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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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240 |
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| AUSCHWITZ: THE RACIAL CURE |
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injections" because “they had the feeling they were
some kind of superior being.” Hence, many Polish prisoners engaged in the
Auschwitz pattern of violence toward Jews — in the form of (sometimes
lethal) physical beatings — and some Polish doctors got into the habit of
slapping or imparting a few blows, with Jewish physicians among their victims.
Jews in authority could also on occasion “slap one another”; but (as
Dr. Erich G. put it) for “the Polish or the others to strike a Jew, it was
no problem.” Even when Polish colleagues behaved “in a very correct
manner,” (as a Czech woman survivor explained), they could be perceived by
Jews as condescending: “We knew they were anti-Semitic.”
The
entire Auschwitz structure — its death sentence for Jews —
contributed to deadly callousness toward Jews, as a Polish survivor who worked
in a medical block described in partly defending Polish doctors: |
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Consider the situation of a young [Polish] doctor
or [advanced] medical student. He knows that 90 percent of Jews will be put to
death sooner or later, and the same percentage of Muselmänner [in
general]. He had to fill quotas. If he had refused, he wouldn't have helped
anyone and would have died himself — and another person would be put
immediately in his place to do what he refused to do. People grow indifferent
to certain things. Like the doctor who cuts up a dead body [does a post-mortem
examination] develops a certain resistance. |
This Auschwitz death taint greatly intensified the
pre-existing antagonism of some Polish doctors toward all Jews, including
patients; and there were frequent stories of the former’s efforts to have
Jewish doctors transferred from medical blocks to places in the camp likely to
result in their death. While these attempts were generally successful, they
were sometimes defeated by appeals to other prisoners with influence and, on at
least one occasion, to Dr. Wirths himself.
Occasionally a Jewish doctor
who had some authority, such as Magda V., could speak frankly to Polish
colleagues: “Look, we are all equal here .... I can't have it
[anti-Semitic attitudes] here .... We're all in the same boat.” As she
explained, “[They knew] that I would stick my neck out for the Poles the
same way I would ... for the Jews, and I told them that.” And she
emphasized that many Polish colleagues were “all right” and some even
“fantastic” in their help to everyone. Other Jewish doctors told of
their lives being saved by strong interventions on the part of Polish
colleagues. But for the most part Jews, including Jewish doctors, had to be
wary of Polish authority as well as of pervasive anti-Semitism in Polish
doctors and functionaries, which contributed in a variety of ways to Jewish
deaths.
Polish-Jewish struggles intertwined with profound conflicts
between political prisoners and ordinary criminals. The latter brought about
much suffering and death until the political prisoners gradually took over,
their medical contingent spearheaded by a group of German Communists
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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 240 |
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