Medical Review Auschwitz: Medicine Behind the Barbed Wire

Pseudomedical experiments on prisoners in Nazi German concentration camps, other violations of medical ethics during World War II, and implications of Nazi medicine for contemporary medical ethics will be the primary themes of the 5th international conference “Medical Review Auschwitz: Medicine Behind Barbed Wire,” to be held  on September 23-25, 2024 in Kraków, Poland.

The program covers such topics as “Medical care on the verge of genocide,” “Investigations of the Institute of National Remembrance into medical experiments during World War II,” “Maternity ward at the Frauenlager in Birkenau,” “Teaching about medicine and the Holocaust,” or “SS doctor Hans Münch and his multiple injections on women imprisoned in Block 10 in Auschwitz.”

The main goals of the conference are to educate the global community, especially medical professionals, about violations of medical ethics by physicians and other medical practitioners in the Nazi German concentration camps and other places of imprisonment; to highlight the heroic efforts of prisoners and other individuals to provide medical aid; to  investigate the medical consequences of internment in the Nazi German concentration camps for survivors and their descendants; and to draw lessons for contemporary medical practice and bioethics.

The conference is organized by the Polish Institute for Evidence Based Medicine in collaboration with the Kraków Medical Society, Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum, Institute of National Remembrance, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Regional Medical Chamber in Kraków, Silesian Medical Chamber in Katowice, Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics (USA), University of Colorado Center for Bioethics and Humanities (USA), and International Chair In Bioethics – WMA Cooperation Center (Israel). The City of Krakow is a partner of the conference.