The Catholic Midwife of Auschwitz
The incredible true story of Servant of God Stanisława Leszczyńska
Servant of God Stanisława Leszczyńska has become known as the Midwife of Auschwitz. She spent two years imprisoned in that infamous Nazi concentration camp, and during that time, she worked as a midwife for the many women who arrived pregnant. She delivered their babies – over three thousand of them – in horrifyingly squalid conditions, without basic medical supplies and risked being shot by the guards every time she had to walk the length of the camp to fetch a bucket of water. Miraculously, she never lost a baby or a mother in childbirth or from postpartum infection.
Her story has now, for the first time in English, been recounted as a traditional biography by Dr Gosia Brykczyńska, who is currently the European President of CICIAMS (International Association of Catholic Nurses) and a Consecrated Virgin in the Diocese of Westminster. We interviewed Dr Gosia about her book, The Real Midwife of Auschwitz, published by the Catholic Truth Society.
This interview originally took place on our Into the Truth Podcast but has been adapted here for Substack.
Why did you want to tell this story?
Recently, quite a few books have come out, supposedly based on her life, but they are so loosely based that somebody reading them would be completely misinformed. And I am old-fashioned enough to think that if somebody has an interesting life or a story that needs to be told, it should be accurate, and a novel based on somebody’s life can be very misleading because people don’t realise that it really is a novel.
How did you discover Stanisława?
My background is Polish, and I have been going to Poland for many, many years. I have known about Stanisława since the 80s and 90s, so for quite a long time. And in the early 90s, a nurse took me to Łódź, the town where she lived and worked, and introduced me to one of her sons, Stanisław. We went to his flat, and we had a meal, and they played me music - because they were a very musical family - and told me about their mother.
So not only did I know about her from a Polish history perspective and as a health care worker, but I also knew about her through her family members. So I’ve known about her story for quite a while.
Can you give us an overview of the arc of her life?
She was born to a rather poor family, not abject poverty, but poor. Her father was twice taken away to serve in the Russian Imperial Army for extended periods, so she grew up largely under her mother's influence. Still, it was a very good family life. However, one problem was that they didn’t have much money, so the family decided to emigrate to Brazil, where they lived for two years, returning only because they were homesick.
What I do like about the end of that little story is that she came back slightly after her parents, once she’d finished the school year, and she brought back a little monkey, which she called Filip. Nowadays, I think we’d frown on people bringing monkeys over, but she managed to bring this monkey all the way to Europe from Brazil.
She married fairly early on; I think she was 19 or 20 when she married, and was very happily married and had a good, successful marriage. Then, a couple of years in, she decided to become a midwife. Midwifery training had existed in Poland for quite a number of years; formal midwifery training predated even nurse training. Her husband agreed, which was very forward-thinking of him for the early 1920s, so she went to Warsaw to train as a midwife part-time for two years. She then came back to Łódź, where she worked for the rest of her life, with the exception of the two years that we know about that she spent in Auschwitz during the war.
The way that she ended up in Auschwitz was that her husband was an engraver. During the war, those talents were quite useful to the underground, which was forging documents for the Jewish people and other resistance workers. The nasty bit is that obviously somebody squealed and told the Gestapo that he was a forger, so the whole family were taken in for questioning. As it turned out, her husband managed to escape, and they never caught either him or her eldest son. But her two younger sons, her daughter and herself - they were imprisoned. So she spent some time in jail in Łódź with her daughter, which was actually very nasty. Her daughter, Sylvia, was tortured to get information out of her. Then, eventually, Stanisława and her daughter were sent to Auschwitz. The two younger sons, who had also been in prison, were sent to concentration camps in Germany. So those were the two years of her life in the camp. After the war, she also continued working as a midwife until she retired in her early 70s. So that’s her life on a physical and practical level.
But of course, we wouldn’t be talking about her life today just because of that. It was her spirituality that was so evident even before the war, even when she graduated from midwifery. The first thing she did after getting her diploma, before taking a train back from Warsaw, was stop by the Visitation Sisters Convent chapel, and she prayed to Our Lady, saying, “Thank you for enabling me to be this midwife. I promise you that if I so much as lose one child or one mother, I will stop being a midwife.” I think Our Lady took her at her word, and the two of them made a pact, and Our Lady followed her at all the important points in her life in a very moving and very interesting way.
How did she become the Midwife of Auschwitz? And why did Auschwitz need a midwife at all?
Yeah, that’s a very good question. At certain points in the war, more pregnant women were being sent to Auschwitz than at other times. So, towards the end of the war, far more pregnant women were sent there; there’s no doubt about that. I think one of the things we tend to forget is that in today’s world, a lot of women actually are taking the pill. So if you had a group of women today, not that many would be pregnant, but in the 1940s, a much bigger proportion of women would be pregnant.
So they were there either because they were Jewish or for other reasons, for example, there were political prisoners who would end up at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Birkenau part of the concentration camp was where more of the political prisoners were and where women were sent for longer periods of time, so they were not immediately sent to the crematoria.
To begin with, there was a German midwife, Klara, and she had a helper who was apparently a prostitute. The German midwife was also a prisoner; she had been sent to Auschwitz because, I think, she had helped with an abortion in Germany, and that was against Nazi rules. So at some point, this German midwife became ill. Meanwhile, women were arriving and delivering babies, and there was nobody to help them.
The conditions in the camp were so bad that several barracks were put aside as what we would call hospital barracks. But they were nothing like what we would think of as a hospital, and although they were set up for about 250 women to live in, by the end, we were looking at 600-800. The overcrowding was horrendous in these hospital barracks. A few of the bunks by the door were put aside for pregnant women, and that’s how it was when Stanisława became a midwife there in 1943.
Stanisława hadn’t been in the camp very long, maybe six weeks to two months - the first bit of which was in so-called quarantine, so she wasn’t yet forced to do a lot of labour - when she heard that the midwife was ill. So she just went up to one of the German physicians - people think it was Josef Mengele, but that’s not clear - and she said, “I’m a midwife, I hear you need one.” Somehow, she managed to preserve her papers, and so she showed them to the physician. As I mentioned in the book, I’m not sure that the physician was at all impressed by that piece of paper. She wasn’t German, she didn’t go to a German school, and only the German midwives were considered proper midwives. But something in her, in her resolve, in her approach, convinced him. What I think we have to really take on board, however, is that you weren’t allowed to approach these officials; it didn’t work like that. She could have been either shot on sight or sent to the gas chambers. We might say that Our Lady and heaven were working with her - this was meant to be.
So he accepted her to do this work. But when we say “do this work”, one has to understand that she was the only midwife. It was 24 hours a day for the next two years, non-stop. Sometimes it was five deliveries in a day, sometimes six, sometimes none, sometimes one, but it was non-stop every single day. And this is what she did.
The really horrific part of the story, which she tells in her own testimony, which you reproduced in the book, is that in essence, she was helping deliver these children only for them to then be essentially killed the next day.
Yes. So once the children were delivered, initially in the first few months until there was a change in the regulations, all Jewish children were immediately killed. The head of the barrack was hovering and would take the baby. Then Klara got better, and though she was no longer the midwife, she would take the baby and drown them in a pail of water. Obviously, we’d rather not think about it, but it must have been absolutely horrific for the mothers and for Stanisława and anybody who was witnessing this.
Then the ruling changed, and only the Jewish babies had to be killed immediately. The other babies, although they weren’t killed immediately, ended up dying because of hunger, because there were no provisions for them. The mothers had no food. The mothers had no milk. It was just hopeless. The 30-odd babies and children that survived that Stanisława delivered only survived because it happened at the very end. And so liberation came just in time for the mums and for the babies.
An amazing aspect of Stanisława’s story is that over those two years, she delivered more than 3,000 babies, which is incredible. That must have been five or six a day for two years. There was a sort of obsessive record-keeping in these prison camps, and at one point, she was asked to give a summary of all the children and mothers who died in childbirth, and she amazed the official by saying she hadn’t lost a single child or a single mother.
That was actually to Mengele, and he was absolutely furious. When Stanisława retold the whole story, she said she could just see his feet sort of dancing up and down, and people say, “How come she was looking at his feet?” And her son Stanisław says that it’s because when she was thinking and concerned, she would look down. So she was actually looking down at his feet. But he was absolutely furious, and he couldn’t believe it. He said even the best German obstetrical units didn’t have that kind of a record. But in her whole career, she never lost a single mother or baby. I mean, if that is not a miracle, I don’t know what is. Of course, from the Church’s perspective, the miracle that we need for her beatification has to be after her death.
What’s even more amazing is that she never lost a mother or a child, even during this period in Auschwitz. Can you describe the conditions under which she was helping these mothers give birth?
I don’t know if you have seen any photographs of the inside of these barracks in Birkenau. You have bunks made for three people to sleep next to each other. By the time Stanisława was working there, you sometimes had six to a bed, so there was no way anybody could be comfortable. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that these barracks were not heated. They were supposed to be heated, but they never were.
Running along the centre of these barracks was a flue. There was a stove at one end, and then this long, low brick wall with pipes inside. That was supposed to heat the barracks, but it never did. So the women were delivering their babies on that surface, because it was the only surface; there were no tables, and in one of the barracks she worked in, there was no proper floor - it was earth. When it was raining and at the end of winter, when the ice and snow melted, you were ankle-deep in mud. So the floor was out of question.
The blankets were put on the flue, and they would be delivering like that in front of everybody, with no privacy. And when I say “blanket”, this is not a neat, nice, fluffy thing here. This was apparently, according to Stanisława and according to the witnesses who were talking, the blankets were moving with the vermin, the fleas and the lice.
The other thing that the survivors of the camp talk about is the stench of these so-called hospital barracks. The main problem for the women, apart from TB, was diarrhoea. They were dying of gut problems and exhaustion. And there was no water, so there was no hygiene. How was she meant to deliver a baby in this kind of context? It was absolutely horrific.
Stanisława took on this position as the camp midwife, but her two assistants, provided by Nazi officials, were very unhelpful. So, where was she getting the materials that she needed?
The water, she would have to go and fetch herself. Nobody else could do that. You weren’t allowed to move around the camp. Given that she was the midwife and needed water, she would carry these pails from one end of the camp to the other. If you look at the camp maps, you can see exactly where the water was and where her barrack was, but she was never shot, even by “mistake”. At any one time, if one of the guards saw something moving, she could have been killed. I think her guardian angel was working overtime. So she would take these heavy pails there and back, a 20-minute trip each time.
But in terms of other bits of equipment and how she managed, what people don’t always realise is that you could, believe it or not, get parcels in Birkenau. Many political prisoners received parcels, which they used to barter for other necessities, and Stanisława did a lot of that. Now, in order to provide for these infants, she tried to get them the equivalent of a diaper, some kind of protection, a bit of extra food for the mothers - she would do everything that she could by bartering.
Now, there were these two German women whose job it was to kill Jewish children, and they were always hovering. But Stanisława managed to organise help around her as time went on. First of all, there was her daughter, who wasn’t very healthy, but she was a medical student, so she helped her mother. There were also a few physicians who were prisoners, who would come and go and help her as they could, and a few nurses, though not many. However, no other midwife that we know of ever came through that barrack.
What do we know about her faith during that period?
She managed to make a rosary from dried bread she bartered for, and she and some others would say the rosary together. They would also pray a Litany to Our Lady during the month of May. They had to be very quiet because though the barracks were very large, the Kapos were at the other end, and they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves. People would gravitate towards where Stanisława was and the little services they tried to hold - and not just Catholics, but others too.
When she was delivering a baby, she would begin by inviting the mother to pray, and she continued this practice in the camp. We know she had a very deep personal prayer life, which was greatly appreciated by the women in the barracks with her.
She would also baptise babies. Now, obviously, before the war, the parents would baptise them in their own time, but in the camp, if she didn’t do something about it, there was no other way of getting the child baptised. And this was every baby, whether it was a Jewish baby or a Christian baby, or whether the mother was agnostic or an atheist. And the amazing thing is, all the mothers agreed. The baptism also became a naming ceremony where they could give value to this baby. Sometimes the women were too exhausted or too terrified to come up with a name for their babies, so Stanisława would suggest names. It was something to celebrate, the birth of a little child.
After she was liberated, she said, “I was there for a reason. God put me there for a reason.” She also said those were among the most significant years of her life. I think at some point she understood that the reason she was there was to be able to help these women, that God made sure of that.
As a healthcare professional yourself, what do you think her life can really teach us?
First of all, the value of every single child, whether healthy or not. Every single child is valued; there was no thought of terminating a pregnancy, and she put in all that effort knowing that 99% of these children would die, but so long as they were alive, they had value. In today’s world, we don’t look at children or babies the same way - many women don’t put a value on the life of their unborn child. Mengele said to her, “You do realise that you have to kill all these babies; they have to be drowned.” And she said to him very clearly, “I’m not going to do it.” She could have lost her life then and there. Looking at her life, so many miracles happened, so many interventions of God, almost saying, “No, I want this woman. I want Stanisława to help these ladies in labour, and I want these babies to live.” These babies were born to live.
There’s also a moment when she says that, no matter what was happening around them, the moment of birth tended to be one of hope.
Absolutely. Even in the popularity of the television programme Call the Midwife, there is something about babies and birth that’s joyful and hopeful. If we don’t have children, there is no other generation, and we lose our hope. So I think Stanisława has a lot to say to women, and certainly to midwives, about sticking at your job. If you can have a midwife like her working in Auschwitz, no other context could be quite as horrific. She actually said that when there was nothing else she could do, she would sing to the babies and the mothers, and keep the women singing.
So Stanisława has been declared a Servant of God, which means she’s taken the first formal steps on the path towards sainthood. Do you think that she should become a saint?
Just reading her life, there is so much heroism - quiet, determined heroism to do what she did the way she did it. I think her heroic virtues will be declared by the Church. No problem. But the next bit is up to God. I think if God was with her in the camp and through her life, I’m sure he’s also with her now.
Why would you encourage people to find out more about Stanisława?
So that we know that even in places like concentration camps, there was good. People may ask, “Where was God in Auschwitz?”, but there were instances of great heroism in these camps, and she was one example of that kind of work. And historically, we need to make sure that’s recorded. So that’s one aspect of it. From a religious side of things, because increasingly human life is not held in the respect it should be, and we’re not respecting women the way we should. There are many messages she can convey, and knowing her life can help us understand them.
I think she will also be very relevant for modern midwives. She was a layperson, a mother, and she held a job. At one point, when her husband died, she pushed her adolescent young adult children through university. That wasn’t easy because she was a working mum, which is something a lot of current midwives can identify with. She wasn’t somebody on a pedestal. I think of another midwife, Blessed Leonella Sgorbati. She was a Consolata Missionary and a midwife. She was a lovely lady with a very interesting life, but she was a missionary. It’s difficult for married midwives with children of their own to juggle life and work, and they want an example of another lay midwife. So from that perspective, Stanisława would be a lovely role model.
“I thank God that He sent me to Auschwitz.” (Servant of God Stanisława Leszczyńska)
