|
|
 |
| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
|
|
| Page
271 |
Back |
|
Contents |
Index |
Home
Page |
|
Forward |
|
| |
| The Experimental Impulse |
| |
prisoners, mostly Germans, prostitutes were meant to be a
work incentive and were also intended to help diminish widespread homosexuality
among male prisoners (occasionally prostitutes were assigned to known
homosexuals for that purpose, with predictable results).³ The gynecologist
Dr. Wanda J. told how prostitutes were instructed to visit her if they noticed
any indication of venereal disease. Camp commanders frequently appeared on
Block 10 to choose particular prostitutes for their subcamps. As Dr. J. put it
in discussing the prostitutes, “that was a part of everything.”
Extreme rumors spread through the camp about Block 10. Prisoners
considered it a “sinister place” of mysterious evil. There were
widespread rumors that Clauberg was conducting experiments in artificial
insemination, and women were terrified of having “monsters” implanted
in their wombs. Some survivors I spoke to believed that those experiments
actually occurred. Another account had Clauberg speaking of his intentions to
carry out artificial-insemination experiments in the future. There were also
rumors of a “museum” on Block 10: “Skulls, body parts, even
mummies”; and one survivor insisted, “A friend … saw … our
Gymnasium [high school] teacher stuffed [mummified] on Block 10.” Again,
anything was possible, and whatever occurred there was likely to be a
manifestation of the Nazi racial claim. |
| |
| |
| Sterilization by Injection: “The
Professor” |
| |
Block 10 was often known as “Clauberg’s
block,” because it was created for him and his experimental efforts to
perfect a cheap and effective method of mass sterilization. He was Block
10’s figure of greatest authority, “the main man for
sterilization” as Dr. J. put it, and the one who “has the extras in
equipment and space”: in addition to the wards, an elaborate X-ray
apparatus and four special experimental rooms, one of which served as a
darkroom for developing X-ray films. As a civilian, Clauberg was an Auschwitz
outsider who rented facilities, research subjects, and even prisoner doctors
from the SS. He was a powerful outsider, holding a reserve SS rank of
Gruppenführer, or lieutenant general. Höss and everyone else
were aware that Himmler was interested in the work and had given the order that
brought Clauberg to Auschwitz. He began his Auschwitz work in December 1942 in
Birkenau; but after persuading the authorities that his important research
required a special block, he transferred his experimental setting to Block 10
in Auschwitz in April 1943 .
His method was to inject a caustic
substance into the cervix in order to obstruct the fallopian tubes. He chose as
experimental subjects married women between the ages of twenty and forty,
preferably those who had borne children. And he first injected them with opaque
liquid in order to determine by X ray that there was no prior blockage or
impairment. He had experimented with different substances, but was very
secretive about the exact nature of the one he used, probably intent upon
protecting any |
|
| |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical Killing and the
Psychology of
Genocide
Robert J. Lifton
ISBN 0-465-09094
©
1986 |
|
Back |
Page 271 |
Forward |
|
|
