Figure 1.--These are some of the Jewish children subjected to horendous medical experiments at Auschwitz.

Of all the dreadful actions at Auschwitz, perhaps the most appalling was the medical experiments conducted there. SS camp doctors were involved in a range of medical experiments. These men were doctors with varying medical credentials. Some had theories they wanted to pursue. In some cases they were theories they knew that NAZI leaders would appreciate involving racial issues and thus would advance their careers. Others were working on military medicine such as to how Luftwaffe airmen downed in frigid water should be revived. These doctors jumped at the opportunity to use human experimental subjects. The experiments they derived were horrific, inflicting incredible pain on the individuals involved. Almost all of the subjects were Jews and a few Gypsys. It is difficult to assess their motives. It is probably to simplistic to suggest they derived pleasure from the suffering, but they were certainly oblivious to it. Some were viciously anti-Semitic, but this varied. Adults were put into vacuum chambers (to simulate high altitude) , injected with with drugs, castrated, exposed to freezing (to simulate ditching at sea) temperatures, and subjected to various other traumas. The most notorious of these experiments were conducted by Dr. Josef Mengele and carried out on Jewish and Gypsy children--in many cases twins carefully selected for that purpose. The children were subjected to terrible trauma involving absurd racial theories. As a SS doctor, Mengele oversaw the selections when the transports arrived at Auschwitz. It was here he found his child medical victims. One account provides an insight into his character. When he ordered a mother separated from her 13-year old daughter, she bit and scratched the face of the SS man who was forcing her into the selection line. Mengele was enraged. He took out his pistol and shot both the woman and her daughter. He then to punish all the Jews in the transport, ordered all those who had been selected for work to be gassed with the order, "Away with this shit!" Mengele was not the only SS doctor experimenting on Jewish children. Professor Carl Claubergalso conducted experiments in Jewish children.

Auchwitz

Auchwitz was a huge camp with all kinds of facilities. Most of it was a work camp, not a death camp. Conditions at the camp were so poor, howevrr, that the wirkers were not expected to survive encarceration very long. Of all the dreadful actions at Auschwitz, perhaps the most appalling was the medical experiments conducted there. Even more appaling than the Birenau death camp, if that is possible were Dr. Mengele's medical experiments on children. Of course the death toll did not approach the hideous totals at Birkenau, but the idea of not only infecting innocent children and even carrying out experimental surgery somehow seemns virtualy unimagenable. Suswiutz because of Mengele is most associated with the medical experiments, but medical experoiments were condiucted at several camps.

SS Officials

SS doctors at Aushwitz were not acting on their own. They were operating within a system establish by the vvery top of the SS command structure. The man ultimately resoponsible was Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler. Here it is hard to understand how a man so passionately devoted to his daughter could have possibly set up a system not to just abuse children, but to torture them. Other top SS commanders included SS-Obergruppenführer Ernst Grawitz (the chief physician of the SS and police), and SS-Standartenführer Wolfram Sievers (the secretary general of the Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage) Association and director of the Waffen SS Military-Scientific Research Institute. The SS-WVHA (SS Main Economic and Administrative Office) was responsible for concentration camps (from March 1942). The idea was to fully use the camps to support the war effort. They had administrative and financial authority. Support for medical expeimentd were a part of specialized analytical studies approved during the War. This was under the jurisdiction of the Waffen SS Hygiene Institute, directed by SS-Oberführer Joachim Mrugowsky, an practicing soctor and professor of bacteriology at the University of Berlin Medical School.

SS Doctors

SS camp doctors were involved in a range of medical experiments. These men were doctors with varying medical credentials. It should not be thought that SS dictors were not competent. Mamy had respected medical credentials. Dr. Josef Mengele was not the only SS doctor experimenting on Jewish children. Professor Carl Claubergalso conducted experiments on Jewish children.

Motivation

It is difficult to assess their motives. Some had theories they wanted to pursue. In some cases they were theories they knew that NAZI leaders would appreciate involving racial issues and thus would advance their careers. Others were working on military medicine such as to how Luftwaffe airmen downed in frigid water should be revived. These doctors jumped at the opportunity to use human experimental subjects. One account provides an insight into his character. When he ordered a mother separated from her 13-year old daughter, she bit and scratched the face of the SS man who was forcing her into the selection line. Mengele was enraged. He took out his pistol and shot both the woman and her daughter. He then to punish all the Jews in the transport, ordered all those who had been selected for work to be gassed with the order, "Away with this shit!"

The Experiments

Many of the experiments were planned at the highest levels of fhe Waffen SS Hygiene Instituteto to meet military needs. Some were practical military subjects. The basic idea was to improve soldiers’ health or postwar plans. There were experiments like the Luftwaffe tests to improve the chances of survibving the ar. Unlike Megele's ecperiments on children, some of these experiments despite vilating evet aspect of medical ethics, were conducted wuith scientific rigor. Many others were racially motivated. Here a major goal was population policy, to improve the Aryan birth rate or to reduce the birth rate of non-Aryans. Knowing what Hitler and the SS leadership wanted, NAZI doctors pandered to the leadership, knowing is was a way to advance their careers. Demographics were a majpr NAZI concern. Hitler and otyher NAZIs wee concerned about Germany low population (in comparison to its enemies). The SS initiated an substantial research efforts on methods of mass sterilization that would be applied to peoples regarded as belonging to a lower category. This was before the decision was taken to simply murder people by the millions--Generalplan Ost. Research projects offering to demostrate thge racial superiority of Aryans were likely to be improved. Not all the experiments were planned at high levels. NAZI doctors at Auschwitz experimented on prisoners on behalf of German pharmaceutical companies or other medical institutes. Others did so in pursuit of their personal interests, or to advance their academic careers. Some may have actually enjoyed warching the experiments. It is probably too simplistic to suggest they all derived pleasure from the suffering, but they were certainly oblivious to it. Some of the experimenters were viciously anti-Semitic, but this varied. Adults were put into vacuume chambers (to simulate high altitude), injected with with drugs, castrated, exposed to freezing (to simulate ditching at sea) temperatures, and subjected to various other traumas. The experiments violated evey canon of medical ethics. Mengele's experimentd on the children wernot only imoral, but they were so ameruriusly done, they were of no scientific value.

The Subjects

Almost all of the subjects were Jews and a few Gypsys.

The Auschwitz Children

The most notorious of the NAZI medical experiments were conducted by SS-Hauptsturmführer Josef Mengele, who had M.D. abnd Ph.D. qualifications. He was researching topics associated with twins and the physiology and pathology of dwarfism. He was working with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Genetics, and Eugenics in Berlin-Dahlem. The involvement of German drug cimpanies and respected research iunstitutes is often overlooked in the historical recird. Mengele had free rein on the olatforms were the trandports arrived. He could selrct whoever he wanted. He was especially interested in people with different colored irises (heterochromia iridii). This was presumably related to the NAZI idolation of blue eyes. Mengele began by selecting pairs of modtly Jewish twins. Nengele also wanred people with inherited anomalies, including many children. Twins were carefully selected because they provuded a genetically identically conttrol. The children were subjected to terrible trauma involving absurd racial theories. As a SS doctor, Mengele oversaw the selections when the transports arrived at Auschwitz. It was here he found his child medical victims. He also left orders when twins arrived that they be sent to him. The children were housed in a separate baracks where life was relatively normal until the experiments began. hey were inspected by Dr. Mengele every morning. They attend classes and sometimes allowed to play games like. Most had no fear of Dr. Mengele. He often gave them candy and showed a degree of affectuin like patting them on the head and talked to them. e was even known to play with them. The twins children were given work assignments, but noting like the back braking toil of the adults. They had jobs like being a messenger. The twins were treated far better than the other prisoners of the camp. This was of course before they were brought to the nedical facilities for Mengele's experiments. They were subjected to all imaginable horific specialist medical examinations. They were also photographed, plaster casts were made of their jaws and teeth, and they were toe and fingerprinted. After Mengele had finished his experiments leaving with children in terrible condition and mangeled bodies, they were killed with lethal injections of phenol to the heart. Thsan the final step was taken, autopsies and the comparative analysis of their internal organs. A HBC reader has provided some information on two French children apprehended by the NAZIs--Georges Andre Kohn and Jacqueline Morganstern.

Created: 8:31 PM 5/30/2008
Spell checed: 5:29 PM 10/12/2013
Last updated: 11:03 PM 9/8/2018