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From: "Sally Rolls Pavia" <>
Subject: Today in History .. 7 July
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 05:59:44 -0700


1942 ~~ Himmler decides to begin medical experiments on Auschwitz prisoners

On this day in 1942, Heinrich Himmler, in league with three others,
including a physician, decides to begin experimenting on women in the
Auschwitz concentration camps and to investigate extending this
experimentation on males.

Himmler, architect of Hitler's program to exterminate Europe's Jewish
population, convened a conference in Berlin to discuss the prospects for
using concentration camp prisoners as objects of medical experiments. The
other attendees were the head of the Concentration Camp Inspectorate, SS
General Richard Glueks (hospital chief), SS Major-General Gebhardt and
Professor Karl Clauberg (one of Germany's leading gynecologists). The result
of the conference was that a major program of medical experimentation on
Jewish women at Auschwitz was agreed upon. These experiments were to be
carried out in such a way as to ensure that the prisoners were not aware of
what was being done to them. (The experimentation would take the form of
sterilization via massive doses of radiation or uterine injections.) It was
also decided to consult with an X-ray specialist about the prospects of
using X rays to castrate men and demonstrating this on male Jewish
prisoners. Adolf Hitler endorsed this plan on the condition that it remained
top secret.

That Heinrich Himmler would propose such a conference or endorse such a
program should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with his resume. As
head of the Schutzstaffel ("Armed Black Shirts or Protection Squad"), the
SS, the military arm of the Nazi Party, and assistant chief of the Gestapo
(the secret police), Himmler was able over time to consolidate his control
over all police forces of the Reich. This power grab would prove highly
effective in carrying out the Fuhrer's Final Solution. It was Himmler who
organized the creation of death camps throughout Eastern Europe and the
creation of a pool of slave laborers.


Sally Rolls Pavia

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