The “Final Final Solution”

The War Against Jewish Fetuses in Their Mothers' Wombs

Authors

  • Miriam Offer Western Galilee College

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23777/sn.0125/art_moff01

Keywords:

Anti-childbirth decree, Lithuanian ghettos, Medicine and Holocaust

Abstract

Operation Barbarossa was a turning point between the array of dehumanising "solutions to the Jewish question", hitherto concocted by the Nazis, and the gradual escalation into mass systematic annihilation in forest ravines, gas vans, and extermination camps. This article examines the distinctiveness of the decree against births imposed in the Jewish ghettos of Lithuania, established in the second half of 1941, in comparison with the Polish ghettos, as well as the possible connection to the Wannsee Conference decisions. Furthermore, the article addresses the coping strategies adopted in the ghettos. In view of the Wannsee Conference Protocol and the chronological proximity of the conference to the decree's announcement, the decree appears to have constituted an additional frontier to ensure the "Final Final Solution" discussed at the meeting at Wannsee.

Author Biography

  • Miriam Offer , Western Galilee College

    Dr. Miriam Offer is a senior lecturer at Western Galilee College and teaches the history of medicine during the Holocaust in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Tel Aviv University. She is an expert researcher of Jewish medicine during the Holocaust, with emphasis on organisation, science, and ethics as reflected in Jewish medical activity during the Holocaust. Her prominent recent publications include: the authored book, White Coats in the Ghetto: Jewish Medicine in Poland during the Holocaust (Yad Vashem); a co-edited book, Recognizing the Past in the Present: New Studies on Medicine Before, During and After the Holocaust (Berghahn); a special issue of Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues (36), titled Jewish Women Medical Practitioners Before, During and After the Holocaust (Indiana University Press, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute & Schechter), as consulting editor; and a co-edited issue of KOROT: The Israel Journal of the History of Medicine and Science (25) titled Education and Ethics in the Shadow of the History of Medicine During the Holocaust (The Hebrew University Magnes Press).

    Miriam is involved in various international research projects. She is a member of the Lancet Commission on Medicine and the Holocaust: Historical Evidence, Implications for Today, Teaching for Tomorrow, and heads a research team on Medicine, Morbidity, and Childhood During and After the Holocaust, which is funded by the Israel Ministry of Science and Technology. Alongside her research activities, Miriam is engaged in Holocaust education for the general public. Inter alia, she founded and directed the Hedva Eibeshitz Institute for Holocaust Research in Haifa, and she was one of the leading academic staff of the Israel Medical Association's "Witnesses in White" project, involving visits to Poland for Israeli physicians. She is among the leaders of a pioneering course in Israel to train physicians and health professionals to teach medicine and the Holocaust to students and employees of the health professions.

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Published

2025-03-05

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 1 (2025): S:I.M.O.N. – SHOAH: INTERVENTION. METHODS. DOCUMENTATION.

Section

ARTICLES

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Miriam Offer

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How to Cite

“The ‘Final Final Solution’: The War Against Jewish Fetuses in Their Mothers’ Wombs”. 2025. S: I.M.O.N. Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation. 12 (1): 51-66. https://doi.org/10.23777/sn.0125/art_moff01.