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Holocaust on Trial

Emaciated woman Some survivors of the experiments maintain that using the Nazi data would only further demean victims.
What if you knew that many survivors of the Nazi experiments feel strongly that the data should never be used?

Among the small minority of those experimented upon who survived to bring shocking details of the atrocities to the outside world are a vocal group who would consign the data to oblivion. Many make the same arguments that modern doctors and scientists opposed to the data's use make, namely, that using the information would legitimize the Nazi experimenters and their damnable undertakings, make us moral accomplices, further demean the victims, etc. Responses from survivors asked whether the data should be used ranged from the calm and reasoned to the incredulous: "No! No! No! I (we) suffered, and it is no 'medical data' or 'information' whatsoever!!!" [21]

"As much as I am for scientific research for the betterment of humanity, I do feel that the scientific data collected from experiments done on inmates of Nazi concentration camps should not be used. If I would agree, I feel I [would] give a stamp of approval to the ways and means [these] experiments have been conducted and quasi-legalize [them]."
—Anonymous survivor of Dr. Josef Mengele's twins experiments at Auschwitz [22]

"[T]he scientist who reuses these data aligns himself with the values and methods of the Nazi scientists/doctors by extending their work into contemporary research, thereby giving it credibility and sanction. He too is saying first and foremost, 'for the sake of science' and for the sake of 'progress,' ignoring the case for humanity."
—Sara Seiler Vigorito, survivor of Dr. Josef Mengele's twins experiments at Auschwitz. Just three years old when she arrived at Auschwitz, Vigorito spent a year in a wooden cage a yard and a half wide with her twin sister, who died from repeated injections to her spinal column [23]

"In the case of the Mengele Twins, copies of the data should be given to those twins who are still alive. The data of the victims who are dead should be shredded and placed in a transparent monument, as evidence that they exist but cannot be used. It should be a lesson to the world that human dignity and human life are more important than any advance in science and medicine."
—Eva Mozes Kor, survivor of Dr. Josef Mengele's twins experiments at Auschwitz [24]

"I consider it inexcusable to dignify those murderers with the word 'scientist' or dignify what they did with the word 'research' ... The data should be thrown to the winds and forgotten."
—Gisela Konopka, concentration-camp survivor [25]
Based on what you now know, do you think doctors and scientists should be able to use data from Nazi death-camp experiments?
Yes | No


References
21. Segal, Nancy L. "Twin Research at Auschwitz-Birkenau: Implications for the Use of Nazi Data Today." In Caplan, p. 292.
22. Ibid., pp. 292-3.
23. Vigorito, Sara Seiler. "A Profile of Nazi Medicine: The Nazi Doctor—His Methods and Goals." In Caplan, p. 13.
24. Kor, Eva Mozes. "Nazi Experiments as Viewed by a Survivor of Mengele's Experiments." In Caplan, p. 7.
25. Konopka, Gisela. "The Meaning of the Holocaust for Bioethics." In Caplan, p. 17.


Photo: Courtesy of the U.S. Government Printing Office

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