Medical Experiments of the Holocaust
Medical Experiments of the Holocaust
Kaitlin
Holocaust in History
January 6, 2013
Many brutal atrocities were committed during the Holocaust by the Nazi party against anyone they viewed as “unpure”. This included the Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Afro-Germans, Slavs, communists, the handicapped, and the mentally disabled. These groups were targeted, stripped away of their rights and citizenship, and then sent to concentration camps. Some of these camps were death camps; created for the sole purpose to annihilate these groups of people, mainly the Jews. At these camps, the prisoners were tortured, starved, brutally killed, and experimented on. In this research paper, I am going to discuss some of the medical experiments that were done to the prisoners by Nazi doctors. According to Education…A Legacy Forum, some of these experiments are freezing/hypothermia, high altitude tests, testing of the chemical sulfanilamide, seawater experiments, phosgene gas testing, genetic testing, and the experimentation on twins. These experiments, no matter which one, were cruel and inhumane. Nazi doctors would experiment on prisoners without caring about the welfare of their patient. All restrictions were gone, and these doctors could do whatever they wanted. Many of these prisoners endured pain, and agony, to further the Nazi doctor’s research. The goals of these experiments were to promote the German race, “in the name of science”. ( Education… A Legacy Forum, Josef Mengele, The Experiments) The freezing experiments were conducted to determine the most effective means for the Germans to avoid hypothermia while fighting on the Russian Front. For as many as five hours, doctors either put prisoners in large vats of ice water, or they would be strapped down on stretchers, and placed outside in the freezing weather naked. While these people were suffering with the pain of their bodies slowly freezing, the doctors would measure the changes in their body temperature, heart rate,
Kaitlin
Holocaust in History
January 6, 2013
Many brutal atrocities were committed during the Holocaust by the Nazi party against anyone they viewed as “unpure”. This included the Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Afro-Germans, Slavs, communists, the handicapped, and the mentally disabled. These groups were targeted, stripped away of their rights and citizenship, and then sent to concentration camps. Some of these camps were death camps; created for the sole purpose to annihilate these groups of people, mainly the Jews. At these camps, the prisoners were tortured, starved, brutally killed, and experimented on. In this research paper, I am going to discuss some of the medical experiments that were done to the prisoners by Nazi doctors. According to Education…A Legacy Forum, some of these experiments are freezing/hypothermia, high altitude tests, testing of the chemical sulfanilamide, seawater experiments, phosgene gas testing, genetic testing, and the experimentation on twins. These experiments, no matter which one, were cruel and inhumane. Nazi doctors would experiment on prisoners without caring about the welfare of their patient. All restrictions were gone, and these doctors could do whatever they wanted. Many of these prisoners endured pain, and agony, to further the Nazi doctor’s research. The goals of these experiments were to promote the German race, “in the name of science”. ( Education… A Legacy Forum, Josef Mengele, The Experiments) The freezing experiments were conducted to determine the most effective means for the Germans to avoid hypothermia while fighting on the Russian Front. For as many as five hours, doctors either put prisoners in large vats of ice water, or they would be strapped down on stretchers, and placed outside in the freezing weather naked. While these people were suffering with the pain of their bodies slowly freezing, the doctors would measure the changes in their body temperature, heart rate,
Citations: Grabowski, John F. “Experiments in Terror.” Josef Mengele. Farmington Hills: Lucent Books, 2004. Print. Lagnado, Lucette M. Children of the Flames. Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated. 1996. Print. “Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi Medicine” Remember.org. N.p. Web. 20 Dec. 2012 Tyson, Peter. “The Experiments.” NOVA Online. N.p. Oct. 2000. Web. 20 Dec. 2012