Medical Experimentation During the Holocaust

1431 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Medical experiments done on Jews during the Holocaust

Imagine being forced outside naked in the bitter cold conditions, forced to stay outside until your arms, when struck with a stick, emitted a sound resembling the sound that a board would when struck {NY Times: Japan}. Then imagine having boiling water forced into your internal organs, in an attempt to warm you, but the boiling heat of the water instead kills you. This is just one of the horrible “medical” experiments that was performed in the Holocaust. But the thing that most people don’t know is around the same time that this horror was occurring, the American government and Japan were performing just as gruesome and horrid experiments on others. The Holocaust, the most famous of the three that I am comparing, was a tragedy and the number of deaths is just horrid to think about. When you think about medical experiments during this heinous time period, a name stands out. Josef Mengele. The name even sends shivers through me. If you do not know who he is, you are lucky. He, by himself, performed the most horrendous "experiments" on the helpless people that were his victims. These gruesome experiments fall into three categories: Military Research, Pharmaceutical Research, and Racially Motivated Research. Military research were what the Nazi doctors considered a “military necessity”. These inhumane acts included of freezing experiments where the defenseless prisoners were submerged into tanks of ice water for hours everyday and watched as they shivered to death, in order to discover how long German pilots that were shot down could survive the frigid waters of the North Sea. Another experiment was the high altitude experiments, where the victims were placed into a decompression chamber to simulate conditions of high altitudes, then... ... middle of paper ... ...008. Web. 13 Feb. 2014. . Kristof, Nicholas D. "Unmasking Horror -- A special report.; Japan Confronting Gruesome War Atrocity." Unmasking Horror: n. pag. The New York Times. Web. 13 Feb. 2014. unmasking-horror-a-special-report-japan-confronting-gruesome-war-atrocity.html?src=pm&pagewanted=1>. Cohen, Baruch C. "Nazi Medical Experimentation: The Ethics Of Using Medical Data From Nazi Experiments." Nazi Medical Experimentation: n. pag. Jewish Virtual Library. Web. 13 Feb. 2014. . "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment | Infoplease.com." Infoplease. © 2000–2013 Pearson Education, publishing as Infoplease. 14 Feb. 2014 .

Show More
Related

  • Auschwitz A Doctor's Eyewitness Summary

    598 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account, to say that Auschwitz is an interesting read would be a gross understatement. Auschwitz is a historical document, a memoir but, most importantly an insider’s tale of the horrors that the captives of one of the most dreadful concentration camps in the history of mankind. Auschwitz, is about a Jewish doctors, Dr. Nyiszli, experience as an assistant for a Nazi, Dr. Mengele. Dr. Nyiszli arrived at Auschwitz concentration camp with his family unsure if he would survive the horrific camp. This memoir chronicles the Auschwitz experience, and the German retreat, ending a year later in Melk, Austria when the Germans surrendered their position there and Nyiszli obtained his freedom. The author describes in almost clinical detail and with alternating detachment and despair what transpired in the

    Read More

  • Saburo Ienaga's Impacts Of The War In The Pacific War

    1437 Words  | 3 Pages

    Thousands of individuals, including women and children, were murdered, stores and other properties were plundered and burned, and countless of women were raped . The Japanese government regarded sex as a way to keep the soldiers obedient and focused so rape was a device used to maintain good, Japanese warriors . Not only did human experimentation occur in German concentration camps, but also in Japanese prison camps. The 731 Unit conducted experiments dealing with plague, cholera, typhoid, frostbite, and gas gangrene . American prisoners of war were treated especially cruel during these human experiments. In one incident, an individual had his skull sliced open while Dr. Fukujiro placed a surgical knife inside of his skull cavity

    Read More

  • The Horrors of Killing Centers During the Holocaust

    813 Words  | 2 Pages

    "Medical Experiments ." 10 June 2013. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum . 18 March 2014 .

    Read More

  • Holocaust Experimentation and Concentration Campa

    1365 Words  | 3 Pages

    the decade. The horrible experiments performed during the Holocaust were terrible they did serve a purpose.The freedom that the doctors had to explore the amazing human body resulted in information that still might be unknown to modern science.

    Read More

  • Nazi Medical Trials: the “Good,” the Bad, and the Ugly

    548 Words  | 2 Pages

    As the human species develops, medicine follows suit. Researchers look down medicinal avenues which promise a better life-- a longer life. However, red and blue paint cannot engender purple paint without proper mixing. Thus, health sciences cannot expand without thorough experimentation. The Nazis exemplified this concept of “thorough experimentation” with their cruel and inhumane medical experiments. The trials varied in nature and reason. Some of the “experiments had legitimate scientific purposes, though the methods that were used violated the canons of medical ethics. Others were racial in nature, designed to advance Nazi racial theories. [However,] Most were simply bad science.” (jewishvirtuallibrary.org). The medical experiments performed by the Nazis were vast and highly divergent, but they can generally be divided into three categories: racial experimentation, war-injury experimentation, and pharmaceutical testing.

    Read More

  • Medical Knowledge Gained from the Holocaust

    763 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the Holocaust, the Nazis carried out many unethical medical experiments on patients without regard for their survival. Prisoners were forced to be subjects in various studies against their will. The Nazis’ victims went through indescribable pain as they were forced through high-altitude, freezing, tuberculosis, sea water, sulfanilamide, poison, and transplant experiments. Through these tragic Holocaust experiments, scientists and doctors discovered treatments used today for high-altitude sickness, hypothermia, contagious diseases, dehydration, poisoning, and war wounds.

    Read More

  • Euthanasia Programs of Nazi Germany

    1648 Words  | 4 Pages

    "Nazi Medical Experimentation: The Ethics Of Using Medical Data From Nazi Experiments." The Ethics Of Using Medical Data From Nazi Experiments. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2013.

    Read More

  • The Nazi Euthanasia Program

    1344 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1945 200,000 people were murdered. All of them were children and disabled. The kids that needed help were killed in the Euthanasia Program to save resources. The Euthanasia program was a program designed for the killing of the disabled and started with infants and children. The Euthanasia program was designed by a few people and these people decided how the disabled were selected and killed through the program. They started the program for a specific reason, to make their race superior and pure, this made the life of the discriminated very difficult, with a lot of restrictions on their rights. With all this going many people had different viewpoints on whether the program was right or not and could not find a way to

    Read More

  • Inhumane Trials Of The Salem Witch Trials

    1791 Words  | 4 Pages

    Most of the people involved in the horrible torture devices were killed because no human could stand these horrible tests (History.com).

    Read More

  • The Causes And Effects Of The Holocaust Experiments

    1043 Words  | 3 Pages

    Doctors of the Concentration Camps also experimented on birth effects. They meant to radiate and sterilize young men and study the changes in the reproduction organs. Women had substances unwillingly implanted their cervix or uterus which caused pain, bleeding, and spasms. Women were forced into artificial insemination. The subjects were told that they have monsters in their wombs and were cross bred from animals. This was probably the worse of the experiments.

    Read More

  • Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account Summary

    2059 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Holocaust Death Camp Inhumanity

    1850 Words  | 4 Pages

    The total after effects of the holocaust death camps were the levels for both mental and physical inhumanity they placed on the prisoners there. The mental inhumanity was so bad that most prisoners thought of suicide and some even committed it. Along with this was the pain and torture the prisoners felt from the physical inhumanity which resulted in deaths of over 50% of the inmates who stayed there. The total effect of both of the camps is shown throughout inhumanity brought about in there. The fact that inhumanity was able to cause the deaths of just about 6,000,000 people shows how easy it is for it to hurt other humans. The question remains…

    Read More

  • What Really Happened in the Concentration Camps

    1056 Words  | 3 Pages

    While being in Concentration Camps, Jews had no control over anything. Some Jewish inmates were selected to do various experiments. They did not volunteer for these experiments. They were chosen. They had to participate in the experiment or they would be killed. In addition, if they were picked, most experiments resulted in death or a permanent disability and not many survived. The Jews also had no idea what they were in for as the experiments were for the Nazi doctors who wanted to learn how they could help better their army and learn about illness and injury treatment through these often gross and volger experiments. The Nazi’s condiucted over 30 different experiments. There were only 7,000 Jewish victims documented that were killed, but there were many more people that died from these experiments. One of the worst and most known experiments were the twin experiments. Of the 1,000 pairs of twins that were experimented on in these concentration camps, only about 200 survived. Forty years later, only a few twins that were experimented on could be found in the United States.

    Read More

  • Nazi Human Experiments

    1346 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Nazis performed some of the most horrific experiments of anyone. The Auschwitz under the direction of Dr. Eduard wirths had inmates selected to certain experiments which were designed to help the Germans. The Nazis performed an experiment on twins in the camp to see if the eugenics and genetics affected their mood and or their attitude. The leader of this experiment was Dr. Josef Mengele, he has performed over 1,500 of these experiments on imprisoned twins, but there are some ups and downs about the experiment because there have only been fewer than 200 twins survived the study. The Luftwaffe conducted an experiment on how to treat hypothermia in the early 1940s. The way they conducted the experiment was they would fill a tank full of ice and water; they put the victim in it for up to three hours. During July 1942 to September 1943, some experiments would have pretty bad wounds on the subjects there would be victims infected with such as streptococcus, gas gangrene, and tetanus. The Nazis are a group that didn’t care about anyone but themselves,

    Read More

  • Clinical trials

    652 Words  | 2 Pages

    In December 1946, the War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg indicted 20 Nazi physicians and 3 administrators for their willing participation in carrying out the harmful research on unwilling human subjects. Thus, Nuremberg code was the first international code for the ethics to be followed during human subject research. It was permissible medical experiments implemented in August 1947. The code also provides few directives for clinical trials (3). Syphilis study at Tuskegee in 1974 was the most influential event that led to the HHS Policy for Protecti...

    Read More

More about Medical Experimentation During the Holocaust

Open Document