Nazi Experiments During The Holocaust

At Auschwitz, Josef Mengele nicknamed, “ The Angel of Death” was an experienced doctor that experiments on kids and other people, for example, he injected some serum into a kids eye to see if the eye would change color and most of his experiments didn't have any anesthesia so his patients would feel a lot of pain.

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.

The horrible Nazi doctors experimented on Jews by freezing them, then trying to revitalize them. They were trying to find the best way to revive German Pilots after they jumped into icy water. They didn’t want to experiment on the pilots themselves and have them die, so they experimented on terrified, starving children. They would either put them outside naked in freezing cold weather, or put them in an icy tank

The chapter on Nazi medical experiments in Chalmers’ book is one of the most fascinating chapters because it examines the different types of techniques that the Nazi’s used to sterilize men and women. Chalmers explains that women were particularly subject to medical experiments because the Nazis were obsessed with destroying inferior races and wanted to perfect the art of sterilization so no more undesirable elements would be born (Ibid 123). However, both men and women were subject to Nazi medical experiments like medical injections, X-Rays, and chemicals, which resulted in burnt skin, abnormalities, and death. Among these experimentations many chemical companies, doctors, and University professors supported the experiments being done on

“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.

Mengele. Dr. Mengele was a German officer at Auschwitz and was often referred to as the “Angel of Death” (Gutman, 2). He is known for his horribly unethical experiments performed on prisoners and immense number of bodies killed in Auschwitz. Mengele treated the majority of his patients ruthlessly, with no remorse, and as objects for his destruction. He was also known for his bad temper and was seen beating prisoners with metal poles, burning them alive, and shooting them. The only patients he treated less horrifically were twins, which he found to be enticing. Mengele would provide them with clean clothes and regular meals in order to strengthen them, and once they were healthy he would perform horrific surgeries on them (Schmittroth, 315). How Dr. Mengele treated the prisoners in Auschwitz would have an extensive influence on the difficulties they had

Many claim that doctors were only advancing science, and others claim the horrid acts that were committed were done because of the hatred towards the Jewish people. Regardless of which fact is inevitably true, both situations caused cruel and inhuman treatment to the Jews, and ultimately led to their deaths at the camps. A civilian doctor named Carl Clauberg was famous for his sterilization experiments. The procedure involved injections to the cervix to destroy the fallopian tubes, and then often the victims were gassed and left for dead (Winik 9). When the Jews arrived on transports, Nazi doctors immediately determined who would be gassed and who would go to a work camp (Winik 8). In Auschwitz, Nazi doctors presided over the murder of most of the one million victims of that camp. “Doctors consulted actively on how best to keep selections running smoothly, on how many people to permit to remain alive to fill the slave labor requirements” … “and on how to burn the enormous numbers of bodies that strained the facilities of the crematoria (Gutman 303). In the book, “Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp,” Yisrael Gutman offers a summary of the events that took place at Auschwitz:

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

The Holocaust was one of the most horrible and dreaded events in history. Millions of Jews were killed, leaving many families devastated and hopeless. With the goal of racial purity, Adolf Hitler- along with many other Germans believed the Jews caused the defeat of their country, and led the Nazis to the elimination of Jews. For this reason, “Even in the early 21st century, the legacy of the Holocaust endures…as many as 12,000 Jews were killed every day” (The Holocaust). Later, Hitler organized concentration camps, where mass transports of Jews from ghettoes were brought and typically killed also. However, the fortunate Jews that were not killed still had many restrictions on their

Gottfried, Ted, and Stephen Alcorn. Deniers of the Holocaust: who they are, what they do, why

The ignoble experiments of the nazi regime included exposure to freezing/ hypothermia, tests on the genetics of an individual, exposure to infectious diseases, undergoing of interrogation and torture, most effective and inexpensive methods of killing/ mass genocide, exposure to conditions resembling high altitude, pharmacological tests, sterilization of an individual, the undergoing of different surgeries, and inflicting traumatic injuries on the patent undergoing the experiment. The experiments done by nazis on prisoners were in an effort to find ways to cure burns, hypothermia, infections, and ways to mass exterminate the jews in the most cost efficient way possible.

The doctors who examined the incoming prisoners and sorted them also worked in these hospitals performing medical research on the ill. This medical research was mostly placing the Jewish prisoners in ice water baths then monitoring them until they died. This research was mostly used to prevent hypothermia if German Pilots ever ended up being stranded in the ocean. Some of the experiments performed by doctors often had no research purpose at all, such as experiments involving eye color changing using chemical droppers and the surgical sewing of children together to create siamese twins. Auschwitz was the largest death camp with 20,000 Jews being killed a day and 39 subcamps.

Some of the experiments involved changing eye color, changing sexuality with chemicals, etc. Two of the main targets for experimentation were kids and twins. “Kids over 12 were used for chemical experiments, those children were killed during reprisal operations or so-called anti-partisan operations” (Google.com/Holocaust facts.) Experiments helped some people, surprisingly. “LSD cured a Holocaust survivor of Aushwitz’s PTSD and allowed him to sleep for the first time in 30 years without nightmares” (Pinterest.com/wtffunfacts.) Some of the experiments were ominous and bizarre. The Nazis developed an experimental drug cocktail in which the Nazi doctors found that equipment laden test subjects who had taken the drug could march 55 miles without resting”

Some of the experiments they used them for included treatments for hypothermia, maximum height that crews from damaged aircraft could parachute to safety, making seawater safe to drink, treatments for contagious diseases, test drug efficacy, sterilization, and Josef Mengele’s experiments on twins (Medical). Although many other SS physicians conducted experiments in the camps, Mengele’s are the most famous. Before he came to the camps, he performed numerous experiments on twins. When he arrived at the camps he was told it was okay to kill them, so he took that opportunity to perform long, painful and dangerous experiments

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