While Mengele was assigned to work at Auschwitz, only about 30 other physicians served at the point in time (Nazi Medical Experiments: Background, 2008). The entire medical staff was in charge of performing selections of prisoners or deciding the prisoners fate, whether they would go to the gas chambers, or be retained for work in the camp. He is often the most associated figure with “selection duty”, and would also sit and wait at the trains to look for twins that came off, and appear off duty (Nazi Medical Experiments: Background, 2008). Mengele was interested in utilizing twins for medical research through Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, who was a famous biologist known for experimenting with twins in order to trace the genetic origins of …show more content…
There was a multifarious amount of disgusting and repulsive experiments that killed many innocent victims who were subjected to these experiments as lab rats. At the camps, there was a multifarious amount of awful experiments that took place. In the hot bath experiments, the patient was put into warmer water and their body temperature slowly inclined, which caused many deaths of victims due to shock (Nazi Medical Experiments: Background, 2008). After being forced to take part in the hypothermia experiments, patients were placed under powerful sun lamps that could easily burn the skin (Nazi Medical Experiments: Background, 2008). One homosexual prisoner was subjected to this many times after being frozen over and over again, and then he died (Nazi Medical Experiments: Background, 2008). In one experiment, a victim of hypothermia and a women were supposed to have sexual intercourse in order to warm the victim up (Nazi Medical Experiments: Background, 2008). In a second warming experiment, the frozen victim had blistering water irrigated into to their body; all victims died (Nazi Medical Experiments: Background, 2008). Another experiment was when Dachau prisoners experienced high altitude experiments. Eighty victims died (Berger, 1990). Additionally, prisoners were cut and infected; then doctors reconfigured blood vessels in an attempt to stop the disease (Berger, 1990). Mengele experimented on twins and was obsessed with them (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2014). He took multiple amounts of body measurements on the twins (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2014). Mengele then killed them when he was finished and out of 1,000 twins, only 200 survived (BBC News, 2005). Scientists also injected Russian prisoners with poisons to test the reactions of their bodies (BBC News, 2005). Patients were also infected with
In one series of tests, victims were put in large tubs of ice to lower their temperatures. Some victims were clothed, others not, some soaked for a long time, others a short time. Another series of tests put subjects naked in the outdoors. During both series, many subjects developed extreme rigor. The doctors measured changes in the victim's’ heart rate, body temperature, muscle reflexes, and other factors. If body temperature fell below 79.7 degrees Fahrenheit, doctors would begin to rewarm the body. Body rewarming techniques included using blankets, heat lamps, andin some cases, bodies of women who were forced to copulate with the
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.
Josef Mengele had studied Anthropology, Human Genetics, and Eugenics. While working in Auschwitz, he had worked with identical and fraternal twins to trace the genetic origin of various diseases along with other experiments (“Josef Mengele” Holocaust Encyclopedia). Most officers or German task force had a hard time with this job, but Josef Mengele did not (Minster). He enjoyed separating those on the ramp and would often appear “off duty” searching through the crowd looking for twins to experiment on (“Josef Mengele” Holocaust Encyclopedia). He always had a reason for what he did. More horrific experiments included Mengele injecting chloroform into a set of twin’s hearts and it killing them instantly. He would then dissect the bodies and look at the genetic structures. Dr. Josef Mengele had also sown twins together to make Siamese Twins (“Angel of Death”). There are photos and documentation that proves that this was an experiment he did perform and was very unsuccessful. Approximately three thousand twins passed through
The doctors would cut off limbs and see if the Jew’s could handle what happened to their body. Josef mengele would do the experiments to twins along with many other doctors they were trying to see how twin were made so they could increase the prefect race faster. Even though these were crude experiments they help german know a whole lot more about the human body and what it can handle and what it can't and the almost found out to make twins but they never did.
Mengele was one of the main doctors that everyone knows about, there were in fact other doctors during the holocaust. Dr. Carl Clauberg, He was a very disturbing man. This doctor ¨injected chemical substances into wombs of thousands of Jewish and Gypsy women.¨ They were sterilized by the injections causing horrible pain, inflamed ovaries, bursting spasms in the stomach, and bleeding.
The reason behind these experiments were that the Nazi’s were not used to the bitter cold weather in russia. So the Nazi scientists tested how long it would take to lower the body temperature and what thawed or raised the body temperature back to normal levels. All tests were done on young, healthy Jewish and Russian men. A Nazi doctor was “shocked at how long the Russian men could take the cold without losing 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” (1995 “Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi Medicine”).
The freezing experiments were organized into two main parts (Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi Medicine). The first part was to determine the amount of time it took the prisoner’s body temperature to reach twenty five degrees Celsius, which would cause the victim to become unconscious and die (Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi Medicine). The second part was to figure out how to then bring back the patient to a strong, healthy state, which most of the time was unable to achieve (Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi Medicine). The doctors had two ways to freeze the victim; to either submerge the victim into a tub of icy water, or to place the victim outside, undressed, in the sub-zero winter temperatures (Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi Medicine). Healthy Jews and Russians were often chosen for this type of experiment (Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi
The medical experiments of the Holocaust were horrific acts with possible advancements in medicine, that go unnoticed due to current hospitals using ill-effective techniques, the EPA letting phosgene toxins infect workers, and some newspapers and agencies disregarding the use of the advancements. It is widely known, that the Holocaust was a horrible event during World War II, where Nazis would massacre Jews in a variety of ways, ranging from a firing squad to being buried alive. Horrible atrocities that ended in five million, to as many as six million Jewish deaths, among many more prisoners the Germans convicted. However, what is less known is how many of these deaths were used in medical experiments to advance medicine and medical practices.
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.
Hitler conducted brutal experiments on Jewish. Jewish prisoners were put through a variety of gruesome experiments. One experiment was to freeze jews in vats of icy water to see what would happen to pilot that has fallen in water. The infamous Dr. Josef Megele proposed many experiments on 1,000 twins roughly 200 lives(history.com). One more experiment known as the salt water
In 1941, the Nazis conducted experiments with the intentions of discovering means of treatment options for hypothermia. There were near 400 experiments and near 300 victims. From this information it is indicated some test subjects suffered more than one experiment. One study forced test subjects to endure a tank of freezing ice water for up to five hours. Another study had the prisoners naked outdoors for several hours with temperatures as low as 21 °F (in text citation).
Josef Mengele was a Holocaust legend. Mengele performed many experiments that many don’t dare. Auschwits was Mengeles home for most of the Holocaust with a few exceptions. One thing that stands out when you mention the name Josef Mengele is how obsessed he was with twins. Mengele experiment on twins often young children was thought as a “Ideal took in weighing…heredity and environment.”
During World War II, a number of German physicians conducted painful and often deadly experiments on thousands of concentration camp prisoners without their consent. Unethical medical experimentation carried out during the Third Reich may be divided into three categories. The three categories consisted of experiments aimed at facilitating the survival of Axis military personnel. The second category of experimentation aimed at developing and testing pharmaceuticals and treatment methods for injuries and illnesses which German military and occupation personnel encountered in the field. While the third category of medical experimentation sought to advance the racial and ideological tenets of the Nazi worldview (https://www.ushmm.org).
Out of all these ways that people died in the concentration camps, the terrible medical experiments of the Nazi doctors and scientists have to had been the worst. The doctors and scientists oversaw and ran dozens of different types of experiments on camp prisoners during the war. All of them were cruel, deadly, and just plain wrong. These experiments were mainly to benefit the Nazi army and keep them alive, to answer questions concerning medicine, and to recognize the mental, physical, and genetic differences between different types of people while proving the Nazi beliefs (“Nazi Medical
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