“’How many logs did you chop today?’ People would answer ‘Two logs were cut at my section’, or ‘No logs were cut at my section’” (Simkin). This conversation was not a discussion on the productivity of a day’s work of cutting wood, no this was far worse. The discussion between these men was about the vivisection of live human subjects. Here was a daily part of the lives of workers and researchers of the Japanese Covert Biological and Chemical Warfare Research Department Unit, or better known as Unit 731, and the atrocities committed by the “Asian Auschwitz”. So what happened to the leaders and men of Unit 731? If they surrendered to the Americans after World War II, then they were granted immunity and allowed to live their lives free without any worry of prosecution for their crimes on humanity. So the question is, was it correct of the United States to grant immunity to human experimenters of Unit 731 and cover-up all knowledge of Unit 731’s existence?
General Shiro Ishii formed Unit 731 in 1940 after Ishii received authorization by Emperor Showa, or better known as Emperor Hirohito, in 1936 to expand Unit Togo, a secret research unit led by Ishii. The location given to Ishii by Hirohito was Harbin, Manchukuo, which is now northeast China. This location was given to Ishii so that he could choose and receive as many test subjects, as he needed. These test subjects were to be taken from neighboring towns and villages, and if the subjects were not cooperative with the Kempeitai, military police, then the subject’s family would be murdered in front of them and then forcibly moved to the research facility. As quoted in the introduction by a former researcher named Yoshio Shinozuka, the test subjects were called logs to dehumanize th...
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...erimentation." reducetheburden.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2011. .
Simkin, Mark . "Foreign Correspondent - 22/04/2003: Japan - Unit 731 ." ABC.net.au. Web. 6 Dec. 2011. .
"The One Who Does Not...." Auschwitz and Birkenau Homesite. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Dec. 2011. .
"Unit 731 ." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2011. .
White, David, and Daniel P. Murphy. "The Doctors' Trial - World War II." Netplaces. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2011. .
Working, Russell. "The Trial of Unit 731." The Japan Times Online. N.p., 1 June 2001. Web. 6 Dec. 2011. .
In Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account, Dr. Miklos Nyiszli tells the story of his time in Auschwitz. Dr. Nyiszli is a Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp located in Poland. His story provides the world with a description of horrors that had taken place in camp in 1944. Separated from his wife and daughter, Dr. Nyiszli volunteered to work under the supervision of the head doctor in the concentration camp, Josef Mengele. It was under Dr. Mengele’s supervision that Dr. Nyiszli was exposed to the extermination of innocent people and other atrocities committed by the SS. Struggling for his own survival, Dr. Nyiszli did anything possible to survive, including serving as a doctor’s assistant to a war criminal so that he could tell the world what happened at the Auschwitz concentration camp.This hope for survival and some luck allowed Dr. Nyiszli to write about his horrific time at Auschwitz.His experiences in Auschwitz will remain apart of history because of the insight he is able to provide.
Martin, Harold. “The Trial of ‘Delay’ Beckwith.” The Saturday Evening Post 237, no. 10, (March 14, 1964):77-81.
United States Atomic Energy Commission. In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: Transcript of the Hearing before Personnel Security Board and Texts of Principal Documents and Letters. Foreword by Philip M. Stern. Cambridge and London: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1970,
Moran, Jeffrey P.. The Scopes Trial: A Brief History with Documents. New York: Palgrave, 2002. Print.
Between 1939 and 1945, more than seventy medical research projects and medical experiments were conducted at Auschwitz and Dachau. (Auschwitz Medical Experimentation). Over two hundred doctors participated in such research projects and experiments, sentencing between 70,000 and 100,000 people, held against their will, to death through experimentation. These were mostly Jews, but also gypsies, homosexuals and other minorities. They were thought to be inferior to the human race. Such practices became widely accepted and embraced by the Germans, due to the Nazis propaganda. The experiments conducted were diverse, but could be categorized in three classes.
Siegel, Scott J., On-line article, In Defense of the German Civilian Population on Charges of Willing Accomplices to Crimes Against Humanity During WW II. Location: http://members.tripod.com/~ssscott/defense.html.
The Third Reich sought the removal of the Jews from Germany and eventually from the world. This removal came in two forms, first through emigration, then through extermination. In David Engel’s The Holocaust: The Third Reich and the Jews, he rationalizes that the annihilation of the Jews by the Germans was a result of how Jews were viewed by the leaders of the Third Reich-- as pathogens that threatened to destroy all humanity. By eliminating the existence of the Jews, the Third Reich believed that it would save the entire world from mortal danger. Through documents such as Franzi Epsteins’s, “Inside Auschwitz-A Memoir,” in The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History by Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, one is able to see the struggle of the Jews from a first-hand account. Also, through Rudolf Hoess’s “Commandant of Auschwitz,” one is able to see the perspective of a commandant in Auschwitz. In Auschwitz: A History, Sybille Steinbacher effectively describes the concentration camp of Auschwitz, while Hermann Langbein’s People in Auschwitz reflects on Rudolf Hoess’s power and control in Auschwitz as commandant. Through these four texts, one is able to see the effects that the Third Reich’s Final Solution had on the Jews and the commandants.
... group of citizens was treated during this time. Unfortunately, this is most likely due to the fact that it exposes the worst of the United States government. This treatment is treated as a blemish in the history of the United States to the United States citizens who learn about it. This is not the case at all for the Japanese-American people who experienced this, as well as the relatives of these people. The management of these people was a cruel and unjust act that was never shown for the harshness that it truly is. In Germany, it was called concentration camps, and it is known around the world as the worst time in history. In the United States, people brush the subject away, not showing any concern. In any other country, the United States would have been horrified, but it happened in our country. Thus, since the country is always right, this cruelty is ignored.
...aft Trials.” The World Book. Volume 17 S – Sn. Pages 61. Chicago: Scott Fetzer Company, 2003.
The Milgram experiment of the 1960s was designed to ascertain why so many Germans decided to support the Nazi cause. It sought to determine if people would be willing to contradict their conscience if they were commanded to do so by someone in authority. This was done with a psychologist commanding a teacher to administer an electric shock to a student each time a question was answered incorrectly. The results of the Milgram experiment help to explain why so many men in Nazi Germany were recruited to support the Nazi cause and serve as a warning against the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques by the United States government.
“The four chief prosecutors of the International Military Tribunal (IMT)—Robert H. Jackson (United States), Francois de Menthon (France), Roman A. Rudenko (Soviet Union), and Sir Hartley Shawcross (Great Britain)—hand down indictments against 24 leading Nazi officials,” (“The Nuremberg Trials”). Alongside the judges stood A prosecutorial staff of over 600 Americans plus additional hundreds from the other three powers assembled and began interviewing potential witnesses and identifying documents from among the 100,000 captured for the prosecution case,” (Doug Linder). This was a time in history that really brought together the great nations and made them what they are
“Corruption” Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State. Community Television of Southern California (KCET). 2004-2005. Web. 24 March 2014
On the first of September, 1939 World War II began. Hitler is in power of Nazi Germany and is wanting to cleanse the German people of racially unsound elements. He enacts a program that will aim to eliminate the so called “lives unworthy of life” called the T4 program (History Place). Over the next six years throughout Germany, many people are experimenting with and euthanized to help Nazi Germany reach a “pure” state. Was this program that was enacted ethical and what has happened since then to stop something like this from happening again? What kind of medical advances and data did we achieve from it and is it ethical today to use what they learned in today’s medical trials?
Gamble, Adam, and Takesato Watanabe. A Public Betrayed: An inside Look at Japanese Media Atrocities and Their Warnings to the West. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Pub., 2004. Print.