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INTRODUCTION

MEDICAL CRIMES AT KL AUSCHWITZ

MEDICAL CRIMES AT KL AUSCHWITZ

INTRODUCTION

The crimes committed in Auschwitz Concentration Camp hold an exceptional place in the vast literature on the Second World War. Even though the German Nazis created many concentration camps, the scale and variety of ways for depriving inmates of life and health remains the most extensive in Auschwitz, while the progress of academic research brings ever new details supporting the opinions of the survivors about the intentional endeavours of the camp’s command. 


This is also the case with the medical experiments conducted in concentration camps, a subject present both in the memories of the survivors of the Shoah, and also in the few preserved camp documents. Most information on pseudo-medical experiments conducted by SS physicians at KL Auschwitz can be found in numerous works by Irena Strzelecka, and also by Stanisław Kłodziński and Władysław Fejkiel, published in “Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim”.

The available literature on the subject draws attention to the three main areas of experimentation:

The first area was connected to the German army’s urgent need for the treatment of wounded soldiers, that is provision of pharmacological products and more efficient treatment of the wounded during the hostilities. Moreover, as cases of self-mutilation were discovered among the soldiers commanded to the front, other experiments were conducted to help to determine the wounds that Wehrmacht soldiers could self-inflict to avoid service on the front.

Other areas concerned the strategic plans of the German Reich that assumed territorial conquest of Eastern Europe and settling it with German colonists parallel to the mass sterilisation of the nations inhabiting the area.

Yet other areas served supporting the Nazi ideology preaching supremacy of the Nordic race over other Europeans. 

German physicians embarking on the experiments were mostly driven by personal ambitions of attaining spectacular success in their academic career in the shortest time, by taking up issues medical units were reluctant to research for ethical reasons and concerns. In the preparation to launching the “research” and its continuation, they had full approval and support of top German officials, including SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, Reich Physician for the SS and Police Ernst Grawitz, and Wolfram Sievers Secretary General of Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage) Association and the head of the Waffen SS Institute for Military Scientific Research. The analytical research for experimentation was provided by the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen SS under Joachim Mrugowski, medical doctor, and professor of bacteriology at the Medical Department of the University of Berlin. 


The SS Main Economic and Administrative Office in Berlin, to which concentration camps reported from March 1942, supported financially the experiments.

Heinrich Himmler’s instruction on conducting medical experiments in concentration camps:

I hereby instruct with immediate effect that without exception medical experiments to be conducted in concentration camps require my personal permission. All the SS and police units, that consider conducting medical tests in concentration camps necessary, should submit an appropriate application to the head physician of the SS and police. The application should cover the scope and type of proposed experiments, number of inmates required for the study, and the envisaged duration of the experiment.


The head physician of the SS and police will present those applications to me with a critical and expert opinion of top clinical specialists and the opinion of SS-Gruppenführer Glucks.

Source: Stanisław Sterkowicz, Zbrodnicze eksperymenty medyczne w obozach koncentracyjnych Trzeciej Rzeszy, Warsaw 1981, p. 264. 

Portrait of a man in round glasses, a military uniform and a cap. On the Totenkopf cap: skull and crossbones. Smiling, relaxed. In the background a silhouette of another person, a forest.

Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (futher: USHMM), no 60469

Heinrich Himmler.


Two middle-aged men sitting at a table. They are talking and smiling. They are dressed in uniforms. Plates and numerous glasses on the table. In the background there is a wall, curtains and wood paneling.

Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 121-1329

Ernst Grawitz (on the right), chief medical officer of police and SS 



Middle-aged man. Eyes fixed on the lens. Head slightly raised. Combed back hair. Beard and mustache elongated and curled to the sides. Dressed in a velvet jacket fastened to the neck.

Source: USHMM, no 07320

Wolfram Sievers.


Portrait of a middle-aged man in uniform. Hair combed back. Looking straight ahead beyond the camera lens. Serious, focused face.

Source: USHMM, no 07337

Joachim Mrugowsky.


The victims of the experimentation, inmates of Auschwitz, many of them of Jewish origin, came from various locations all around Europe occupied by Germans. Children were also experimented on. In working with them, German physicians recognised no principles proper for medical practice. As a rule, they violated the most elementary principles of humanitarianism, and medical ethics and deontology. That is why the experiments conducted on inmates should be considered a crime perpetrated by physicians following the Nazi ideology.