Date of Completion
2025
Thesis Type
College of Arts and Science Honors
Department
History
First Advisor
Susanna Schrafstetter
Keywords
History, Holocaust Studies, Auschwitz, Birkenau, Jewish Doctors
Abstract
This thesis examines the unique experiences of and roles played by female Jewish prisoner physicians in the Auschwitz camp complex. By selecting six case studies of such individuals, this thesis evaluates the choices each woman had and how they reacted to them through Lawrence Langer’s framework of “choiceless choices,” their strategies for rescuing other prisoners, and where they fit into Primo Levi’s “gray zone” as prisoners with relative “priviledge.” This allows for a more nuanced understanding of how the prisoner society functioned in Auschwitz and how the experiences of women more broadly in the camp were uniquely gendered. This thesis also introduces necessary background information about key SS physicians in Auschwitz and their work as well as discussing the connection between Nazi racial ideology and pseudo-scientific human experimentation in Auschwitz. Moreover, it attempts to paint a group portrait, for the first time, of female Jewish prisoner physicians as their own distinct victim group, arguing that their experiences and roles were distinct from those of male Jewish inmate physicians in Auschwitz.
Recommended Citation
Elston, Grace Clara, "“The Germans succeeded in making murderers of even us”: Female Jewish Prisoner Physicians and Medicine in Auschwitz-Birkenau" (2025). UVM College of Arts and Sciences College Honors Theses. 163.
https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/castheses/163