What a story!
It appears she is not inducted into the Righteous Among The Nation by Vad Yashem.
"... Stanisława was a Polish midwife who worked for two years in the maternity ward at Auschwitz. Yes, there was such a place. Most pregnant women who arrived at the death camp were sent straight to their death. But not all of them were and some women became pregnant in the camp. As a result, thousands of babies were born in a place ...
The maternity ward was a small part of the blocks for women prisoners. It consisted of about 30 bunks near a brick stove which served as a bed for childbirth. There might have been three or four women in each bunk. Conditions were indescribably foul. Most women had dysentery; rats as big as cats swarmed in the unheated sheds, devouring corpses. Every day 10 or 20 women died. There was almost no fresh water.
In this place of torment Stanisława Leszczyńska delivered 3,000 babies. ...
As she recalled later on, “Contrary to all expectations and in spite of the extremely inauspicious conditions, all the babies born in the concentration camp were born alive and looked healthy at birth. Nature defied hatred and extermination and stubbornly fought for her rights, drawing on an unknown reserve of vitality.”
However, of the 3,000 babies that Stanisława delivered, only a handful lived. A thousand died of starvation or disease. About 1,500 were drowned by two women orderlies, Schwester (“sister”) Klara, a midwife who had been jailed for infanticide, and Schwester Pfani, a prostitute. A few hundred babies with blue eyes were sent away to be adopted by German mothers. About 30 survived in the care of their mothers. ..."
When the Germans invaded Poland, the Leszczyński family became involved in the Polish resistance. Bronisław died in the Warsaw uprising; Stanisława and her children helped Jews in the Łódź ghetto by delivering food and false documents but in 1943 they were caught by the Gestapo. Two of her sons were sent to a slave labour camp; she and her daughter Sylwia were sent to Auschwitz. The numbers tattooed on their forearms were 41335 and 41336.
At the camp she volunteered to work as a midwife, assisted by Sylwia. ...However, of the 3,000 babies that Stanisława delivered, only a handful lived. A thousand died of starvation or disease. About 1,500 were drowned by two women orderlies, Schwester (“sister”) Klara, a midwife who had been jailed for infanticide, and Schwester Pfani, a prostitute. A few hundred babies with blue eyes were sent away to be adopted by German mothers. About 30 survived in the care of their mothers. ..."
No comments:
Post a Comment