. Cohen, and Eva Hoffman. I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz. Lanham: Lexington Books, 1948.

 

^[10] Hedgepeth, Sonja M., and Rochelle G. Saidel. Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust. Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 2010.

 

^[11] Mostiller, Brittany. “Brittany Mostiller.” We Testify. Accessed May 26, 2019. https://wetestify.org/author/brittany-mostiller-keith/.

 

^[12] March Women’s. “Mission and Principles.” Women’s March. Accessed May 26, 2019. https://womensmarch.com/mission-and-principles.

 

^[13] Women’s March, Mission and Principles

^[14] “Lethal Anomaly.” The Free Dictionary. Accessed May 27, 2019. https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/lethal anomaly.

 

^[15] Ravitz, Jessica. “Reasons a Woman May Not Know She’s Pregnant at Six Weeks.” CNN. May 09, 2019. Accessed May 27, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/09/health/pregnancy-at-six-weeks/index.html.

 

^[16] Ravitz, Jessica.

 

^[17] Grinberg, Emanuella. “The Reality for Women Seeking Abortions in Alabama and Georgia.” CNN. May 24, 2019. Accessed May 26, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/23/us/abortion-restrictions-georgia-alabama/index.html.

 

^[18] Grinberg, Emanuella.

 

Works Cited

 

Artisan. Why We March: Signs of Protest and Hope: Voices from the Women’s March. New York, NY: Artisan, a Division of Workman Publishing, 2017.

 

“Auschwitz-Birkenau: Nazi Medical Experimentation.” Nazi Medical Experimentation at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Accessed June 03, 2019. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nazi-medical-experimentation-at-auschwitz-birkenau.

 

Grinberg, Emanuella. “The Reality for Women Seeking Abortions in Alabama and Georgia.” CNN. May 24, 2019. Accessed May 26, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/23/us/abortion-restrictions-georgia-alabama/index.html.

 

Hedgepeth, Sonja M., and Rochelle G. Saidel. Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust. Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 2010.

 

“Josef Mengele.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed June 03, 2019. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/josef-mengele.

 

Juma, Norbert. “60 Inspirational Quotes for Women on Strength and Leadership.” Everyday Power. May 28, 2019. Accessed June 02, 2019. https://everydaypower.com/inspirational-quotes-for-women/.

 

Kelly, Caroline. “Alabama Governor Signs Nation’s Most Restrictive Anti-abortion Bill into Law.” CNN. May 16, 2019. Accessed May 26, 2019.  https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/15/politics/alabama-governor-signs-bill/index.html.

 

“Lethal Anomaly.” The Free Dictionary. Accessed May 27, 2019. https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/lethal anomaly.

 

March Women’s. “Mission and Principles.” Women’s March. Accessed May 26, 2019. https://womensmarch.com/mission-and-principles.

 

Mostiller, Brittany. “Brittany Mostiller.” We Testify. Accessed May 26, 2019. https://wetestify.org/author/brittany-mostiller-keith/.

 

Nations, United. “Sexual & Reproductive Health.” United Nations Population Fund. Accessed May 25, 2019. https://www.unfpa.org/sexual-reproductive-health.

 

Ravitz, Jessica. “Reasons a Woman May Not Know She’s Pregnant at Six Weeks.” CNN. May 09, 2019. Accessed May 27, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/09/health/pregnancy-at-six-weeks/index.html.

 

Saidel, Rochelle G. The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. Madison, WI: Terrace Books, a Trade Imprint of the University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.

 

Wax-Thibodeaux, Emily, and Ariana Eunjung Cha. “Georgia Governor Signs ‘heartbeat Bill,’ Giving the State One of the Most Restrictive Abortion Laws in the Nation.” The Washington Post. May 07, 2019. Accessed May 26, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/georgia-governor-signs-heartbeat-bill-giving-the-state-one-of-the-most-restrictive-abortion-laws-in-the-nation/2019/05/07/d53b2f8a-70cf-11e9-8be0-ca575670e91c_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b46e942d5046.

 

Weitzman, Lenore J. Women in the Holocaust. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1998.