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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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162 |
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| AUSCHWITZ: THE RACIAL CURE |
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| From 1943, there were shortages in Zyklon-B because Allied
air raids interfered with production. At times it even became necessary for
camp officials to pick the gas up by truck at the production factory near
Dessau, about 300 miles to the northwest. Höss later (in testimony)
estimated that Auschwitz used a total of 1,900 kilograms of its killing
medicine.38 From the beginning, he consulted
Auschwitz doctors on the effects of the gas: |
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I had always thought that the victims would
experience a terrible choking sensation. But the bodies, without exception,
showed no signs of convulsion. The doctors explained to me that the
prussic acid had a paralyzing effect on the lungs, but its action was so quick
and strong that death came before the convulsions could set in, and in this its
effects differed from those produced by carbon monoxide or by a general oxygen
deficiency.39 [Italics
added] |
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| The explanation falsely implied painless killing. But this
general medical effectiveness was reassuring to Höss, as he no longer had
to experience the horrors of face-to-face killing: “I always shuddered at
the prospect of carrying out exterminations by shooting .... I was therefore
relieved to think that we were to be spared all these blood baths, and that the
victims too would be spared suffering until the last moment came.”40 But his greatest relief — and the most
important personal “therapy” the gas provided him — was its
contribution to the solution of the technical and bureaucratic problem assigned
him: “I must even admit that this gassing set my mind at rest, for the
mass extermination of the Jews was to start soon and at that time neither
Eichmann nor I was certain how these mass killings were to be carried out ....
Now we had the gas, and we had established a procedure.”41 That “procedure" was the “assembly
line” basis for killing — the phrase, appropriately enough, of an
Auschwitz camp doctor.42 |
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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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