In fact, thousands of babies were born in Auschwitz, the vast majority of whom the Nazis killed virtually upon their emergence from the womb. In Poland, at least, Puc (pronounced Putz) is today the only known survivor able to represent and tell her own story of birth and survival as she heard it from her own mother.

. . . Stefania and Barbara were lucky they were born towards the end of the war. It was only from 1943 that the SS, the infamous Nazi force that ran the camp, ceased to instantly and automatically kill both children and their mothers right after delivery in all cases. This was probably due to the shortages that were by then plaguing Germany’s wartime labor force. Many women whose pregnancies were noticed by camp doctors were subjected to abortion, which in some cases was carried out even in the eighth or ninth month of the pregnancy. Babies who were born in the camp were thrown into the trash, drowned in a bucket of water or, most commonly, killed with an injection of phenol to the heart.

The change in the camp’s policy of routinely exterminating newborns began around the time Stanislawa Leszczynska started working as a midwife in the camp hospital. This heroic Polish nurse is believed to have helped deliver more than 3,000 children in Auschwitz, each time risking her own life. Leszczynska helped both Jewish and non-Jewish mothers. Although she did not kill a single newborn, the overwhelming majority of them were killed within a few hours after being born. Puc, whom Leszczynska helped deliver, was one of the few who were not.

Read the article “This Baby Was Born in Auschwitz—and Survived” on forward.com.