The experiments

THE EXPERIMENTS Joseph Mengele was very interested in genetics, particularly in twins. He carried out various experiments and tests, which were brutal and absolutely ferocious. They shock me so much, I find it so hard to believe a man was capable of such ghastly, cruel and barbaric actions. Some people still live today, to tell the horrific, terrifying stories of Mengele… who have experienced his cruelty first hand. Below are some true stories I have heard about through documentaries I have studied. * Ruth Eliaz: This brave woman made it through the war. However she still has to live with the awful memories drilled into her head from when she was at Auschwitz…While at Aushcwitz, she gave birth to her baby girl. Joseph Mengele, immediately demanded Ruth’s breasts must be tied, meaning she could not feed her newborn. This was because he wanted to see how long a baby could last without food. The poor child lasted a week without any food, until it sadly passed away. Later he sent in another doctor who ordered she must give her other daughter an injection. She told Ruth it was morphine to relieve the child, she knew it was not and told the doctor she was not stupid. The doctor told her that her daughter could not survive and that she was going to save Ruth’s life. After ages of talking Ruth gave in to the doctor. She killed her own daughter. Later, when the collection of corpses took place. Mengele went to try and find the little corpse to carry out experiments on the dead corpse. Because of the hundreds of dead bodies, he couldn’t retrieve the tiny body. * Marc Berkowitz: At only 12 years old, Marc was admitted to Auschzwitz. He was a twin. This meant Mengele wanted to take them, and experiment. He remembers Mengele took them aside and told them to stay there. Not to let anyone move them. Marc was made Mengele’s personal servant. He had to polish his boots, dust his office, take care of his property. If he did something wrong, he would be badly punished. Mangele’s experiments consisted of dreadful things, some are unimaginable. Here are a few of them: * High-altitude experiments: Mengele wanted to see the limits of human endurance at extremely high altitudes. The victims were placed in the low-pressure chamber where the simulated altitude was raised. Many victims died as a result and other suffered from grave-injury, torture and ill-treatment. * Incendiary bomb experiments: To test the effect of pharmaceutical burns. These burns were purposely inflicted on the poor victims, with matter taken from incendiary bombs. They caused severe pain, suffering, and serious injuries! * Freezing experiments: I think these were the worst experiments carried out by Mengele. Basically they consisted of him putting people in a bath full of ice for up to 3 hours. After they were extremely cold, he would try different ways of warming them up again. In another series of experiments, the victims were forced to be kept naked outside in a temperature below freezing point. It is remembered that the victims screamed in pain as their bodies slowly froze. * Sea water experiments: In order to study various methods of making sea water drinkable, the victims were deprived of eating any food and were only given chemically processed sea water which made them extremely ill and caused a lot of suffering. * Malaria experiments: These experiments were carried out to experiment the immunization of malaria. The victims were infected by loads of mosquitoes. After having caught malaria the victims were treated with various different types of drugs in order to test their efficacy. Over 1, 000 victims were used in these experiments. Many died and others suffered severe pain and permanent disability. * Mustard gas experiments: These were used to discover the most effective treatment of wounds caused by mustard gas. (A chemical gas used in the war, caused awful symptoms such as painful blisters, swelling of the throat, nausea, diaheara, blindess, burning, bloody nose) Wounds deliberately inflicted on victims were infected with mustard gas. Some died, others experienced extreme pain and suffering. * Sulfanilamide Experiments: Used to experiment the effectiveness of sulfanilamide. Mengele deliberately inflicted horrible wounds on the victims and infected them with bacteria such as streptococcus, gas gangrene and tetanus. Mengele also cut off the circulation of blood by tying off blood vessels at both ends of the wound to create a condition similar to a battlefield wound. Infection was then made worse by forcing wood shavings and shattered glass into the wounds. The infection was then treated with sulfanilamide and other drugs to see their effectiveness. Many victims died, and other suffered greatly. * Spotted fever experiments: These experiments were carried out to investigate the effectiveness of spotted fever and other vaccines. The victims were purposely infected with the virus in order to keep it alive. Over 90% of victims dies as a result.