An Unethical Science

by Drew Gotbaum

From burning and pillaging villages to rape and genocide, the Second World War was one of the most horrendous catastrophes humanity has seen to this day. Both the allied and axis forces committed unspeakable atrocities, but the most infamous group were the fascist Nazis. Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi party, was held responsible for the death of close to six million Jews, a total of sixty-three percent of the European Jewish population1. Through concentration camps or utter extermination camps, Hitler conducted the Holocaust. As savage as the work and extermination camps were, they could not hold a candle to the abominations of the Nazi experimentation. The various camps of the holocaust were alternatively used for Nazi doctors to conduct medical experiments on the incoming victims. These gruesome experiments ranged from genetic to mental research done on helpless patients. Patients taken for experimentation would never survive, for they were either killed during the experiment or executed shortly after. Although the terrors of World War II were barbarous, the Nazi medical experiments were the most horrific acts committed during the war. The Nazi doctors heavily experimented on the effects of temperature, hoping to find information that could benefit the German soldiers that have to deal with the bitter temperatures of the eastern front. Dr. Sigmund Rascher was in charge of the freezing related experiments, looking to help soldiers deal with the low temperatures of water. Rascher worked within Dachau and Auschwitz. His work was split into two types, the lowest body temperature a human can handle and
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http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-statistics.htm

reviving a frozen soldier. Patients were stripped naked and placed in ice-baths with a thermometer to show current body temperature. This method was the fastest way to drop ones body temperature to twenty-five degrees Celsius, which was later found to be the point of fatality. The alternative method was to strap the patient to a medical stretcher and leave them outside to slowly die due to the cold winters of Auschwitz2. Nazis intensely studied the effects of the cold, but they soon moved onto the revival strategies using a reheat and defrost method. Dr. Rascher used sun lamps in an attempt to resuscitate the frozen victim. Each victim would be frozen to unconsciousness then placed under a sun lamp hot enough to burn through skin. Upon resuscitation, the victim would be refrozen and the doctors would repeat experiment until the patient died. Another method of defrosting was injection of boiling water throughout a patients body, but this method killed every patient it was tested on. Similar to the icy vat, a patient would be placed in a bath of slowly boiling water; research showed that the patients would be killed if water temperature rose too quickly. The most perverted of all heating experiments was the defrosting by raising body heat through sex. Women would be forced to copulate with frozen male victims in an attempt to revive them, yet this experiment was unsuccessful3. These temperature-related experiments were only a few of the cruel experiments done on the innocent patients; another large topic was genetic research. Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi Medicine accessed at http://remember.org/educate/medexp.html 3 Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi Medicine accessed at http://remember.org/educate/medexp.html
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Another prominent Nazi doctor was Josef Mengele, also known as the Angel of Death. Mengele was born on March 16th, 1911, raised in Germany he studied philosophy and medicine at Frankfurt university. His graduate dissertation dealt with racial differences, making him the ideal doctor for the Nazi genetics experimentation4. In Nazi Germany, the Aryan race was the ideal human. The genetic experiments were strictly focused on altering race in order to achieve a population of blonde haired, and blue-eyed supermen5. Mengele was widely known for his studies on the genetics of twins, commonly known as Mengeles children. He would stand near the ramps, which unloaded the many transports to Auschwitz, and scout out twins. Once found, he would thoroughly examine them, recording every measurement. The set of twins would be taken to the twin barracks where they were told to fill out a form, including questions regarding their history. Each day the twins would wake up early for role call, and then continue to breakfast. After breakfast, Mengele would give them a quick inspection. Surprisingly Mengele did not appear as such a horrible figure to the twins, for he would offer different treats to the children, some called him Uncle Mengele. Twins had the best living conditions offered at Auschwitz. Experimentally, each day was very similar for the twins. Numbers were initially tattooed to the wrist of the individual set of twins; if their number were called they would be taken in a truck and brought to one of the many laboratories. The average day consisted of blood tests and different experiments without reason. An average of ten cubic centimeters of blood was Angel of Death Accessed at http://www.auschwitz.dk/mengele.htm Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi Medicine accessed at http://remember.org/educate/medexp.html
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drawn a day6. For hours of the day, twins would be stripped naked and laid down shoulder to shoulder for more measurements to be documented, noting all changes. Also, blood would be drawn from one twin and inserted into the other; Mengele would take note of even the smallest result. In search for a cure for flawed human genetics, Mengele would test on the blue eyes of twins, injecting many different substances causing pain, infection, and blindness. Diseases would be purposefully given to one twin, and once the disease killed one twin the other would be killed and examinations would be taken on both deceased twins, comparing the effects of the disease. Mengele would also take one twin and perform horrible surgeries without any provided anesthetic, indirectly causing mental pain on the other twin. After being over-used, the twins would be executed by a single shot of chloroform to the heart. The main experiments were conducted subsequent to their death, consisting of blood samples, surgeries, and generally any part of the twin taken for study7. These studies were only a small factor in Mengeles name The Angel of Death. The Angel of Death went into hiding, attempting to escape the wrath of the Nuremburg trials, which was responsible for the execution of many of his fellow Nazi doctors. Mengele was listed highly on the list of war criminals being sought out by the allied forces. Mengele fled to Argentina under a false name and stayed

6Lifton,

Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. BasicBooks, 1986 Mengele's Children - The Twins of Auschwitz, Jennifer Rosenberg, accessed at http://history1900s.about.com/od/auschwitz/a/mengeletwins_2.htm
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inactive for many years. He finally died on February 7th, 1979 after a stroke at a resort in Buenos Aires. He was buried in Argentina under his fake name Wolfgang Gerhard.8 Since then Mengele has gone down as one of the worlds most atrocious monsters. The Holocaust was a terrible catastrophe, with the labor and execution camps, but the true evil took place in the laboratories. After the horrors of the laboratories, we were left with a powerful piece of information, the results of each and every experiment. These results were harvested through years of these aforementioned experimental terrors, and are bred from the massacre of millions innocent patients. This being said, a very large ethical debate unveils itself. Is it moral to use the data achieved through Nazi experimentation?

Josef Mengele, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Website. Accessed at http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007060
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