The IU School of Medicine and IU Center for Bioethics are pleased to host the Dr. William S. Silvers Holocaust, Genocide, and Contemporary Bioethics Lectureship. The Silvers lectureship addresses bioethical issues raised by the Holocaust and other cases of genocide. Funding for this lectureship was provided by Dr. Silvers, a graduate of IU School of Medicine and a faculty member for over 30 years at University of Colorado School of Medicine.
The purpose of the Silvers Lectureship is to offer space annually for physicians and other community leaders to consider the impact of their work and apply the ethical lessons of the Holocaust. The lectureship strives to focus healthcare workers on the morality of their actions and to ground contemporary conflicts in the lessons of history.
This year, our visiting speaker is Claudia Krebs, MD, PhD, a Professor of Teaching in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, who specializes in anatomy education and biomedical visualization.
This talk traces how anatomy atlases and education have rendered certain bodies visible, usable, and disposable, by describing how the Pernkopf and Spanner atlases were created from the bodies of people executed by the Nazis. Professor Claudia Krebs will examine how these legacies, and the ways they objectify the human body, continue to shape power dynamics in medicine. In the 2026 Annual Silvers Lecture, we will consider how practices of remembrance can transform contemporary bioethics and challenge educators and clinicians to look differently at the human body in medicine today.