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A prisoner during low-pressure
experimentation at Dachau, 1942.
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What if you knew just how much victims of the experiments suffered?
"One cannot fully confront the dilemma of using the results of Nazi
experiments," the attorney and ethicist Baruch Cohen has written, "without
sensitizing one's self to the images of the frozen, the injected, the
inseminated, and the sterilized." [26] One could add without
sensitizing oneself to eyewitness testimony. Obviously, the hundreds who
died at the hands of Nazi death-camp doctors cannot tell their story of
unfathomable fear, unbearable pain, and senseless death. One must rely on those
who survived and those who witnessed the execrable atrocities that occurred in
the concentration camps. Here is some of that testimony:
"The third experiment ... took such an extraordinary course that I called an SS
physician of the camp as witness, since I had worked on these experiments all
by myself. It was a continuous experiment without oxygen at a [simulated]
height of 12 kilometers [39,283 feet] conducted on a 37-year-old Jew in good
general condition. Breathing continued up to 30 minutes. After four minutes the
experimental subject began to perspire and wiggle his head, after five minutes
cramps occurred, between six and ten minutes breathing increased in speed and
the experimental subject became unconscious; from 11 to 30 minutes breathing
slowed down to three breaths per minute, finally stopping altogether."
—From a report by Dr. Sigmund Rascher to Heinrich Himmler dated April 5, 1942
concerning his high-altitude experiments on prisoners at Dachau
concentration camp
[27]
"Fifteen girls aged 17 to 18 years old. The girls who survived the following
operations are in German hands and little is known about them. The subjects
were placed in an ultra-short-wave field. One electrode was placed on the
abdomen and another on the vulva. The rays were focused on the ovaries. The
ovaries were consequently burned up.
Owing to faulty doses several had serious burns of the abdomen and vulva. One
died as a result of these burns alone. The others were sent to another
concentration camp where some were put in hospital and others made to work.
After a month they returned to Auschwitz where control operations were
performed. Sagittal and transverse sections of the ovaries were made.
The girls altered entirely owing to hormonal changes. They looked just like old
women. Often they were laid up for months owing to the wounds of the operations
becoming septic. Several died as a result of sepsis."
—Sterilization experiment at Auschwitz, as described by two Dutch
doctors who had been prisoners there
[28]
"It was the worst experiment ever made. Two Russian officers were brought from
the prison barracks. Rascher had them stripped and they had to go into the vat
naked. Hour after hour went by, and whereas usually unconsciousness from the
cold set in after 60 minutes at the latest, the two men in this case still
responded fully after two and a half hours. All appeals to Rascher to put them
to sleep by injection were fruitless. After the third hour one of the Russians
said to the other, 'Comrade, please tell the officer to shoot us.' The other
replied that he expected no mercy from this Fascist dog. The two shook hands
with a 'Farewell, Comrade' ... These words were translated to Rascher by a
young Pole, though in a somewhat different form. Rascher went to his office.
The young Pole at once tried to chloroform the two victims, but Rascher came
back at once, threatening us with his gun ... The test lasted at least five
hours before death supervened."
—Testimony given at the "Doctors Trial" at Nuremberg by Walter Neff, an
Auschwitz prisoner who served as Dr. Sigmund Rascher's medical orderly during
hypothermia experiments
[29]
Yes |
No
References
26. Cohen, p. 2.
27. Katz, Jay. "Abuse of Human Beings for the Sake of Science." In
Caplan, p. 233.
28. Gilbert, p. 374.
29. Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of
Nazi Germany. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960, p. 987.
Photo: National Archives, Courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives
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Timeline of Nazi Abuses
Results of Death-Camp Experiments: Should They Be Used?
Exposing Flawed Science |
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