preview

Medical Experiments In The Holocaust

Decent Essays

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 …show more content…

Victims were chosen as they got off the train. They were carefully selected based off their build, race, gender, and family. The life they had to suffer through as a part of the experiments was not at all better than those in the concentration camps, if anything, it was worse. They were forced into painful situations, and received nothing. One of the goals of the experiments was to sterilize people who would not produce the perfect off springs. One way that was done was through X-rays. People were put to X-ray machines, and they were turned on. The X-rays would cause serious burns and swelling, but they were forced to go back to work regardless.(3) They forced to people who were what they wanted to get sterilized in a painful fashion, then forced them to continue on hard, strenuous work. This seriously hurt some, and helped to the overall deaths of people in the concentration camps, and the systematic destruction of entire groups of people. As one person recounts in his experience that man man came and, “He distributed various desserts to us children. After a couple of hours, we realized that something was not in order with the food. I got really sick and suffered from cramps, I threw up, had diarrhea, the chills and fever. Many died as a consequence of this poisoned food.”(4). The people had been starved, and then they received poison food …show more content…

The doctors of the Holocaust were cruel people. They did not care about the people they hurt to get the results the so desperately were seeking. They killed many in the experiments, killed some to hide evidence, and killed others without reason. All of the people involved were supposed to go on trial for their crimes. In some cases, they did not go on trial, or receive little to no sentencing. Some doctors were tried during what was known as the as the Nuremberg trials, or the Doctors Trial, a total of “23 leading German physicians and administrator” (7) were tried for crimes against humanity. These people were involved the the torture and murder of innocent people. These people were tried as only 23 out of the 200 physicians (3), as some people like Josef Mengele, known for his experiments on kids, escaped, and “lived for 35 years hiding under various aliases”(8). People like Mengele escaped any sort of punishment for years. They never faced justice for their actions. This was not fair to the people who suffered because of people like him, and their families. Of the 23 put on trial, “Sixteen of the doctors were found guilty. Seven were sentenced to death.” (7). Only sixteen got in trouble and faced punishment for their ungodly acts. This means seven doctors escaped punishment on

Get Access