The report of the Lancet Commission on medicine, Nazism and the Holocaust

The history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, the antisemitic genocide of European Jewry, is an extreme example of crimes against humanity. Health professionals had a major and often decisive role in formulating & supporting Nazi policies in theory and practice, policies based on antisemitism, racism, and other kinds of discrimination. The extreme and extensively documented example of the role of medicine in Nazism and the Holocaust and its complicity in crimes against humanity including medical abuse has universal and local relevance, helping to foster recognition of the shared humanity of all sufferers and cultivate awareness of one’s moral responsibility and agency within medicine. The report of the Lancet Commission on medicine, Nazism and the Holocaust presents up-to-date historical evidence on medicine’s role in Nazism and the Holocaust to a wide audience to deconstruct myths and misunderstandings and to describe relevance of this history for contemporary medical practice and health professions education. The Commission report offers tangible recommendations for implementing this history into health professions curricula to support “history-informed professional identity formation” as foundational to morally resilient professional practice. The report was published in November 2023, with a historical overview, implications, and curricula implementation.