Preview

Medical Experiments in Holocaust Essay Example

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
419 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Medical Experiments in Holocaust Essay Example
The medical experiments in the concentration camps during the holocaust were very grotesque. Many horrendous things happened to the prisoners in the camps but some of the worst things happened during medical experiments.
Throughout all the camps, medical experiments were performed on the unlucky souls in the camps. They were not only performed on the Jewish but on all the different kinds of people that were at their. Some of the experiments included submerging People in ice cold water for hours on end to test out new kinds of suits. People were also deprived of oxygen, sterilized, and had patches of their skin burned, or were given an injection and immediately killed so their heart could be removed and dissected. Some people were even sent away to anatomy hospitals.
One of the most desired places to be by doctors was “Block 10”. Block 10 was a medical block in Auschwitz; for many people in Auschwitz it meant the difference between life and death. There were both advantages and disadvantages to being there for both the doctors and the prisoners. For a doctor it was seen as a chance to do any experiments they had ever thought possible. For prisoners, if they were lucky enough, it was a chance to live. The doctors got to decide which people should be killed through a selection process, so for the prisoners it was truly a game of duck duck goose. A person could be killed for having as little as a tiny scar, or because of a defect, or anything at all. The doctors of Block 10 are among the most remembered. The two doctors that stand out most are Josef Mengele and Ernst B. Josef was one of the cruelest doctors who killed many people. Mr. Mengele was said to be seen at selections night and day. In some cases he was even seen taking children to the gas chambers by playing a game with them. On the other hand Ernst was undoubtly different. So different in fact, some prisoners even refused to identify him for the authorities. He wasn’t one to partake in the selections.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Over the years, it has been said that science could not progress without testing. It has been debated that in the name of progress and the improvement of human living conditions, the ends justify the means. However, when that line begins to blur and Doctors forget the reasons behind their actions we result in some of the the worst medical experiments. The Nazi Party, in power from 1933 to 1945, when he was doomed to extinction after the Allied victory in World War II, it has passed into history as responsible for some of the worst atrocities of which man is capable of.…

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mengele performed horrific experiments on his victims, studying the effects of drugs and poisons on the twins, using one as the human guinea pig, the other as the controlled.…

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “At Auschwitz, with full licences to maim or kill his subjects, Mengele performed a broad range of agonizing and often lethal experiments with Jewish and Roma twins, most of them children.”(www.Silive.com) He was not only certified to kill but was creative with how he wanted to kill his victims.“ To investigate the effect of various poisons upon human beings. The poisons were administered to the victims in their food. The victims died as a result of the poison or were killed immediately in order to perform autopsies.”(Mengele.dk) He was obsessed with twins and wanted to know the secrets to them inside and out. “Of all the 3,000 people involved in Mengele's experiments at Auschwitz only about 200 remain alive.” (www.Moreorless.net.au) Most of the twins died, but some survived and shared their stories about being a Mengele twin and what is was like to be one of his experiments. Dr. Mengele involved himself in a horrific thing and did horrible things to many…

    • 693 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Nazis during their holocaust of the Jews, the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II., medically experimented with their captives. They experimented in various ways, including how to combat hypothermia. These experiments left massive amounts of dead test subjects. All of these atrocities committed in the name of preserving the Aryan race and the Third Reich.…

    • 1424 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first prisoners were German and Polish prisoners that were sent for the use of physical labor for advancing the camp’s barrier. Other than labor, prisoners were also sent to Auschwitz I to be eliminated. This is when certain groups of people were murdered by either being cremated in the crematorium or gassed in the gas chambers. Both of these dreadful acts of murder were cruel and inhumane. Auschwitz I was also a camp where many scientist and doctors performed a variety of experiments on living slaves. One doctor that is well known for his cruel and inhumane experiments was Dr. Josef Mengle. He had a huge fascination for experimenting on…

    • 12337 Words
    • 50 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Nazis had many motivations for performing medical experiments on various groups of people during the Holocaust. Such motivations included collecting data in order to aid the German army, finding effective methods of treatment for diseases in a purely scientific attempt, and discovering techniques to bolster the Nazi racist beliefs. Additionally, the Nazis executed such experiments to determine the most productive strategy in mass elimination.…

    • 1826 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Dr. Josef Mengele was a horrible person. He was on of the host feared Nazi doctors. His parents didn’t love him and they were never really there for him. People that grow up like that usually see the world differently. The people that were sent to Auschwitz and were experimented on by Mengele experienced the worst of humanity. He took this horrific situation and made it worse - if that was even possible. The level of his brutality was so extreme, that we should study what he did, so it will never happen…

    • 1504 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The camp underwent a full reconstruction. Women were forced to use their hairbrushes and toothbrushes to clean the streets (Esbrook 5). Buildings were repaired and repainted. Flower beds were reconstructed to create a false facade. Playgrounds were designed for the children to play on, but were used only when the inspectors came. In addition, a Council of Elders was established to create the idea that the prisoners had their own form of government (Intrator 515). In reality, the Council help no power. The camp also created a “system of commerce”, which was actually meaningless money that was never used. The project was a fool tactic designed to impress the Red Cross and mask the barbarity beneath the surface (Esbrook…

    • 1019 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The doctors would do many cruel and unusual experiments.First, they would do freezing water experiments.They would submerge the prisoners inside the freezing water and depending on the situation they would force them to get naked as well.They did this because they wanted to find a cure for hypothermia.This would lead to many deaths and sometimes permanently damage the prisoners bodies.Another thing they would do is high altitude.They did this because they wanted to know what the German pilots experienced and they also wanted to find out the best way to save German pilots.The…

    • 542 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dr. Mengele was the Chief Physician at Auschwitz. He was known for preforming gruesome, inhumane experiments. He had a strange fascination with Heterochromia, or having two different colored eyes, and was trying to understand the secret of artificially changing eye color. His victims were twins, usually children. He was legally allowed to maim and kill them in order to obtain information therefore he collected their eyes and kept them as “research material”. His experiments were extremely painful and usually killed the patient. This is a perfect example of the horrible things that went on at the concentrations camps. No normal human could do something so evil, yet Dr. Mengele was so dehumanized he could do it with…

    • 425 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Affected by the Holocaust

    • 3008 Words
    • 7 Pages

    “I thought that the whole world was a concentration camp. And I concentrated on one single thing. How to survive one more day. How to survive one more experiment. How not to get sick” - Eva Kol, Auschwitz concentration camp survivor, Forgiving Dr. Mengele…

    • 3008 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Propaganda In The Holocaust

    • 2470 Words
    • 10 Pages

    It is difficult to talk about the Holocaust in Poland without speaking of this camp in some further detail. Many people refer to all Nazi camps as concentration camps, but in reality, there were several types of camps, such as: concentration camps, extermination camps, labor camps, prisoner of war camps etc. Auschwitz is actually a series of three separate camps, the first built as a detention center for political prisoners. The camp “evolved into a network of camps where Jewish people and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state were exterminated, often in gas chambers, or used as slave labor.” Upon arriving at the camp, the prisoners were examined by Nazi doctors. If a person was judged to be unfit for work, including children, elderly and the sick, they were taken directly to the showers and told they needed to be disinfected from lice, but in reality they were sent to be killed in the gas…

    • 2470 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Doctors In The Holocaust

    • 1795 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The Holocaust was one of the most inhumane genocides in history. Millions were killed in concentration camps by gas chambers and crematoria; others died in combat trying to fight the Nazi regime. But there were some who died more horrid deaths at the hands of Nazi doctors in the camps. These doctors would perform experiments meant to mutilate and cause intense pain for the victims. Many of the Nazi physicians were captured, while others fled before the liberation of camps began.…

    • 1795 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Three prime examples of this touring would be the music, experiments and the lack of water. The SS officers would make inmates sing while they marched. Some camps had orchestras which were often comprised of inmates themselves. The inmates were often beaten if they weren't synchronized or if they were off beat. Another example of the torture caused by SS officers were the experiments performed on prisoners. Some of these experiments included being submerged in ice water to see the effects of hypothermia. Some inmates were made to drink nothing but seawater just to see what would happen. Another experiment was being injected with chemicals to test their effectiveness. Other experiments that took place were sterilized, vivisected, and being operated on without anesthetic. The last instrument of terror used by the SS was denying the inmates water to drink. Many inmates suffered from dehydration that they licked the floors after mopping them just to get to drink a small amount of water to…

    • 526 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Nazi doctors engaged in a gruesome act against humanity. Any instinctual human being in a grisly situation, like the Holocaust, would find a way to survive. They constructed their own reality through the use of “doubling”, which is known as compartmentalizing different types of realities. There was a separation of themselves into two types of the same person: one to be able to help extinguish the “Jewish Problem” and the other to be a loving member of their family. This would justify their horrid acts since they felt like they had no control of their situation. The root of their commencement of killings is that they, to some degree, believe that the Jewish population needed to be uprooted because they were supposedly evil. Orders given were…

    • 183 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays