Essay Sample about Nazi Doctors

During the Holocaust, between 1939 and 1945, Nazi doctors performed inhuman experiments on those inside the camps. Victums of this event include Jews, Poles, Roma (Gypsies), political prisoners, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals, and Catholic priests. A minimum of 15,754 victims were documented. One of the main doctors was Josef Mengele but I’m going to be talking about some of the lesser known doctors. 

At Dachau, Sigmund Rascher wanted to find the best way to save German pilots that ejected at high altitude. They put the prisoners in low-pressure chambers that simulated altitudes as high as 68,000 feet and plummeted them to their deaths. The victims' brains were still alive enough to show signs of high-altitude sickness. At the same camp, Rascher conducted freezing experiments to test the most effective ways to treat the German soldiers and pilots whose body temperatures dropped. For up to five hours, the prisoners were dropped into vats of icy water. When the water dropped below 79.7°F, the doctors tried to warm them up. Also at Dachau, Dr. Hans Eppinger ran an experiment to make seawater drinkable. The doctors forced around 90 Gypsies to drink only seawater.

Doctors at Ravensbruck conducted "Sulfanilamide'' experiments. These experiments were to test drugs that treated infections. The prisoners were inflicted with battlefield-like wounds that were then infected with multiple types of bacteria, and glass and dirt were rubbed into the wounds. Another experiment that took place in Ravensbruck was bone, muscle, and joint transplantation. The doctors wanted to see if a limb or joint from one person could work for a person without the specific limp. They also removed sections of bones, muscles, and nerves from prisoners to study the regeneration of these body parts.

Researchers at Buchenwald needed to test different positions on the human body. So they poisoned the prisoners' food or shot inmates with poisoned bullets. At every camp almost everyone was sterilized to prevent the "inferior" races population from growing. 

Dr. Carl Clauberg and Heinrich Himmler artificially inseminated 300 women at Auschwitz. Dr. Clauberg would taunt the strapped down victim by saying he had just inseminated them with animal sperm and that monsters were now growing in their wombs.

These horrible events happened because Hitler needed someone to blame for Germanys' struggles. He thought the Aryan race was superior so he made everyone else look less than human. Once someone looks less than human to you then it's easier to commit malicious acts against them. It’s important to remember this part of history to realize how cruel humanity is and so nothing like this ever happens again. It shows the reality of letting bad people (Hitler) do whatever they want and how waiting for too long to stop something can cost millions of lives. Families were destroyed because of it. Children were taken away from their parents and forced to be put through torture because someone thought they were less than human. Those who were able to get out of those camps now have permanent body defects or disabilities, some can never have children, and others have extreme health issues. 

The Nazi experiments conects back to the WW1. WW1 affected Germany harshly and Hitler was able to come to power because of it. He gave Germany a chance and a future to look forward to. Hitler was a big anti-semite and the one that pushed for the holocaust so the “sepiror” race (aryans) could rule. Without WW1 Hitler would have never risen to power so the experiments wouldn’t have happened either.

The nazi experiments also relate to the industrial revolution. Without the industrial revolution WW1 wouldn’t have started so that would mean WW2 wouldn't have been a thing. So without either of those world wars Hitler wouldn’t have risen to power and billions of lives could have been saved. Even if the wars did still somehow happen, without the industrial revolution there would have been none of the technology that caused the nazi experiments to happen. 

In my painting I wanted to showcase how alone, hopeless and isolated the victims felt. So to do this I surrounded them in black so it feels like there's no escape. I incorporated a small window with bars showing a beautiful blue sky to show the longing for freedom and that there was a small hope that one day they would be free from this place.