Doctors from Hell

The first book in my quest to enlightenment was the happily titled "Doctors from Hell: the horrific account of Nazi experiments on humans", by Vivien Spitz, 2005.

Spitz, an American of German descent, volunteered to be a typist at the Nuremberg trials in post-war Germany. She arrived after the main trials of the more well-known criminals, and spent most of her time on the trials of Nazi doctors. Spitz did not speak of her experience for many decades, and official details of the trials were themselves restricted until the 1980s. Since then, Spitz has travelled around the world, teaching about the horrors of the Nazi experiments, with the hope of preventing such atrocities from happening again.

This is not the sort of book you pick up off the library shelf and browse on a rainy Sunday afternoon. However, the book was relatively easy to read, with increasingly cumbersome summaries of its content in the introduction, conclusion, and at the beginning and end of each chapter. Doctors from Hell is not a pleasant read, and contains graphic descriptions and photographs of the subjects of the experiments, presented as evidence during the trial.

The thing that most stood out to me when reading this book was the discovery that Jews were not the only ones who were persecuted by the Nazis. Criminals, the mentally ill, disabled people, homosexuals, those who were not permitted to have sex with pure Germans but did, Gypsies, POWs, Poles, Czechs, and Russians were all imprisoned in concentration camps, and were all candidates for the experiments. I did not realise that the camps were for those other than Jews, and I believe that it is easy to think "oh yeah, WWII - the holocaust - gassing of Jews" and to be a bit complacent about the whole thing. You know - we've heard it all before, and yes it was horrible, but...
For me, it was a shake-up to hear of the universality of Nazi persecution. Yes, it is horrible that so many Jews were ill-treated, but to learn that so many other groups were also abused somehow expands the horror in my mind. And yes, while I think it is very important that we remember the suffering of the Jewish people, I think it is also important to remember that so many others suffered too.
I'm not sure if that paragraph came out as I wanted it to. I'm trying to say that I believe Jewish persecution was horrible, and it is good that the world remembers that, and also thinks its horrible, but it is actually so much more than that. I'm not suggesting that we're over-focussed on the Jews, but that perhaps we should also teach about countless others who were persecuted.

Anyway, I found this book fascinating, it was about something of which I previously knew very little. I also could see that there were perfectly noble intentions behind the experiments - what scientist wouldn't want to know the effects of mustard gas, altitude sickness, typhoid, and freezing water on humans. The problem was that testing mustard gas on a fellow human was never going to be acceptable, plunging a person in to tanks of icy water for hours was never considered humaine, cutting chunks out of bones and grafting others on was never going to be painless. The idea of experimenting on humans was never a nice one, and yet it was done. I imagine that the dehumanisation of camp inmates helped the doctors to feel less like they were operating on a human being - when a person is devoid of identity, dignity, sanity, health, are they really a person, or just a body? A body to be operated on, in the pursuit of knowledge.

In my opinion, the most shocking experiment was that of killing a group of Jews so that their bones could be put in acid, stripping off all flesh, and sent to a museum as specimens. Did any of those who viewed this exhibition over the following decades ever dream that the skeletons were prepared especially for them? That innocent people were murdered so that the curious could look at their bones?

No, Doctors from Hell is not a nice read at all. It challenges, offends, hurts, appalls, and angers. But I believe it is important to never forget the horrors of history, and the dangerous Third Reich that desired to control the world. With eyes wide open I shall view the world. Thank you, Vivian Spitz, for further opening my eyes.