They were pregnant. Some were prisoners. Others were the poorest of the poor, forgotten in death as in life. Yet dissection and depiction of their bodies have become the foundation of anatomical teaching.
Cradled in the pages of anatomy textbooks are figures stripped bare, not only of skin but of identity. Eduard Pernkopf’s infamous Nazi-era atlas contains exquisite, hyper-realistic drawings created from the bodies of political prisoners executed under Hitler’s regime.
