Auschwitz, the largest and most infamous Nazi concentration and extermination camp, symbolizes the horrors of the Holocaust. Among the many crimes committed there, some of the most heartbreaking were the atrocities inflicted upon pregnant women. Seen as unfit for labor and unworthy of life under Nazi ideology, these women were subject to inhumane conditions, medical experimentation, and execution.
Pregnancy Meant Death
For most women, pregnancy at Auschwitz was a death sentence. Upon arrival at the camp, those visibly pregnant were immediately selected for the gas chambers. The Nazis viewed pregnant women as unproductive and incapable of contributing to forced labor. They were thus considered "useless mouths," part of the regime's brutal logic of industrialized murder.
Women who became pregnant in the camp—often the result of rape or coercion by guards—faced similar fates. Once their condition became known, they were either killed, forced to undergo abortions, or subjected to medical experiments.
Horrific Medical Experiments
Dr. Carl Clauberg and Dr. Josef Mengele, two of Auschwitz’s most notorious SS doctors, performed gruesome experiments on pregnant women. These so-called “studies” were conducted without anesthesia or consent and often resulted in death or permanent injury.
Women were injected with harmful chemicals, subjected to radiation, or forced into sterilization experiments to test Nazi theories on reproduction and racial purity. Mengele, in particular, had an obsession with twins and pregnant women, using them as living test subjects in his twisted pursuit of eugenics.