Mengele : The Importance Of Research Ethics In The Holocaust

The horrific experiments of Dr. Mengele demonstrate the cruelty of the Nazi’s during the holocaust. Most of the world today knows of Dr. Mengele of having been the doctor of death for being responsible for killing more than 6 million Jews.

Auschwitz was one of the largest and first concentration camp during WW2 and next to Auschwitz were two other death camps that were named Auschwitz ll and lll. At Auschwitz, there was a total of 8 gas chambers and 4 of them can hold up to 2,000 prisoners (Mostly Jews) at a time. There were 11 million people murdered in the Holocaust and it estimated that 6 million Jews were killed and one in six was killed at Auschwitz.

During the holocaust prisoners of concentration camps were faced with evil, torture and death every day. Some of the prisoners in these camps were selected for Nazi medical experiments. Nazi doctors performed several different human experiments on prisoners throughout the Holocaust. A specifically horrific experiment was the twin experiments. This experiment was performed by Dr. Joseph Mengele and several of his assistants in Auschwitz. He is known for performing some of the most inhumane experiments during the holocaust.

She describes how Nazi Doctors would conduct horrendous experiments on Jews, such as dissecting living people, without receiving any consent from them. She then explains that the Nuremberg code was later established to prevent such inhumane experiments. Since the code didn’t apply in America, researches like Southam and Mandel continued their experiments without informed consent. However, other doctors still found this to be immoral, and refused to participate in performing these experiments finding that, “Injecting cancer cells into a person without consent was a clear violation of basic human rights and Nuremberg code” (Skloot 132). Skloot compares the practice of American doctors to the inhumane experiments conducted on the Jews in Germany to have the readers see similarity between the immoral methods. Both practices did not receive consent from their patients. She uses research to find factual evidence about practices without consent that were made illegal in another country. By comparing the experiments conducted by American doctors to an extreme event, she leads the reader to develop the opinion that all practices without the consent of the patient are unjust. She includes the opinions of medical professionals to express their concern for these methods to the readers. A doctor from that time would have the greatest insight on the experiments that were being conducted and the practicality of them. The reader then sees it as logical that conducting potentially dangerous experiments without any consent is a violation of human rights.

In the last few years, some publications have appeared that treats one group or another, yet the state of our knowledge about the perpetrators remains incomplete. We know little about many of the institutions of killing, little about many aspects of the perpetration of the genocide, and still less about the perpetrators themselves. As a consequence, popular and scholarly myths and misconceptions about the perpetrators abound, including the following. It is commonly believed that the Germans slaughtered Jews by and large in the gas chambers, and that without gas chambers, modern means of transportation, and efficient bureaucracies, the Germans would have been unable to kill millions of Jews. The belief persists that somehow only technology made horror on this scale possible. It is generally believed that gas chambers, because of their efficiency, were a necessary instrument for the genocidal slaughter, and that the Germans chose to construct the gas chambers in the first place because they needed more efficient means of killing the Jews. It has been generally believed that the perpetrators were primarily, overwhelmingly SS men, the most devoted and brutal Nazis. It has been held that had a German refused to kill Jews, then he himself would have been killed, sent to a concentration camp, or severely punished. All of these views, views that fundamentally shape people's understanding of the Holocaust, have been believed as though they were

“I will remember that there is an art to medicine as well as a science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife and the chemist’s drug.” (Louis Lasagna). However, the doctors of the holocaust didn’t care, and used the victims as guinea pigs for the results. The medical experiments performed during the Holocaust had horrific outcomes for those experimented upon.

These experiments were not only full of hate but also used for the advancement of medicine and effective treatment of the patient. Some were just out of fascination and believed they were for the better of the Aryan race. Injecting prisoners with chemicals, raising and lowering body temperature, and comparing the vitals of twins under extreme conditions are just three ways doctors of the Holocaust used prisoners for medical advancement. Since that age and time we have strived to move forward from that period and time and focus more on the patient's well being rather than the

Mengele called the experiments sessions. “After one of these sessions, she developed a high fever and swelling in her arms and legs, and Mengele put her in ‘the hospital’ which was actually a place to keep victims who were expected to die” (Wells). The people that were sent to ‘the hospital’ weren’t given food or water. They also weren’t given medications either. “If she had died, her sister would have been killed so the Nazi’s could perform an autopsy and compare the twins in death, too” (Wells). One of Mengele’s experiments consisted of “Gypsy twins who had been taken away for surgery returned joined at the back” (Wells). Mengele had tried to join the twins by attaching the boys and joining blood vessels together. The boys ended up dying three days later. “Out of 1,500 sets of twins subjected to the Mengele experiments, fewer than 200 individuals survived” (Wells). The experiments had a negative effect on the survivor’s health later on. “The experiment’s permanently stunted the growth of Miriam Mozes’ kidney’s, Kor said, and in 1985 she developed a rare form of cancer probably attributed to the experiments. She died in 1987” (Wells). Kor never forgave the Nazi’s or Dr. Mengele for what they had done until several years

For my research paper, I will be talking about the experiments that were executed during the Holocaust, who performed them and if they would perform them certain people. The Holocaust, one of the darkest times in history, occurred in 1933-1945. Throughout this time, many cruel and unforgiving experiments were performed on innocent people. The infamous Dr. Josef Mengele, also known as the Angel of Death, was one of the SS physicians who conducted these experiments. Josef Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937, and the SS a year later.

The Nuremberg Doctor’s trial of 1946 involves human experimentation performed by the Nazi doctors. These physicians were accused of conducting torturous “experiments” with concentration camp inmates. During these studies, physicians conducted treatments that were not permitted and caused severe injuries to the participants, and in some cases, participants died as a result of this. Prisoners were left to freeze to study more on hypothermia. Later, during December 9th, 1946 to August 20th, 1947 representatives establish a Nuremberg trial to prosecuted these doctors for the atrocities that they committed and 23 out 15 were found guilty. As a result, the Nuremberg code was created to

Specific purpose: To inform the audience about Josef Mengele, a doctor in Auschwitz and a psychological quandary.

World War Two was a time of death, starvation, and sorrow. Schutzstaffel, the Nazi German military, doctors found that they could allow unusual people into medical camps. Allowing the doctors to do experimentation on dwarfs, babies, and twins. The brains behind the medical branch was a man who wanted nothing but to multiply the German race, through twins. Josef Mengele’s life wasn’t an ideal life, but one of life and death, knowledge and experimentation, hatred and escape.

Ethos. This is a large part of what makes Mengele’s defense ineffective. Almost everybody knows the name, Josef Mengele. And it is not associated with ethical ideas. A Nazi sympathizer, Mengele was a “doctor” in the extermination camp called Auschwitz. He experimented on the elderly, the sick, young children, and most notably, twins. Very few victims

On March 16th, 1911, Josef Mengele, the eldest of three sons, was born to Karl and Walburga Mengele in Gunzburg, Germany. In his hometown of Gunzburg, Mengele was considered to be “refined, intelligent, and popular” (“Josef Mengele, Angel of Death”). His family was considered to be upper middle class as the Mengele’s were the owners of a machine tools business. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in physical anthropology from the University of Munich. From there, he continues on to the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt. While there, Mengele “became the assistant of Dr. Otmer von Verschuer, a leading scientific figure widely known for his research with twins” (“US Holocaust Memorial”).

On 16th march, 1911 Josef Mengele was born, he was the eldest son of Karl Mengele, a hard working manufacturer of farming equipment. During January 1937, Josef Mengele earned a Ph.D. at the institute for Heredity biology, racial hygiene, following in this line of work he became an assistant to Dr Otmar von Verscher. Otmar was Mengele’s inspiration for the testing on the twins. In 1937 Josef Mengele joined the Nazi party, the following year he received his medical degree and joined the SS in the same year. In June 1940, Mengele was admitted into the army, Josef joined the medical service in the Waffen-SS. Mengele returned to Germany after being injured during the war, and began to work at the Kaiser Wilhelm institute for Anthropology, human