Holocaust Unit Project

By: Katrina Raskie, Becca Wittek, and Jeff Schlichte

Why did Nazis Perform Experiments?

Who Performed the Experiments?

• SS Officers that were trained medical practitioners

• Dr. Mengele was a well-known physician at Auschwitz

About Dr. Mengele• Born on March 16th, 1911 in

Ginsburg, Germany• Studied Philosophy and Medicine

at the University of Frankfurt • 1938- Enlisted in the S.S.• 1943- Heinrich Himmler appoints

Mengele as the head doctor at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Dr. Josef Mengele• Known as the “Angel of Death”• Supervised selection of who was to

be killed and who would be kept alive for experimentation

• Most people died because of experiments or later infections

• At times he killed people just to be able to dissect them afterwards

Dr. Mengele Cont.Common Experiments:• Injecting victims eyes with chemicals

in attempt to change the color• Injecting chloroform into their hearts• Tests on diseases (Tuberculosis,

Typhoid) to find out how humans of different races withstood them

More Experiments• Investigated ways to increase

human fertility• Tried to find a genetic cause for

the disease “noma”• Experimented with infected

wounds

Twin Experimentation• 1,500 sets of twins collected at Birkenau

to develop a theory of heredity and relation between disease, racial types, and racial inter-breeding

• He wanted to discover the genetic key to creating an “Aryan”

• One twin was a control and the other one was experimented on

Twins Cont.• They were called

“Mengele’s Children”• Wanted to find a way

so that all Aryan women could assuredly give birth to twins who were sure to be blonde and blue-eyed

Life of the Twins• Mengele would often bring candy

and talk with them• They would get to keep their hair

and clothes• Called him “Uncle Mengele”• Spared hard jobs and labor so they

would stay healthy for experimentation

Life of Twins Cont.• Twins had blood drawn everyday • Blood transfusions of blood from 1

twin to another• Tried to fabricate blue eyes with

chemicals• Injected Typhus and Tuberculosis• After one twin dies, the other was

killed to examine and compare

Life of Twins Cont.• Performed surgeries without

anesthesia including organ removal, castration, and amputations

• Autopsies were considered the final experiment

Sterilization• Conducted at Auschwitz and Ravensbruck

by Dr. Carl Clamber.• Tried to develop a method of sterilization

for mass amounts of people with little time or effort.

• Some were injected with solutions of iodine and silver nitrate. (Caused side effects including various types of cancers.) Other methods included castration, injections, or invasive surgeries with no anesthesia.

Sterilization (cont.)• Radiation became the fastest, most

effective way to sterilize.• People were brought into rooms and asked

to fill out forms which only took a few minutes. In this time, the people were sterilized. Severe radiation burns occurred.

• They did this to develop and • efficient way to keep the • non-Aryan race from• reproducing.

High Altitudes/Air Pressure• At Dachau in 1942, doctors from

the German Air Force and the German Experimental Institution tested patients responses to high altitudes to gain knowledge of the effects the German pilots could have because of ejecting themselves from planes at high altitudes.

• Air pressure chambers simulated altitudes of 66,000 feet.

Treatment of Disease• At Dachau and

Buchenwald, physicians injected subjects with a series of diseases such as malaria, typhus, TB, typhoid, and hepatitis and then tried to cure them.•They were all diseases

that German military personnel could have encountered in their work or on the battlefield.•Almost all of the subjects tested died from the contagious diseases injected into their bodies.

Freezing Experiments• Tried to simulate the

conditions the military was facing on the eastern front

• Dr. Sigmund Rasher conducted the experiments at Birkenau, Dachau, and Auschwitz

• Put the victims in ice baths, or put them outside naked in sub zero temperatures

Freezing Cont. • First, they measured how long it

took to freeze the victims to death• Second, they tested ways of

resuscitating the victims• These included extremely hot sun

lamps, injecting boiling water into their organs, and giving them warm baths

Testing of Drugs• Infected victims with malaria, then

tested multiple drugs to find an immunization or treatment

• Most patients died either from the disease or from complications from the drugs

• Sulfonamide was tested as a cure for tetanus

• Tested at Dachau Concentration Camp

Transplantation• Tested at Ravensbruck

concentration camp• Experiments done of

the transplantation of nerves, bones, and muscle

• No anesthesia was used• Also experimented with

nerve, bone, and muscle regeneration