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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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303 |
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Contents |
Index |
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| Chapter 16 |
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“A Human Being in an
SS Uniform”: Ernst B. |
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His very first visit to the lab of Block was an extraordinary
surprise for us. He came into the lab without force unlike the other SS,
without a dog (Weber always came with a wolf dog), locked the doors behind him
[so that his behavior could not be observed by other SS] said "Good day" and
introduced himself, ... offering his hand to my colleagues and to me .... We
were... long unused to anyone from among the camp authorities treating us as
people equal to himself |
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.— Auschwitz survivor |
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I had heard and read a great deal about Ernst B before
meeting him and — amazingly for a Nazi doctor — all that I had heard
was good. Former prisoner doctors in both their written and their oral accounts
constantly described Dr. B as having been a unique Nazi doctor in Auschwitz a
man who treated inmates (especially prisoner doctors) as human beings and who
saved many of their lives; who had refused to do selections in Auschwitz who
had been so appreciated by prisoner doctors that when tried after the war,
their testimony on his behalf brought about his acquittal; who was “a
human being in an SS uniform.”
I did not have to track him down,
as I had most other SS doctors, but he was introduced to me by a German judge
who had taken a deposition from him in the Mengele extradition proceedings. Dr.
B. had in fact expressed enthusiasm about meeting me and discussing his
experiences with me in detail. I found him to be a neatly groomed man in his
mid-sixties, short and slight, pleasant in manner, generally likable. So
pleasant in fact that it made me a bit uneasy, and I reminded myself silently
that, whatever his virtues, he had been one of them: a Nazi doctor in
Auschwitz. |
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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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