Crimes of the Auschwitz Doctors

Today’s Holocaust Documentaries is called The Crimes of the Auschwitz Doctors.
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The doctors were central to the Nazi’s plans.  They started the forced sterilization of the undesirables.  Then they would move onto the selection process.  Eventually, they would perform medical experiments in the concentration camps.  Auschwitz was central to the doctors' experiment.  The doctors would select the people who would live or die.  Then they would select people to experiment on.  They aimed to prove the supremacy of the master race.

They wanted to multiply the Aryan race through these experiments.  One doctor sent a letter to Himmler in regards to his experiments on sterilization.  He recommended high doses of x-rays.  He proved that the high doses destroyed the reproductive organs of males and females.  He even said that it could be done without the subjects knowing about it.  He even suggested that the subjects could be brought to a window, and while they were filling out forms they could be sterilized.  In the end, there would be no need for mass deportations.

Eventually, there would be mass deportations and now the medical experiments would be performed in the camps.  There was one woman’s block in the men’s camp at Auschwitz.  The windows in this camp were boarded up, cutting the people off from the outside world.  Nobody knew what would go on in this section of the camp.  There were 400 women packed in this barracks.  One letter recalls the women were surviving and not living.

These 400 women would be subjected to surgical experiments.  All were Jewish women from diverse nationalities.  The doctors selected these women and directed them to block 10.  Each doctor had their preference for the women.  The women did not know what sort of tests they were in for.  Once they were done with the experiment, they would be executed.

There was a group of scientists who oversaw the block.  The cruelest experiment was sterilization with an x-ray.  This experiment was performed on young girls.  They were taken to the women’s camp in Birkenau where the machines were located.  One method required x-rays.  Another method was surgical.  The doctors who performed the surgeries were prisoners themselves.

These surgeries were painful for the girls.  They were in constant pain due to surgeries or burns.  They would throw up and could not eat.  These wounds would never heal.  There were deaths and complications after the surgeries.  Sometimes they would die quickly due to the surgery.  The operations continued and were eventually taken away.  These women were never heard from again. 

The men were also experimented on.  They were also sterilized.  One doctor was horrified that sterilization was being done.  The doctors ordered that the temperatures and changes should be noted.  They did not know what was being done to the men.  Eventually, the camp observers realized what was being done to the men.  A Polish surgeon would perform these operations on the men.  He was a brutal surgeon.

Dr. Mengele was the most famous doctor from Auschwitz.  He had a dissection room that is well equipped and ready for use.  This is where additional experiments will take place… 

This is a good look at the human experiments that the Nazis doctors performed.  The Crimes of the Auschwitz doctors weaves in footage from Auschwitz with the testimony of the doctors and survivors of these procedures.  The way the producers use the testimonies would make it easy to use clips from this documentary for a classroom.  Each testimony is about 3-5 minutes long so if you had a lecture on the Holocaust you can easily squeeze a clip in.  This documentary would be good for research purposes for independent study students.