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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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176 |
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| AUSCHWITZ: THE RACIAL CURE |
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as another survivor testified, "to kill a man was nothing,
no worth talking about": a doctor who was perfectly polite and decent most of
the time"felt
no compunction about sending people into the gas.”15
From the late spring of 1944, when an
enormous influx of Hungarian Jews placed a strain on the scheduling of doctors
on the duty roster, the way of conducting selections changed. Now, as Dr. B.
explained, mass arrangements had to be made. At a special meeting of medical
officers, Wirths announced that dentists and pharmacists were to take regular
turns along with doctors in performing the selections. And selections were done
by “teams”: “When the train arrived, there were announcements
through a loudspeaker, such as ‘Mothers and children go left!’”
Although two doctors were present, neither any longer made decisions
about individual arrivals. Rather, the doctor became “only a
supervisor.” It was still important that he be present because he had the
responsibility of overseeing the behavior of noncommissioned officers, others
on the selections team, and prisoners — all of whom took part in placing
arriving men and women in lines according to their category. With thousands of
people arriving every day — as many as ten thousand in one night —
selections were done “only by groups. . . One couldn’t select
individuals. In the regulations it was stated that every individual must be
judged capable of work — ‘camp-worthy’ — or not on medical
grounds. In practice, that was never carried out — because it was
impossible. One . . . selected only according to categories.” But the
doctor was still central, Dr. B. emphasized: “He stood there and led
the thing.”
Doctors could become very engrossed in questions
about the method or technique of selections:*
“The people who
participated in [a particular] selection would discuss it for days. ‘Which
is better: to let mothers go with their children to the gas or to select the
mothers later by separating them from their children? . . . Those were the type
of problems in Auschwitz — not ideological problems but purely technical
problems. And wars were virtually waged over these issues.”
Dr. B.
explained how advice would be given to doctors and SS camp leaders by women
criminal capos (prisoner functionaries) drawn from among actual German
criminals; these capos found it much less difficult to handle arriving
mothers whose children were still with them.
They engaged in elaborate
exchanges about how many people shout be killed and how many admitted to the
camp, always from the standpoint of medical and hygienic considerations:
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There were numerous discussions: Should one gas
more or should one [gas fewer]? Where is the limit to be set? That is, if you
take more old people into the camps, then there are more diseased people, and
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* Contrastingly, they
virtually never discussed the nature of selections (see pages 193-94).
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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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