Medical Advancements During The Holocaust

In 1933-1945, under Adolf Hitler, the National Socialist German Workers' party detained political control over Germany. Members of this group more commonly known as the Nazi party, wanted to institute Germany as a dominant world power. They began by establishing a dictatorship over all cultural, economic, and political activities of the people (Nazis). This would launch the beginning of the Holocaust, a massive massacre of roughly 11 million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Soviet prisoners of war, mentally handicapped, and countless more (The Simon). Most of these deaths occurred in concentration camps that developed all throughout Europe. In particular camps such as Dachau, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Ravensbruck, and Sachsenhausen, medical experiments were cold-heartedly performed on selected prisoners without consent and generally, concluded in death, mutilation or permanent disability (Nazi Science). Schools all over America teach a broad history of the Holocaust and the concentration camps to their students at some point in time. However, from experience, I do not recall ever discussing these medical experiments or the Nuremberg Code that resulted from them. The Nuremburg code was created just after the Nuremburg trials following WWII. These trials were held before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg against leading Nazi doctors, whom twenty-three received charges with War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity as evidence exposed the many merciless tortures they had

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 freezing and hypothermia experiments were tested upon males to test the conditions of the warriors suffered out in the fields. Tons of German soldiers died of freezing temperatures or were paralyzed by cold injuries. They only used healthy men in these experiments, though, because the week men would not be equal to the soldiers.

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 victim would be placed beneath sun lamps, which were so hot, the skin would burn. They would then freeze and reheat the victim, repeatedly. Another revival technique was irrigation; the victim would have boiling hot water irrigated throughout their bladder, intestines and stomach. All patients died from this technique. They would also submit to high altitude changes. They would be locked in a low-pressure chamber until their lungs would explode. These experiments would help the doctor to determine the limits of the human body.

Take the High altitude ‘experiment’, also conducted a Dachau under Dr. Rascher, for example. In this experiment Rascher wanted to ‘find’ the best way to save German pilots who ejected at high altitudes. Rascher had subjects put into low pressure chambers “that simulated altitudes as high as 68,000 feet, and monitored their physiological response as they succumbed and died.”(Tyson) If Rascher were testing for Pilot survival, he would no that the pressure would slowly increase, as the ejected pilot slowly parachuted down to the ground. Rascher, however, kept the pressure chamber at a set pressure, incorrectly representing how the human body would react to ejecting at high altitude. Furthermore, if the point of the experiment was to save pilots from high altitudes, why did they let some of the subjects die in the chamber? Shouldn’t they be testing ways to revive them, rather than kill them? Even worse, to the subjects that survived the chamber, Rascher would perform vivisections, “[dissecting] victims’ brains while they were still alive to show that high-altitude sickness resulted from the formation of tiny air bubbles in the blood vessels of a certain part of the brain.”(Tyson) The dissections of the brain to discover the formation of blood vessel could easily have been discovered in autopsy. Sure, this would require the subject to die, but at least they wouldn’t have died by having their skull cracked

During the Holocaust, the Nazis carried out many unethical medical experiments on patients without regard for their survival. Prisoners were forced to be subjects in various studies against their will. The Nazis’ victims went through indescribable pain as they were forced through high-altitude, freezing, tuberculosis, sea water, sulfanilamide, poison, and transplant experiments. Through these tragic Holocaust experiments, scientists and doctors discovered treatments used today for high-altitude sickness, hypothermia, contagious diseases, dehydration, poisoning, and war wounds.

At extermination camps, the Nazis conducted many medical experiments on the prisoners that resulted in many deaths. Between 1939 and 1945 medical research projects involving cruel and often lethal experimentation on human subjects were performed. These projects were supported, well-known organizations in the Third Reich and were categorized into three fields: research intended at cultivating the endurance and rescue of German troops, testing of medical techniques and medications, and experiments that pursued to approve Nazi cultural belief. More than seven thousand victims of these cruel medical experiments have been acknowledged. Targets of the experiments included Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals, and Catholic priests (Medical Experiments ).

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”

The Holocaust in World War II is one the many cases of genocide. Millions of people were killed, or injured during the war. People were held in places called concentration camps. In the camps, people were dehumanized. They were treated like animals, and hurt. Sometimes they were even put through unethical treatments and medical experiments. Medical experiments are often talked about during times of war, as most of the time they are unethical, and a crime against humanity, as in the case of the experiments during the Holocaust. The medical experiments, and the trials that followed were the first trials for the crimes against humanity. The medical experiments of the Holocaust were a horrendous crime against humanity because they needlessly slaughtered

Understanding the events of the Holocaust requires consideration of numerous socio-political and economic factors in interwar and WW2 Europe. One particularly important area of exploration is the role played by physicians working for the Reich. Examining their behavior, justifications for murder, and relationship to the state provides insight into the moral and ethical foundations of the society which allowed a genocide that ended in the death of millions. In the context of the concentration camps they abandoned both their humanity and their ethics as doctors to become murderers and torturers for state science. Multiple factors, including ideology, socialization, and psychological adaption allowed Nazi doctors to throw away the fact that

In the Hippocratic Oath, it states, “I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure” (Tyson). Dr. Josef Mengele, other physicians and encampment staff, in charge of medical experiments at concentration camps, discarded this principle, and others, when they chose to mutilate and preform inhumane experiments on innocent people. The people they victimized, were forced to participated for they did not have the option to oppose. During the Holocaust, experiments were conducted upon mainly Jewish people or prisoners from Russia and Poland (Spitz) . Though there were numerous experiments being preformed, it was broken down into; Racial, war-injury, and pharmaceutical experiments.

These experiments included trying to change eye colour by injecting chemicals into the eye after this was performed his patients became blind or their eyes became infected (Jamie Frater, March 14, 2008). He also tested body rewarming by having the subjects sit in ice water and then have them stand outside, many of these subjects passed away (Jamie Frater, March 14, 2008). Along with this he also performed transfusions and amputations, and sewed twins together in an attempt to make conjoined twins and many people became infected and carried diseases (Louis Bülow, 2013). Although he performed many cruel operations he did treat his twins with good care. He would bring them chocolates, clothes and lollies and most of the children referred to him as uncle (Louis Bülow,

Dr Mengele performed medical experiments on men, women and children prisoners of Auschwitz Death Camp. Mengele was given complete freedom under secrecy enabling him to give lethal injections, dissect, shot, freeze and even castarate his prisoner test subjects. These lethal injections, made from germs were used in attempt to artificially change the subject’s eye colour. The test subjects also known as the prisoners, either died from the experiment or from being shoot, very few survived. However, post mortem examinations were conducted whether they did from the experiment or

Nazis used prisoners for medical experiments that are very disturbing. Some people may consider them as an insult to humanity. The Nazi doctors conducted thousands of experiments, each worse than the last.