6^th international conference
Medical Review Auschwitz:
Medicine Behind the Barbed Wire 

We cordially invite you to the international conference Medical Review Auschwitz: Medicine Behind the Barbed Wire, which takes place on 15–17 September 2025 in Kraków, Poland. 

Medicine Behind the Barbed Wire aims to educate the world’s medical community about the medical ethics and practice in the context of the Second World War, placing special emphasis on the behavior of physicians and other medical professionals imprisoned in Nazi German concentration camps, prisons, ghettoes and other places of detainment. The conference discusses malpractice and ethical violations of medical personnel to demonstrate their implications for contemporary medical practice and health care policies. 

The conference is organized by the Polish Institute for Evidence Based Medicine in collaboration with the Kraków Medical Society, Institute of National Remembrance and Jagiellonian University Medical College. Conference partners include the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, University of Colorado Center for Bioethics and Humanities, Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics and the International Chair in Bioethics (WMA Cooperation Center). 

Medicine Behind the Barbed Wire is part of Medical Review Auschwitz, a project developed to disseminate unique scientific studies published over 31 years (1961–1991) in the Polish medical journal Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim (Medical Review – Auschwitz). 

We hope that Medical Review Auschwitz: Medicine Behind the Barbed Wire will help further the understanding of one of the darkest chapters in the history of medicine and inspire the international community to draw lessons for future generations.  

We look forward to seeing you in Kraków in September 2025. 

Sincerely,