Juliann Toro

Professor Wertz-Orbaugh
UWRT 1102-013
2/9/2015
At first I decided on the topic of sexual assault in the concentration camps during the
Holocaust. After conducting more research on the topic, I realized that there is not as much
information as I hoped because it is now that people are coming forward about what happened to
them since they were terrified to speak up. Because of a lack of information, I decided to change
my topic to medical experimentation in the concentration camps conducted by the Nazis during
the time of the Holocaust.
Medical experimentation has to do with the well-being of others and what improvements
were made in the medical field. Being a pre-nursing major, these topics are incredibly interesting
to me and I conduct research as such for my own leisure. I am curious to know what type of
experiments were being conducted on the Jewish population at the camps and what measures
were taken in doing so. Were they on diseases or were the Nazis simply trying to reach the
Aryan race known as the perfect race? There were similar topics on the Holocaust interest
inventory sheet but this one caught my eye the most between them. I would have never thought
that experiments like that would be conducted on those that were already suffering enough and in
their state of health.
With that being said, I only have a bit of background knowledge regarding medical
experimentation in the broad aspect. I know that there are always tests being conducted for
cancer research and diabetes, during our modern time period, but I am not sure exactly how it is
conducted. However, I have no background knowledge with medical experimentation during the

Holocaust, thus why I chose this topic. I did not even know that medical experimentation would
take place in the camps until I read the Holocaust interest inventory. There is a lot about the
Holocaust that one does not know and will probably never come around to knowing.
To continue, I believe that the Jewish population were being mistreated while the
experiments were being conducted on them. It is said that they were treated in comparison to
animals within the experimentation. I dont even think that they gave the Nazis the consent to do
so, they were simply forced into medical experimentation which is absurd. If that is the case,
how many Jewish people died while experimentation? How did the Nazis go about in
conducting the experimentation? What type of medical experiments were conducted? I would
like to learn more about all these different subtopics and of course, the ones that I find after
conducting more research about medical experimentation.
Along with these different subtopics, there are different ways of thinking when it comes
to medical experimentation as well. One may see it as what experiments were done or one can be
more interested in the aftermath of those experiments and the modern ethical issues. The
aftermath could include the number of deaths, what other populations were affected besides the
Jewish, etc., while the experiments could potentially include situations such as hypothermia
since it was brutally cold at the camps during the winter. Other ways that it could be viewed is
through a Jewish persons perception or that of a Nazi conducting the medical experiment. There
are probably other multiple ways in which one could view the topic and is currently broad in my
aspect for now.
With the different ways of thinking about medical experimentation at concentration
camps during the time of the Holocaust, it is equally important to keep an open mind as to the
why. One never knows the initiative that the Nazis had with medical experimentation. Maybe it

was to kill off the Jewish population or maybe they actually wanted to help their people health
wise. Again, one will never truly know but one could come close which leads to my main
question; why did medical experimentation take place on the Jewish population at concentration
camps and how did it go about happening?