“Birth, Sex and Abuse: Women’s Voices Under Nazi Rule,” by LimmudVan ’16 presenter Beverley Chalmers, has been selected by the prestigious magazine Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries as an Outstanding Academic Title and has received a National Jewish Book Award in the category Women’s Studies.
The Choice award brings with it the extraordinary recognition of the academic library community.
Choice, a publication of the Association of College & Research Libraries, is the premier source for reviews of academic books and digital resources of interest to scholars and students in higher education. More than 22,000 librarians, faculty, and key decision makers rely on Choice magazine and Choice Reviews Online for collection development and scholarly research.
The Jewish Book Council, in announcing the award, says Chalmers’ book “provides a stunning and controversial exposé of the voices of both Jewish and non-Jewish women living under Nazi rule. Based on twelve years of study, the book takes an inter-disciplinary view incorporating women’s history, Holocaust studies, social sciences and medicine, in a unique, cutting-edge examination of what women themselves said, thought and did.”
At a session at 10:45 a.m. on Jan. 31, Chalmers will discuss her book and the difficult choices made by women who became pregnant and gave birth during the Holocaust. Difficult life-and-death choices were made after Nazi authorities banned Jewish births in some ghettos, when the women were in hiding with their babies, and when they arriving at camps during pregnancy. Doctors were confronted with conflicting ethical challenges when caring for these women while Rabbis were faced with difficult Halakhic guidelines.