People must remember the Holocaust as a insult to humanity. The lives lost were not only great in number, but offered so much to mankind. How the world would have been different if the millions of souls destroyed could have lived.

Doctors have always been thought of as the saviors of mankind, the healers, and caretakers of our utter existence. Even ancient civilizations revered the medicine men as having special power to protect life. The trust of a physician is sacred. This is why the practice of medicine by the doctors of the Third Reich is egregious, outrageous, and shocking. The Nazi doctors violated the trust placed in them by humanity. The most painful truth is for the most part the doctors escaped their crimes against Humanity and lived a life, unlike their victims.

The Experiments

* Freezing / Hypothermia
* Genetics
* Infectious Diseases
* Interrogation and Torture
* Killing / Genocide
* High Altitude
* Pharmacological
* Sterilization
* Surgery
* Traumatic Injuries

Freezing / Hypothermia

The freezing / hypothermia experiments were conducted for the Nazi high command. The experiments were conducted on men to simulate the conditions the armies suffered on the Eastern Front. The German forces were ill prepared for the bitter cold. Thousands of German soldiers died of freezing or were debilitated by cold injuries.

The experiments were conducted under the supervision of Dr. Sigmund Rascher at Birkenau, Dachau and Auschwitz . Dr. Rascher reported directly to Himmler. Dr. Rascher publicized the results of his freezing experiments at the 1942 medical conference entitled "Medical Problems Arising from Sea and Winter".

The freezing experiments were divided into two parts. First, to establish how long it would take to lower the body temperature to death and second how to best resuscitate the frozen victim.

The two main methods used to freeze the victim were to put the person in a icy vat of water or to put the victim outside naked in sub-zero temperatures.

The icy vat method proved to be the fastest way to drop the body temperature. The selections were made of young healthly Jews or Russians. They were usually stripped naked and prepared for the experiment. A insulated probe which measured the drop in the body temperature was inserted into the rectum. The probe was held in place by a expandable metal ring which was adjusted to open inside the rectum to hold the probe firmly in place. The victim was then placed in the vat of cold water and started to freeze. It was learned that most victims lost consciousness and died when the body temperature dropped to 25 C.

Two Russian men were seen by a prisoner doctor in the cold vat. They were very strong men and had said a comment to the SS doctor performing the experiment. The prisoner doctor was shocked at how long the Russian men could take the cold without loosing consciousness. He asked the directing doctor to take them out of the tank. He did not allow this and increased the temperature slightly to prolong their pain. They died after a long painful stay in the tank.

The second way to freeze a victim was to strap them to a stretcher and place them outside naked. The extreme winters of Auschwitz made a natural place for this experiment.

The resuscitation or warming experiments were just as cruel and painful as the freezing experiments.

Sun Lamp

The victims were placed under sun lamps which were so hot they would burn the skin. One young homosexual victim was repeatedly cooled to unconsciousness then revived with lamps until he was pouring sweat. He died one evening after several test sessions.

Internal Irrigation

The frozen victim would have water heated to a near blistering temperature forcefully irrigated into the stomach, bladder, and intestines. All victims appeared to have died from the treatment.

Hot Bath

The victim was placed in warm water and the temperature was slowly increased. This method proved to be the best. Many victims died do to shock if they were warmed up to quickly.

Warming by Body Heat

Heinrich Himmler sugested to Dr. Rascher that he try to use women to warm the frozen men. He suggested that the victim and a women copulate. This perverted experiment occured with some success. However it was not as successful as the Warm Bath.

Genetic Experiments

The Nordic or Aryan Race was the most important goal of the Nazis. It was the largest part of the over all plan. The blonde hair, blue eye, super men were to be the only race. The Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals and anyone else that did not meet the race requirements were to by cleansed from society through genocide. Hitler and the German High command made a list rules for the fellow Nazis to follow. The new rules required all SS before marriage must submit to general testing to insure racial purity. The rules for marriage were unbelievably complex. Thousands of marriages were denied. If the laws for marriage were broken it could mean the death penalty.

Dr. Sigmund Rascher and his wife learned what not following the marriage laws would hold for their lives. Mrs. Rascher was sterile. They were not illegally married; they adopted two children. They were later investigated by the Gestapo and executed for the crime. In this case, after his medical experimentation, it seems fitting that this killer was caught up by his own party.

Early in power the National Science groups were pushed into research of the race and experiments commenced. First the party needed propaganda to prove all other races were inferior. Measurements of heads, eyes, nose, blood were required. The vast majority of the early experiments were a propaganda sham. It was determined Gypsies had different blood and were inclined to criminal behavior. The same type of findings were made of all races other than the Nazis.

After the camps were started, vast genetic experiments were undertaken. The range of the testing was broad and specialized. The two major groups of experiments were first to refine the master race and second to determine the cause of defects.

Dr. Josef Mengele research on twins and Gypsies exemplifies the quest for the genetic studies. Dr. Mengele was known as the "Angel of Death". He would be at every selection when the new trains would arrive at Auschwitz. After the victims were unloaded off the trains and stripped naked and divided into men, women, and children, he would sort through the thousands of people. Most went straight to the gas chambers and others to hard labor in the camps. The twins, dwarfs, and unique physical specimens were selected to be assigned to the experimental blocks. In many ways the majority who where killed in the gas chambers were much better off than the survivors that had no idea what horrors awaited them.

Experiments on Twins

The twins were examined from head to toe. Measurements of every inch were taken. Dr. Mengele demanded specific and careful exams. If any detail was missed the staff, usually a prisoner doctor, would be punished. The twins were allowed to keep their hair for the first several days of the examination. After all the living data was taken the twins would be killed by a single injection of chloroform in the heart. Care was taken to insure the twins died at the same time. The twins were then dissected with the organs being sent to research centers.

Prisoner doctors tell of the fate of two Hungarian twins who arrived at Auschwitz late in 1943. Dr. Mengele was at the camp selection. The train arrived in the very early morning. Three sets of twins were found. They were taken to the experimental block. Dr. Mengele ordered the two Hungarian twins be placed in the examination room. The two Hungarian twins young men age 18 were described as "extremely athletic and handsome." They had much body hair and were allowed to keep it for the first few weeks. The twins were showered and returned nude to the examination room. The examination started at the head . All parts of their heads were examined. The head examination took almost days. They were then completely X-rayed . The next part of the examination consisted of tubes being forced through their noses and into their lungs. They were then ventilated with a gas which caused them to cough so severely they had to be restrained. The sputum from the lungs was collected for examination.

The twins were then photographed for several days . The purpose of the photographs were to show hair patterns. They were each forced to stand, bend, and kneel in many positions to accomplish the photographs. For example, they were required to stand with their arms lifted for many hours so the under arm hair could be photographed.

After the photographs were finished they were awoken very early in the morning. They were taken into a room with tables and a hot water vat. The water in the vat was very hot. They were made to sit in the water until they were ready to pass out from the heat. They were then strapped to a table where their hair was plucked out trying to save the hair root. They were put back into the hot vat several times. After enough hair was collected, they were totally shaven of every hair on their body. The twins were then again extensively photographed without hair.

The twins then received several two liter enemas which caused them much pain and discomfort. The boys on different days were strapped over a bench table and their rectums were hyper descended after which they received an extensive lower gastric intestinal examination. This extensive procedure was performed without any anesthesia. The young men were crying so loud that Doctor Mengele ordered they be gagged. The next day they received a painful and humiliating urological examination. In this examination tissue samples were taken from the kidneys, prostate, and testicles. Several semen samples were forcefully taken over two days.

After this three weeks of tortuous medical examinations they were taken two the dissection laboratory. Using two doctors, each twin was simultaneously given an injection in the heart, taking their lives. They were dissected and their organs were sent to the Institute of Biological Racial and Evolutionary Research Berlin.

Holocaust 1944 Key Dates

January 22
U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt issues Executive Order 9417, creating the War Refugee Board. Roosevelt instructs the War Refugee Board to take measures to rescue victims of enemy oppression in imminent danger of death. The activities of the War Refugee Board contribute to saving tens of thousands of Jews from deportation and death, possibly up to 200,000.

March 19
German troops occupy Hungary.

Early Spring
German authorities begin the evacuation of Lublin/Majdanek and deports the remaining inmates to Auschwitz, Natzweiler-Struthof, Ravensbrück, Plaszow, and Gross-Rosen.

April 5
Under German guidance, Hungarian authorities require all Jews to wear the yellow star.

April 16
German authorities begin to establish concentration points for the deportation of Jews from Hungary.

April 29-30
Hungarian authorities send the first two transports of Hungarian Jews into German custody.

May 15-July 9
Hungarian gendarmerie officials, under the guidance of German SS officials, deport around 440,000 Jews from Hungary. Most are deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where, upon arrival and after selection, SS functionaries kill the majority of them in gas chambers.

May 15-18
German authorities deport 7,003 German, Austrian, and Czech Jews from the camp-ghetto Theresienstadt to Auschwitz-Birkenau in order to “thin out” the Jewish population of Theresienstadt in preparation for the visit of representatives of the International Red Cross and the Danish Red Cross. Upon arrival in Auschwitz-Birkenau, the prisoners on these transports are incarcerated in a “Theresienstadt family camp” in Birkenau.

May 16
The SS attempts to liquidate the Gypsy family camp BIIe at Auschwitz. Having been tipped off by a camp official, the inmates, armed with knives, shovels, and other weapons, refuse to leave their barracks. As a result of internal disagreement and in the face of resistance from the prisoners, the SS postpones the liquidation of the family camp until August 1944.

June 6
D-Day. British and American troops launch an invasion of France.

June 18-22, 1944
The Auschwitz Report, written by two Slovak Jewish prisoners who escaped from Auschwitz on April 7, 1944, and composed a report in Slovak by the end of April, goes public worldwide through media channels in Switzerland

June 22-August 1
Soviet troops destroy German Army Group Center in eastern Belorussia and sweep forward to the east bank of the Vistula River across from the center of Warsaw, Poland.

June 23
With the permission of the RSHA, representatives of the International Red Cross and the Danish Red Cross inspect a “specially prepared” Theresienstadt camp-ghetto.

June 23-July 14
The SS resumes deportations from the Lodz ghetto to the Chelmno killing center, deporting and killing more than 7,000 Jews.

June 24-August 14
War Refugee Board representative John Pehle and several U.S. Jewish organizations including the World Jewish Congress make several requests to the U.S. government to bomb the gas chambers at Birkenau or the rail lines leading to Birkenau. Assistant State Secretary of Defense John J. McCloy handles most of these requests. The U.S. government declines the requests on the grounds that Auschwitz-Birkenau was not a military target, that such a mission would divert resources needed to bring the war to a successful conclusion, and that the speedy end of the war would be most effective in saving lives.

July 2
German authorities begin liquidating the labor camps in Wilno (Vilnius) and kill approximately 3,000 Jews in the Ponary (Paneriai) woods.

July 6
Regent Miklos Horthy of Hungary issues an order that the Hungarian government will cease deporting Jews from Hungary in Germany custody. Deportations halt on July 9.

July 8-12
As the Soviet army approaches, SS authorities liquidate the Kauen concentration camp, transferring around 8,000 Jews to the Stutthof and Dachau concentration camps in the German Reich.

July 9
Raoul Wallenberg arrives in Budapest as first secretary to the Swedish legation in Hungary and with financing from the U.S. War Refugee Board. Along with numerous other legations, including the Swiss, the Turkish, the Italian, and several Latin American legations, the Sweden delegation, inspired by the activism of Wallenberg, effectively protects tens of thousands of Budapest Jews endangered by German and Hungarian plans to deport them.

July 13
The Soviet army liberates Wilno (Vilnius) in Lithuania.

July 23-24
Soviet troops liberate Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp. Although they had evacuated most of the remaining prisoners westward to evade the advancing Soviet army, the SS camp authorities are surprised by the rapid Soviet advance and fail to destroy the camp and the evidence of mass murder.

July 25-September 15
Allied forces break out of the Normandy beachhead, routing the German defenders. On August 25, Free French troops liberate Paris; by September 15, U.S. troops will reach the German border.

August 1
The Soviet army liberates the city of Kaunas.

August 1-October
The underground Polish Home Army rises against the Germans in an effort to play a role in the liberation of Warsaw.

August 2
The SS liquidates the Gypsy family camp BIIe at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The SS authorities transport 1,408 Roma from the family camp and from Auschwitz I to Buchenwald concentration camp. SS men then murder the remaining 2,897 inmates of the Gypsy family camp in the gas chambers at Birkenau.

August 6
SS authorities evacuate the few remaining Jews at Kaiserwald to Buchenwald and Dachau via Stutthof.

August 9-August 28
SS and police units liquidate the Lodz ghetto and deport more than 60,000 Jews and an undetermined number of Roma (Gypsies) to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

August 29-October 28
Slovak resistance organizations rise against the German-supported Slovakian government. Between September and October, German SS and police officials, assisted by German military units and Slovak fascist paramilitary units, deport approximately 12,600 Slovak Jews, most of them to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

October 3
SS units shoot around 3,000 prisoners at Vaivara: 1,500 Jewish men and women, 800 Soviet prisoners of war, and 700 Estonian political prisoners. The SS evacuates most of the surviving inmates to the Stutthof concentration camp.

October 7
At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Sonderkommando (special detachment of Jewish prisoners deployed to remove corpses from the gas chambers and burn them) blows up Crematorium IV and kills the guards. About 250 participants of the revolt die in battle with the SS and police units. The SS and police units shoot 200 more members of the Sonderkommando after the battle ends.

October 28
After establishing it on August 27, 1943, as a subsidiary camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp, the SS Inspectorate of Concentration Camps redesignates Mittelbau-Dora (also known as Nordhausen-Dora) as an autonomous concentration camp.

October 30
The last transport of Jews from the camp-ghetto Theresienstadt arrives at Auschwitz. During October, SS officials deport approximately 18,000 Jews from Theresienstadt to the Auschwitz camp complex, where camp officials murder most of them in the gas chambers at Birkenau.

November 23
U.S. troops liberate Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp.

November 25
At Heinrich Himmler's order, the Auschwitz camp authorities demolish the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

December 1944
The Inspectorate of Concentration Camps officially designates the Bergen-Belsen “residence camp” a concentration camp.

December 11
At Hartheim, German authorities carry out the last gassing of inmates. Under SS guard, Mauthausen prisoners dismantle the killing facility. Between April and December 1940, German authorities killed more than 6,000 prisoners from Mauthausen, Gusen, and Dachau at Hartheim. In all, the Germans killed around 30,000 people, including concentration camp prisoners and victims of the “euthanasia” programs, at Hartheim.

Dachau Concentration Camp Overview

The concentration camp of Dachau, 10 miles northwest of Munich, was one of the first concentration camps in Nazi Germany.

Built in March of 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler was appointed as Reichs Cancellor, Dachau would serve as a model for all subsequent concentrations camps in the Third Reich. The Dachau Concentration Camp was one of the first camps established by the Nazis in 1933. At first, the camp only housed political prisoners, but later Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals and others were sent to Dachau. Although Dachau was not an extermination camp, tens of thousands of people died from malnutrition, illness, overwork, and torture. Others were subjects of medical experiments and suffered horribly.

Dachau was one of the longest running concentration camps in Nazi Germany. In its twelve years of existence, more than 200,000 people from more than 30 countries were imprisoned at Dachau and its sub-camps. More than 43,000 died: Jews, political opponents, homosexuals, gypsies, members of the Jehovah's Witness, and priests.

The camp was also a training ground for the SS, called “School of Violence”.

Dachau - The Liberation:

On April 29, 1945 Dachau was liberated by American troops, freeing its 32,000 survivors.

20 years later, the Memorial Site Dachau was established on the initiative of surviving prisoners.

The Memorial Site includes the original prisoner's camp grounds, the crematorium, an exhibition, various memorials, a visitor's center, a library and archive, and a bookstore.
Dachau - What to Expect:

Dachau visitors follow the “path of the prisoner”, walking the same way prisoners were forced to after their arrival in the camp; from the main iron gate that displays the cruel and cynical motto “Arbeit macht frei” (Work makes you free), to the shunt rooms where prisoners were stripped of their personal belongings along with their identity.

You will also see the original prisoner baths, barracks, courtyards, and the crematorium.

The original buildings house extensive exhibits on the Nazi concentration camp system and life on the grounds.

The Dachau memorial site also includes religious memorials and chapels that reflect all religions that were present in the camp, as well as an international monument by the Yugoslavian artist and holocaust survivor, Nandor Glid.

Dachau Address:
Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site (KZ Gedenkstaette)
Alte Römerstraße 75
85221 Dachau
Phone: 49 (0) 8131 / 66 99 70
Dachau Opening Hours:

Tue-Sun, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Monday closed (except on public holidays)

Entrance is free, no reservation required
Dachau – Getting There:

From Munich, take the metro S2 to Dachau/Petershausen. Get off at the Dachau Station and take the bus Nr. 726 into the direction of "Saubachsiedlung"; get off at the entrance of the Memorial Site ("KZ-Gedenkstätte").

It will take approximately one hour to travel from Munich to Dachau by public transportation.

Dachau Tours and Guides:
Audio Guides
Audio Guides are available in English (€3,00/ €2,00) and offer information about the grounds, the history of the camp, as well as accounts of historical witnesses.
Introductions

A 30-minute long introduction offers an overview of the camp and its history (€1,50); questions and discussions are encouraged.
May - October
Tue-Fri, 12:30 p.m.
Sat, Sun, and public holidays, 11:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.

October - April
Thu, Sat, Sun and public holidays 12:30 p.m.

Nazi Concentration Camps

Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany established about 20,000 camps to imprison its many millions of victims. These camps were used for a range of purposes including forced-labor camps, transit camps which served as temporary way stations, and extermination camps built primarily or exclusively for mass murder. From its rise to power in 1933, the Nazi regime built a series of detention facilities to imprison and eliminate so-called "enemies of the state." Most prisoners in the early concentration camps were German Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and persons accused of "asocial" or socially deviant behavior. These facilities were called “concentration camps” because those imprisoned there were physically “concentrated” in one location.

After Germany's annexation of Austria in March 1938, the Nazis arrested German and Austrian Jews and imprisoned them in the Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen concentration camps, all located in Germany. After the violent Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogroms in November 1938, the Nazis conducted mass arrests of adult male Jews and incarcerated them in camps for brief periods.

Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Nazis opened forced-labor camps where thousands of prisoners died from exhaustion, starvation, and exposure. SS units guarded the camps. During World War II, the Nazi camp system expanded rapidly. In some camps, Nazi doctors performed medical experiments on prisoners.

Following the June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazis increased the number of prisoner-of-war (POW) camps. Some new camps were built at existing concentration camp complexes (such as Auschwitz) in occupied Poland. The camp at Lublin, later known as Majdanek, was established in the autumn of 1941 as a POW camp and became a concentration camp in 1943. Thousands of Soviet POWs were shot or gassed there.

To facilitate the "Final Solution" (the genocide or mass destruction of the Jews), the Nazis established extermination camps in Poland, the country with the largest Jewish population. The extermination camps were designed for efficient mass murder. Chelmno, the first extermination camp, opened in December 1941. Jews and Roma were gassed in mobile gas vans there. In 1942, the Nazis opened the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka extermination camps to systematically murder the Jews of the Generalgouvernement (the territory in the interior of occupied Poland).

The Nazis constructed gas chambers (rooms that filled with poison gas to kill those inside) to increase killing efficiency and to make the process more impersonal for the perpetrators. At the Auschwitz camp complex, the Birkenau extermination camp had four gas chambers. During the height of deportations to the camp, up to 6,000 Jews were gassed there each day.

Jews in Nazi-occupied lands often were first deported to transit camps such as Westerbork in the Netherlands, or Drancy in France, en route to the killing centers in occupied Poland. The transit camps were usually the last stop before deportation to an extermination camp.

Millions of people were imprisoned and abused in the various types of Nazi camps. Under SS management, the Germans and their collaborators murdered more than three million Jews in the extermination camps alone. Only a small fraction of those imprisoned in Nazi camps survived.

Source:
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "The Holocaust." Holocaust Encyclopedia. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/index.php?ModuleId=10005143 (accessed September 8, 2006).