The conference is free and open to the public.
“Anatomy in National Socialist (Nazi) Germany - Politics, Science, Ethics and Legacies”
7:00 p.m. – Keynote (Regency Room, AUC)
In this talk, the history of the interaction between anatomists and politics in Nazi Germany will be presented, as well as the changes in the traditional anatomical body procurement during that time, which included rising numbers of victims of the Nazi regime. The use of these victims’ bodies in anatomical education and research can be interpreted as stages of an ethical transgression. The legacies from this history for today’s medicine will be discussed.
Keynote Speaker:
Dr. Sabine Hildebrandt is an associate professor of pediatrics in the Division of General Pediatrics, Department of Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, and a lecturer on Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her research interests are the history and ethics of anatomy, and specifically the history of anatomy in National Socialist Germany, a field in which she is an internationally recognized expert.
One focus of her work is the restoration of biographies of victims of the Holocaust. Her educational approach integrates anatomy, medical history and medical ethics. She teaches these topics at Harvard Medical School and Harvard College. Her book “The Anatomy of Murder: Ethical Transgressions and Anatomical Science during the Third Reich” was published by Berghahn Books in January 2016, in paperback in August 2017, and is the first systematic study of anatomy during National Socialism.