Some of the physicians at Auschwitz conducted diverse pseudo-medical experiments on male and female prisoners. Among them was Prof. Carl Clauberg, who worked on a method for the mass sterilisation of female prisoners. Under the pretence of carrying out a gynaecological test, he introduced a chemical into their genital tracts. This chemical caused inflammation and after a few weeks the fusion and effective obstruction of the women’s fallopian tubes. Other effects of these experiments carried out on his victims, Jewish female prisoners, included fever, peritonitis and profuse bleeding of the genital tracts. As a result some of them died, while others were deliberately killed in order to conduct post-mortem examinations.

MITIE HARPMAN

A Dutch Jewish woman born in Amsterdam in 1902. Subjected to medical experiments conducted in Block 10 of the Auschwitz Main Camp. In February 1945 gave a testimony before a Soviet Tribunal on the site of the former Auschwitz concentration camp.

Sterilisation experiments on groups of Jewish male and female prisoners were also conducted by the medical doctor Horst Schumann. Using two Roentgen cameras he beamed x-rays onto men’s testicles and women’s ovaries to try and determine the optimum dosage of radiation required to cause total infertility. Consequences of this irradiation included severe burns, radiation dermatitis and hard to heal purulent lesions. After a few weeks some of the male and female prisoners were surgically castrated for the purpose of subjecting their organs to laboratory tests and obtaining comparative histological material. Other prisoners, however, as a result of selections in the camp, were sent to the gas chamber.

Another physician, Dr Josef Mengele, conducted anthropological research into various racial groups, especially the Roma, as well as the phenomenon of twins and the physiology and pathology of dwarfism (hereditary traits in twins and dwarfs). The Jewish and Roma twins as well as people with other congenital anomalies at his disposal were subjected to medical scrutiny, including anthropometric, morphological, dental and surgical examinations. Next they were photographed, plaster casts were made of their jaws and prints were also taken of their fingertips and toes. Once these tests were completed, those examined were killed with an injection of phenol into the heart, so that autopsies and comparative examinations of the internal organs could also be carried out. Mengele was also interested in people who had different coloured irises (heterochromia). He put various types of chemicals on their eyes, which caused numerous complications, including blindness. Moreover, Mengele studied the causes and possible treatment of noma faciei (gangrenous stomatitis or water cancer), a disease that affected the Roma in the so-called Gypsy camp. The sufferers, a large proportion of whom were children, for a while received pharmacological treatment and were given a special diet. Then on Mengele’s instructions selected children were killed and their bodies (or body parts) were next sent to the SS Institute of Hygiene in Rajsko for histopathological tests.

OTTO KLEIN

Born on 7 June 1932. On 27 June 1944 deported to Auschwitz, where registered as inmate number A-5332. On the railway ramp selected together with his twin brother for experiments by Dr Josef Mengele. Liberated from Auschwitz on 27 January 1945.

Research into changes in the human body resulting from starvation as well as brown urine liver failure was conducted by the University of Münster professor of anatomy Dr Johann Paul Kremer. For this purpose extremely emaciated prisoners in the camp hospital, personally selected by Kremer, were killed with injections straight into the heart and their bodies were used as research ‘material’. Shortly after their death, samples were taken from the liver, pancreas and spleen and secured as specimens. Dr Eduard Wirths, in turn, undertook research into cervical cancer. Especially selected for him was a group of female Jewish prisoners whose vaginal part of the uterus was examined for precancerous conditions. If the disease was suspected or identified, the cervix was amputated and sent to a histological laboratory in Hamburg.

In 1944 Emil Kaschub, a Wehrmacht physician, was directed to Auschwitz to study methods of scrimshanking (pretending to be ill) practiced by German soldiers. This was especially a problem on the Eastern Front, where there were cases of self-inflicted wounds, sores or induced fevers. In his research Kaschub injected or rubbed into the skin of prisoners all sorts of toxic substances. He also gave them oral medications to induce the same symptoms as were reported by German soldiers. His victims were dozens of Jews, in whom he induced inflammations, purulent lesions and hard to heal ulcers, leading to tissue necrosis. As a result of selections in the camp, some of these prisoners were later sent to the gas chamber.

TOMASZ BARDIJ

Hungarian Jew, born in Budapest in 1923. Testimonies given in February 1945 before the Soviet Commission at the site of the liberated camp. Tomasz Bardij was a victim of experiments carried out by the Wehrmacht physician Emil Kaschub.

In the years 1941–44 SS physicians Friedrich Entress, Helmuth Vetter, Eduard Wirths, and to a lesser extent Fritz Klein, Werner Rhode, Hans Wilhelm König, Bruno Weber as well as Victor Capesius (pharmacist and head of camp’s pharmacy) tested the effectiveness of new drugs and medicines given in various forms and in various doses to prisoners suffering from infectious diseases. In many cases the prisoners were deliberately infected for the purpose of these experiments. Consequences of these experiments frequently included vomiting blood, bloody diarrhoea and circulatory disorders. When some of these prisoners died, autopsies were carried out to determine whether the applied drugs caused any changes in the internal organs.