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Recognizing the Past in the Present
New Studies on Medicine before, during, and after the Holocaust
Edited by Sabine Hildebrandt, Miriam Offer, and Michael A. Grodin
Foreword by William E. Seidelman
412 pages, 21 illus., bibliog., index
ISBN 978-1-78920-784-2 $155.00/£115.00 / Hb / Published (December 2020)
eISBN 978-1-78920-785-9 eBook
Reviews
“This collection of scholarly papers illustrates the ongoing, unfinished nature of historical research on the Holocaust and medicine, broadly defined…This sobering book is important reading for anyone interested in Jewish or medical history or in the impact of values, ideology, and ethics on scientific practice…Highly Recommended.” • Choice
“This volume offers new research and insights on a range of issues not often covered in the extant historical literature. Its mix of topics and perspectives is a particular virtue, ranging from the history of medicine to Jewish religious practice, gender, biographical and institutional studies, and the 'postwar continuities and legacies’ that are a particular emphasis and strength of the volume.” • Geoffrey Cocks, Professor Emeritus of History at Albion College
Description
Following decades of silence about the involvement of doctors, medical researchers and other health professionals in the Holocaust and other National Socialist (Nazi) crimes, scholars in recent years have produced a growing body of research that reveals the pervasive extent of that complicity. This interdisciplinary collection of studies presents documentation of the critical role medicine played in realizing the policies of Hitler’s regime. It traces the history of Nazi medicine from its roots in the racial theories of the 1920s, through its manifestations during the Nazi period, on to legacies and continuities from the postwar years to the present.
Sabine Hildebrandt is Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and serves as an anatomy educator at Harvard Medical School. She is the author of The Anatomy of Murder: Ethical Transgressions and Anatomical Science during the Third Reich (Berghahn, 2016).
Miriam Offer is Senior Lecturer in the Holocaust Studies Program, Western Galilee College and teaches Medicine and the Holocaust at Tel Aviv University. She is the author of White Coats Inside the Ghetto: Jewish Medicine in Poland During the Holocaust (Hebrew, Yad Vashem, 2015).
Michael A. Grodin (1951-2023) was Professor of Health Law, Ethics & Human Rights at the Boston University School of Public Health and was also Professor and Director of the Project on Medicine and the Holocaust at the Eli Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University. His books include the edited volume Jewish Medical Resistance in the Holocaust (Berghahn, 2014).
Subject: History: 20th Century to PresentGenocide HistoryJewish Studies
Area: Europe
Contents
Download ToC (PDF)
Of Related Interest
Jewish Medical Resistance in the Holocaust
Marking Evil
Holocaust Memory in the Global Age
The Anatomy of Murder
Ethical Transgressions and Anatomical Science during the Third Reich
