aged | idealisticrebel

While medical research is a legitimate activity of scientists, even today, there are ethical and moral limitations and considerations that MUST be addressed. Medical research has been done in the past, by more than one country, illegally and immorally upon its citizens. In America, it was the syphilis testing on blacks; and studies involving convicts and college students.

There is good reason for the limitations and ethics surrounding medical research. Not every scientist who conducts medical research truly has the best interests of humankind — and certainly not of his subjects — at heart. Often, such so-called researchers are looking to make an indelible name for themselves in the scientific community, regardless of the cost.

Perhaps the worst experimentation done on human beings was headed by Dr. Josef Mengele at the concentration camps in World War II. Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Russians, the disabled, the very young and very old — any “undesirables” — were all experimented on, and the majority of these helpless human subjects died.

As I have said more than once: This may NEVER happen again.

In order for us to be sure these atrocities are never repeated, we need to know what happened before. It is my duty to tell you what I know of what happened to these people; these human beings; these helpless internees.

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http://www.mengele.dk/children/experimentsmed.swf

Josef Mengele and the Nazi doctors tortured men, women andchildren and did medical experiments of unspeakable horror during the Holocaust. Victims were put into pressure chambers, tested with drugs, castrated, frozen to death. Children were exposed to experimental surgeries performed without anesthesia, transfusions of blood from one to another, isolation endurance, reaction to various stimuli. The Nazi doctors made injections with lethal germs, sex change operations, removal of organs and limbs.

Medical Experiments:

High-Altitude Experiments
to investigate the limits of human endurance and existence at extremely high altitudes. The victims were placed in the low-pressure chamber and thereafter the simulated altitude therein was raised. Many victims died as a result of these experiments and others suffered grave injury, torture, and ill-treatment.

Incendiary Bomb Experiments
to test the effect of various pharmaceutical preparations on phosphorous burns. These burns were inflicted on the victims with phosphorous matter taken from incendiary bombs, and caused severe pain, suffering, and serious bodily injury.

Freezing Experiments
to investigate the most effective means of treating persons who had been severely chilled or frozen. The victims were forced to remain in a tank of ice water for up to 3 hours. Extreme rigor developed in a short time. Numerous victims died in the course of these experiments. After the survivors were severely chilled, rewarming was attempted by various means. In another series of experiments, the victims were kept naked outdoors for many hours at temperatures below freezing. The victims screamed with pain as their bodies froze.

Sea-water Experiments
to study various methods of making sea water drinkable. The victims were deprived of all food and given only chemically processed sea water. Such experiments caused great pain and suffering and resulted in serious bodily injury to the victims.

Malaria Experiments
to investigate immunization for and treatment of malaria. The victims were infected by mosquitoes or by injections of extracts of the mucous glands of mosquitoes. After having contracted malaria the victims were treated with various drugs to test their relative efficacy. Over 1,000 victims were used in these experiments. Many died and others suffered severe pain and permanent disability.

Mustard Gas Experiments
to investigate the most effective treatment of wounds caused by Mustard gas. Wounds deliberately inflicted on the victims were infected with Mustard gas. Some of the victims died as a result of these experiments and others suffered intense pain and injury.

Sulfanilamide Experiments
to investigate the effectiveness of sulfanilamide. Wounds deliberately inflicted on the victims were infected with bacteria such as streptococcus, gas gangrene, and tetanus. Circulation of blood was interrupted by tying off blood vessels at both ends of the wound to create a condition similar to that of a battlefield wound. Infection was aggravated by forcing wood shavings and ground glass into the wounds. The infection was treated with sulfanilamide and other drugs to determine their effectiveness. Many victims died as a result of these experiments and others suffered serious injury and intense agony.

Spotted Fever (Typhus) Experiments
to investigate the effectiveness of spotted fever and other vaccines. Numerous victims were deliberately infected with spotted fever virus in order to keep the virus alive – over 90 percent of the victims died as a result.

Experiments with Poison
to investigate the effect of various poisons upon human beings. The poisons were secretly administered to the victims in their food. The victims died as a result of the poison or were killed immediately in order to permit autopsies. In or about September 1944 the victims were shot with poison bullets and suffered torture and death.

The Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of millions of Jews by the Nazi regime during World War 2. In 1933 approximately nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed.

The European Jews were the primary victims of the Holocaust. But Jews were not the only group singled out for persecution by Hitler’s Nazi regime. As many as one-half million Gypsies, at least 250,000 mentally or physically disabled persons, and more than three million Soviet prisoners-of-war also fell victim to Nazi genocide. Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Social Democrats, Communists, partisans, trade unionists, Polish intelligentsia and other undesirables were also victims of the hate and aggression carried out by the Nazis.

The number of children killed during the Holocaust is not fathomable and full statistics for the tragic fate of children who died will never be known. Some estimates range as high as 1.5 million murdered children. This figure includes more than 1.2 million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of institutionalized handicapped children who were murdered under Nazi rule in Germany and occupied Europe.

Holocaust Deaths
Country/Region		Estimate
Germany (1938 Borders)		130,000
Austria		65,000
Belgium & Luxembourg		29,000
Bulgaria		7,000
Czechoslovakia		277,000
France		83,000
Greece		65,000
Hungary & Ukraine		402,000
Italy		8,000
Netherlands		106,000
Norway		760
Poland & USSR		4,565,000
Romania		220,000
Yugoslavia		60,000
TOTAL		6,017,760
Source: Nizkor Project statistics derived from Yad Vashem and Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution.

The world outside Nazi Europe received numerous press reports in the 1930s about the persecution of Jews. By 1942 the governments of the United States and Great Britain had confirmed reports about the Final Solution – Germany’s intent to kill all the Jews of Europe. However, influenced by antisemitism and fear of a massive influx of refugees, neither country modified their refugee politics. No specific attempts to stop or slow the genocide were made until mounting pressure eventually forced the United States to undertake limited rescue efforts in 1944.

In Europe, rampant antisemitism incited citizens of many German-occupied countries to collaborate with the Nazis in their genocidal policies. There were, however, individuals and groups in every occupied nation who, at great personal risk, helped hide those targeted by the Nazis.

One nation, Denmark, saved most of its Jews in a nighttime rescue operation in 1943 in which Jews were ferried in fishing boats to safety in neutral Sweden.

The Holocaust Websites – Crimes, Heroes And Villains
www.auschwitz.dk
www.izieu.com
www.oskarschindler.com
www.deathcamps.info
www.auschwitz.dk
www.oskarschindler.info/
www.fatherkolbe.com
www.canaris.dk/
www.mengele.dk/
www.shoah.dk
www.annefrank.dk

were established 1996 to promote education about the history of the Holocaust and assist visitors in developing understanding of the ramifications of prejudice and racism. The resources include essays, poems, eyewitness testimonies, photographs, documents, films, literature, timelines, links.

Result of a medical experiment on a prisoner. Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany, date uncertain.Photograph
A victim of Nazi medical experiments. Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany, date uncertain.Photograph
A victim of a Nazi medical experiment is immersed in icy water at the Dachau concentration camp. SS doctor Sigmund Rascher oversees the experiment. Germany, 1942.Photograph
A prisoner in a compression chamber loses consciousness (and later dies) during an experiment to determine altitudes at which aircraft crews could survive without oxygen. Dachau, Germany, 1942.Photograph
A Romani (Gypsy) victim of Nazi medical experiments to make seawater potable. Dachau concentration camp, Germany, 1944.Photograph
A Romani (Gypsy) victim of Nazi medical experiments to make seawater potable. Dachau concentration camp, Germany, 1944.Photograph
A Soviet prisoner of war, victim of a tuberculosis medical experiment at Neuengamme concentration camp. Germany, late 1944.Photograph
A Jewish child is forced to show the scar left after SS physicians removed his lymph nodes. This child was one of 20 Jewish children injected with tuberculosis germs as part of a medical experiment. All were murdered on April 20, 1945. Neuengamme concentration camp, Germany, between December 1944 and February 1945.Photograph
Seven-year-old Jacqueline Morgenstern, later a victim of tuberculosis medical experiments at the Neuengamme concentration camp. She was murdered just before the liberation of the camp. Paris, France, 1940.Photograph
A war crimes investigation photo of the disfigured leg of a survivor from Ravensbrueck, Polish political prisoner Helena Hegier (Rafalska), who was subjected to medical experiments in 1942. This photograph was entered as evidence for the prosecution at the Medical Trial in Nuremberg. The disfiguring scars resulted from incisions made by medical personnel that were purposely infected with bacteria, dirt, and slivers of glass.Photograph
Victims of Dr. Josef Mengele’s medical experiments at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Poland, 1944.Photograph
Eduard, Elisabeth, and Alexander Hornemann. The boys, victims of tuberculosis medical experiments at Neuengamme concentration camp, were murdered shortly before liberation. Elisabeth died of typhus in Auschwitz. The Netherlands, prewar.Photograph
Soviet soldiers inspect a box containing poison used in medical experiments. Auschwitz, Poland, after January 27, 1945.Photograph
United Nations personnel vaccinate an 11-year-old concentration camp survivor who was a victim of medical experiments at the Auschwitz camp. Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp, Germany, May 1946.Photograph
Four Polish women arrive at the Nuremberg train station to serve as prosecution witnesses at the Doctors Trial. From left to right are Jadwiga Dzido, Maria Broel-Plater, Maria Kusmierczuk, and Wladislawa Karolewska. December 15, 1946.Photograph
Josef Mengele, German physician and SS captain. In 1943, he was named SS garrison physician (Standortartz) of Auschwitz. In that capacity, he was responsible for the differentiation and selection of those fit to work and those destined for gassing. Mengele also carried out human experiments on camp inmates, especially twins. Place and date uncertain.Photograph
Nazi physician Carl Clauberg, who performed medical experiments on prisoners in Block 10 of the Auschwitz camp. Place and date uncertain.Photograph
Friedrich Hoffman, holding a stack of death records, testifies about the murder of 324 Catholic priests who were exposed to malaria during Nazi medical experiments at Dachau concentration camp. Dachau, Germany, November 22, 1945.Photograph
Wladislava Karolewska, a victim of medical experiments at the Ravensbrueck camp, was one of four Polish women who appeared as prosecution witnesses at the Doctors Trial. Nuremberg, Germany, December 22, 1946.Photograph
Concentration camp survivor Jadwiga Dzido shows her scarred leg to the Nuremberg court, while an expert medical witness explains the nature of the procedures inflicted on her in the Ravensbrück concentration camp on November 22, 1942. The experiments, including injections of highly potent bacteria, were performed by defendants Herta Oberheuser and Fritz Ernst Fischer. December 20, 1946.Photograph
Waldemar Hoven, head SS doctor at the Buchenwald concentration camp, during his trial before an American military tribunal. Hoven conducted medical experiments on prisoners. Nuremberg, Germany, June 23, 1947.Photograph
Herta Oberhauser, who was a physician at the Ravenbrueck concentration camp, is sentenced at the Doctors Trial in Nuremberg. Oberhauser was found guilty of performing medical experiments on camp inmates and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Nuremberg, Germany, August 20, 1947.Photograph
Victor Brack, one of the Nazi doctors on trial for having conducted medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners. Nuremberg, Germany, August 1947.Photograph