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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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320 |
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| AUSCHWITZ: THE RACIAL CURE |
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| Handlungen] in this manner, it would have been
almost unbearable for them.” He was being a bit ambiguous about whether he
actually saw himself as having performed “criminal acts” or as merely
being exposed to them or to the potential for performing them. But it is of
some significance that it was in relation to a parent-centered conscience that
he came closest to associating his own behavior with the idea of criminality.
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| SS Colleagues |
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A remarkable aspect of Dr. B.’s adaptation was that
his closeness to prisoner doctors did not seem to interfere with his
integration with SS colleagues. He tended to defend their behavior and to
minimize differences between them and himself, despite glaring evidence to the
contrary.
A case in point was his attitude toward his chief, Bruno
Weber. Most inmates feared Weber, who seemed to them unfeeling a stickler for
regulations and dangerous But Dr. B claimed that Weber had a very “bad
press” with inmates because “he appeared to be cold ... and a ...
good SS physician” but, “in fact, in a practical way he helped more
inmates than I did because of his higher position. The kernel of truth in B
.’s claim is that the beneficent atmosphere of the Hygienic Institute
would have been impossible without a certain amount of “closet
decency” from Weber. But B. needed to go further, to see differences
between himself and Weber as no more than differences in “bedside
manner” (see page 195). He explained that Weber “played this role
… of the stern SS physician” because he was “fearful” of
being caught violating SS rules — and that, because of his “ambition
.… to make a career in the SS.” Whenever I would point out criminal
actions of these other SS doctors - for instance, Weber's participation in
selections and in lethal human experiments - B. would neither deny nor condemn
that behavior but simply attribute it to the Auschwitz atmosphere or
“Auschwitz mentality.” I believe he was trying to tell me that he was
no different from them, that he too was part of that Auschwitz atmosphere and
Auschwitz mentality that he lived and worked as part of their community and in
considerable measure thought like them. His exaggerated claim to sameness was
undoubtedly a measure of his integration into that group as well.
During the interview in which he told me about SS doctors contribution
to technical problems in burning bodies, I asked him whether he himself would
have considered helping with that kind of task and his answer was clearly
affirmative: if a “hygienic catastrophe” could have been avoided, he
would have certainly “as a matter of course contributed [his] knowledge as
with any other problem I also was for me it was also everyday living, you
see.“ He was saying to me again and again: I, too, was one of them.
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THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical Killing and the
Psychology of
Genocide
Robert J. Lifton
ISBN 0-465-09094
©
1986 |
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Page 320 |
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