Midwifery and racial segregation in Occupied Western Poland, 1939-1945

Abstract

Midwives worked at the interface between governmental intervention and the biographical turning points of pregnancy, giving birth, and early parenthood. With the introduction in 1938 of the mandatory enlistment of a midwife for every birth, the National Socialist state monopolized the activities of midwives, reinforcing their position as obstetrics experts. As such, midwives were indispensable for the implementation of Germanization policy for reproduction in Nazi-occupied western Poland during World War II. Recent studies concerning occupied Poland point out the intimate link between occupation and race policy, between Germanization policy and genocide. Yet only a few authors take gender-specific aspects of occupation policy into account or analyse everyday life and interactions between ethnic groups in occupied Poland. Based upon the biographies of three midwives, one German, one Polish and one Jewish, this article takes a closer look at the female space of pregnancy, child birth and early parenthood as a key starting point for biopolitics and Germanization policy. It thus sheds light on gender-specific realizations of occupation policy and its consequences for everyday life. Both Germanization and motherhood mattered to Nazi policy in the annexed Polish territories, and so examining how the roles of German, Polish and Jewish midwives were transformed opens a window onto how racial classifications were enacted within the 'private sphere' of pregnancy and birth.