Medical Aspects of the Holocaust Inhumane Medical Experiments, Dr. Mengele, Eugenics

Throughout life, one must entrust another completely with his or her mental and physical health. Physicians take an oath at the beginning of their careers that they will protect people however they are possibly able. When ill, it is important that a person can trust a doctor to do everything in his power to make the patient well again. During the Holocaust many doctors' ethics were doubted, and for justified reason. Within the concentration camps some myriads of atrocities were committed against mankind. Unthinkable experiments were conducted within all of the concentration camps. The most terrifying, labeled eugenics, was a particular interest of Dr. Josef Mengele.

First of all, many gruesome experiments took place within concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Dachau. During World War II many German soldiers were dying in the severe cold, so the German doctors within the concentration camps took it upon themselves to simulate the conditions their soldiers were facing on the war front with prisoners.

Josef Mengele

Block 10 - Medical experimentation block in Auschw...

English: Josef Mengele (1911-1979), German SS offi...

According to remember.org, "The freezing experiments were divided into two parts. First, to establish how long it would take to lower the body temperature to death and second how to best resuscitate the frozen victim." Victims were forced naked into huge tubs of water and ice, or forced to stand outside naked until they froze. Some of them were even restrained outside so they could not escape or attempt to warm themselves in any way. While the victims were forced outside naked or into the tub of ice, a probe was placed into their anal cavity to measure body temperature. The probe was designed so that the part inside the rectum expanded, making it nearly impossible for the prisoner to remove it. After the victims were frozen, many methods were used to warm them. Sun lamps were...