Medical Experimentation - Oberhauser & Schumann
Schumann set up an X ray station at Auschwitz in 1942, in the woman's
camp Bla. Here men and women were forcibly sterilized by being
positioned repeatedly for several minutes between two x-ray machines,
the rays aiming at their sexual organs. Most subjects died after
great suffering, or were gassed immediately because the radiation
burns from which they suffered rendered them unfit for work. Men's
testicles were removed and sent to Breslau for histopathological
examination.
The frequently following ovariotomies were performed
also by the Polish prisoner, Dr. Wladyslav Dering. Dering once bet
with an SS man that he could perform ten ovariotomies in an
afternoon, and won his bet. Some of his victims survived. Dering
was declared a war criminal but eluded justice and for a time
practiced medicine in British Somaliland. (Laska, 223. Encyclopedia,
Vol. 3, 965)
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Nizkor
© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012
This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and
to combat hatred.
Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.
As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may
include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and
provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist
and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.Oberhauser
Dr. Herta Oberhauser killed prisoners with oil and evipan
injections, removed their limbs and vital organs, rubbed ground
glass and sawdust into wounds. She drew a twenty-year sentence
as a war criminal, but was released in 1952 and became a family
doctor at Stocksee in Germany. Her license to practice medicine
was revoked in 1960. (Laska, 223)
Schumann
Himmler, writing to SS-Oberführer Brack, on August 11, 1942,
expressed an interest in sterilization experiments involving
the use of x-rays (See auschwitz sterilization). In April
of 1944, he received a report of the work of Dr. Horst Schumann
"on the influence of X-rays on human genital glands" at Auschwitz.
The report included the following statement: Previously you have asked Oberführer Brack to perform this
work, and you supported it by providing the adequate material in
the concentration camp Auschwitz. I point especially to the
second part of this work, which shows that by those means
castration of males is almost impossible or requires an effort
which does not pay. As I have convinced myself, operative
castration requires not more than 6 to 7 minutes, and therefore
can be performed more reliably and quicker than castration by
X-rays.