Nazi Doctors. Experiments in Horror

On November 9, 1938 Kristallnacht, “the night of broken glass” took place. The German Sturmabteilung, or Assault Division, went house to house, business to business, destroyed homes; men were thrown into the streets and gutters, spat upon and beaten by non-Jewish German residents” (Steinweis, 2009). Belongings and heirlooms of value were stolen from Jewish homes; other belongings thought to have no value were thrown out into the streets as trash. “Ninety one Jewish men were murdered and 30,000 sent to the concentration camps” (Steinweis, 2009). This marked the beginning of the worst of World War II. Everyone has heard of the Holocaust, the systematic extermination of the Jewish population from Germany by Adolf Hitler and his following of SS, and likeminded individuals. Many have watched documentaries and learned through classes in high school about the horrific crimes visited upon the Jewish people. What is not widely known is how many more were persecuted in Hitler’s desire to rid Germany of any not up to his standard of Aryan quality. Blacks, gypsies, homosexuals and anyone who associated or supported them were wiped out. The longest running, and most widely used concentration camp was Dachau. “Dachau is a small town in Bavaria, located in southern Germany. It was settled in 805 as a medieval market town and twice ruined by marauders. First the Swedish, the Napoléon laid waste to the town” (Marcuse, 2001). It was resettled by artists and painters and by 1890 was a flourishing city in the shade of the Alps. During WWI the town needed to make money due to a downturn in the economy, so as many did in those days, the towns shops began to turn out munitions and gunpowder. As the city’s demise deepened, the government asked that the abandoned work mills and barracks be commissioned as a work camp to show support of the growing movement following Adolf Hitler.

“After being taken over on the 9th of March, Dachau concentration camp opened its doors on 22 March 1933, it was intended to be a training compound for the young SS Guards” (Marcuse, 2001). They were to be ruthless, show no empathy and above all remain loyal to the Guard and Hitler. “Originally Dachau was only set up to house around 10,000 men, including guards, political prisoners, and Jewish prisoners, but the numbers reached a total of over 30,000 during numerous periods of the war, and subsequently housed 60,000 during the time the Nazi regime was trying to move prisoners through Germany to evacuate compounds” (Marcuse, 2001). Typhus and starvation increased the deaths during the last months due to heavy overcrowding. With the implementation of Hitler’s Final Solution, many died on the cattle cars used to transport the prisoners from Dachau to Auschwitz. This is one of the sights and my grandfather has never forgotten. Hundreds of people clustered together for warmth had died in the cars with no food, and despair. He said the smell was not one that