The most terrible torture in the history of mankind. Torture in concentration camps

Torture is often referred to as various minor troubles that happen to everyone in everyday life. This definition is awarded to the upbringing of naughty children, long standing in line, a large wash, subsequent ironing, and even the process of preparing food. All this, of course, can be very painful and unpleasant (although the degree of exhaustion largely depends on the character and inclinations of the person), but still bears little resemblance to the most terrible torture in the history of mankind. The practice of interrogations "with partiality" and other violent acts against prisoners took place in almost all countries of the world. The time frame is also not defined, but since relatively recent events are psychologically closer to a modern person, his attention is drawn to the methods and special equipment invented in the twentieth century, in particular in German concentration camps of the time. But there were both ancient Eastern and medieval torture. The Nazis were also taught by their colleagues from the Japanese counterintelligence, the NKVD and other similar punitive bodies. So why was everything over people?

Meaning of the term

To begin with, when starting to study any issue or phenomenon, any researcher tries to define it. “To name it correctly is already half to understand” - says

So, torture is the deliberate infliction of suffering. At the same time, the nature of the torment does not matter, it can be not only physical (in the form of pain, thirst, hunger or sleep deprivation), but also moral and psychological. By the way, the most terrible tortures in the history of mankind, as a rule, combine both "channels of influence".

But it is not only the fact of suffering that matters. Senseless torment is called torture. Torture differs from it in purposefulness. In other words, a person is whipped or hung on a rack not just like that, but in order to get some kind of result. Using violence, the victim is encouraged to confess guilt, disclose hidden information, and sometimes simply punished for some misconduct or crime. The twentieth century added another item to the list of possible targets of torture: torture in concentration camps was sometimes carried out in order to study the reaction of the body to unbearable conditions in order to determine the limit of human capabilities. These experiments were recognized by the Nuremberg Tribunal as inhumane and pseudoscientific, which did not prevent them from studying their results after the defeat of Nazi Germany by physiologists of the victorious countries.

Death or Judgment

The purposeful nature of the actions suggests that after receiving the result, even the most terrible tortures stopped. There was no point in continuing. The position of executioner-executor, as a rule, was occupied by a professional who knew about pain techniques and peculiarities of psychology, if not all, then a lot, and there was no point in wasting his efforts on senseless bullying. After the victim confessed to the crime, depending on the degree of civilization of society, she could expect immediate death or treatment, followed by trial. A legal execution after partial interrogations during the investigation was characteristic of the punitive justice of Germany in the initial Hitler era and of Stalin's "open trials" (the Shakhty case, the trial of the industrial party, the reprisals against Trotskyists, etc.). After giving the defendants a tolerable appearance, they were dressed in decent costumes and shown to the public. Broken morally, people most often dutifully repeated everything that investigators forced them to confess. Torture and executions were put on stream. The veracity of the testimony did not matter. Both in Germany and in the USSR of the 1930s, the confession of the accused was considered the “queen of evidence” (A. Ya. Vyshinsky, USSR prosecutor). Severe torture was used to obtain it.

Deadly torture of the Inquisition

In few areas of its activity (except in the manufacture of murder weapons) humanity has succeeded so much. At the same time, it should be noted that in recent centuries there has even been some regression compared to ancient times. European executions and torture of women in the Middle Ages were carried out, as a rule, on charges of witchcraft, and the external attractiveness of the unfortunate victim most often became the reason. However, the Inquisition sometimes condemned those who actually committed terrible crimes, but the specificity of that time was the unambiguous doom of the condemned. No matter how long the torment lasted, it ended only in the death of the condemned. As an execution weapon, they could use the Iron Maiden, the Copper Bull, a fire, or the sharp-edged pendulum described by Edgar Pom, methodically lowered inch by inch onto the chest of the victim. The terrible tortures of the Inquisition differed in duration and were accompanied by unthinkable moral torments. The preliminary investigation may have been carried out with the use of other ingenious mechanical devices to slowly split the bones of the fingers and limbs and rupture the muscular ligaments. The most famous tools are:

A metal expanding pear used for particularly sophisticated torture of women in the Middle Ages;

- "Spanish boot";

A Spanish armchair with clamps and a brazier for the legs and buttocks;

An iron bra (pectoral), worn on the chest in a red-hot form;

- "crocodiles" and special tongs for crushing the male genitalia.

The executioners of the Inquisition also had other torture equipment, which it is better not to know about for people with a sensitive psyche.

East, Ancient and Modern

No matter how ingenious the European inventors of self-damaging technology may be, the most terrible tortures in the history of mankind were still invented in the East. The Inquisition used metal tools, which sometimes had a very intricate design, while in Asia they preferred everything natural, natural (today these tools would probably be called environmentally friendly). Insects, plants, animals - everything went into action. Eastern torture and executions had the same goals as European ones, but were technically longer and more sophisticated. Ancient Persian executioners, for example, practiced scaphism (from the Greek word "skafium" - a trough). The victim was immobilized with chains, tied to a trough, forced to eat honey and drink milk, then smeared the whole body with a sweet composition, and lowered into the swamp. Blood-sucking insects slowly ate a person alive. The same was done approximately in the case of execution on an anthill, and if the unfortunate man was to be burned in the scorching sun, his eyelids were cut off for greater torment. There were other types of torture that used elements of the biosystem. For example, bamboo is known to grow rapidly, up to a meter a day. It is enough just to hang the victim at a short distance above the young shoots, and cut the ends of the stems at an acute angle. The victim has time to change his mind, confess everything and betray his accomplices. If he persists, he will slowly and painfully be pierced by plants. This choice was not always available, however.

Torture as a method of inquiry

Both in and in the later period, various types of torture were used not only by inquisitors and other officially recognized savage structures, but also by ordinary state authorities, today called law enforcement. He was part of a set of methods of investigation and inquiry. From the second half of the 16th century, different types of bodily influence were practiced in Russia, such as: whip, suspension, rack, cauterization with ticks and open fire, immersion in water, and so on. Enlightened Europe, too, was by no means distinguished by humanism, but practice showed that in some cases torture, bullying, and even the fear of death did not guarantee the clarification of the truth. Moreover, in some cases, the victim was ready to confess to the most shameful crime, preferring a terrible end to endless horror and pain. There is a well-known case of a miller, which is remembered by an inscription on the pediment of the French Palace of Justice. He took on someone else's guilt under torture, was executed, and the real criminal was soon caught.

Abolition of torture in different countries

At the end of the 17th century, a gradual departure from torture practice began and the transition from it to other, more humane methods of interrogation. One of the results of the Enlightenment was the realization that not the cruelty of punishment, but its inevitability affects the reduction of criminal activity. In Prussia, torture has been abolished since 1754, this country was the first to put its legal proceedings at the service of humanism. Then the process went forward, different states followed suit in the following sequence:

Note:

*) the legislation of the various cantons of Switzerland changed at different times of the specified period.

Two countries deserve special mention - Britain and Russia.

Catherine the Great abolished torture in 1774 by issuing a secret decree. By this, on the one hand, she continued to keep criminals in fear, but, on the other, she showed a desire to follow the ideas of the Enlightenment. This decision was legally formalized by Alexander I in 1801.

As for England, torture was banned there in 1772, but not all, but only some.

Illegal torture

The legislative ban did not at all mean their complete exclusion from the practice of pre-trial investigation. In all countries there were representatives of the police class, ready to break the law in the name of its triumph. Another thing is that their actions were carried out illegally, and if exposed, they were threatened with legal prosecution. Of course, the methods have changed significantly. It was required to "work with people" more carefully, without leaving visible traces. In the 19th and 20th centuries, objects heavy but with a soft surface were used, such as sandbags, thick volumes (the irony of the situation was that most often these were codes of laws), rubber hoses, etc. attention and methods of moral pressure. Some interrogators sometimes threatened severe punishments, lengthy sentences, and even reprisals against loved ones. It was also torture. The horror experienced by the defendants prompted them to make confessions, slander themselves and receive undeserved punishments, until the majority of police officers did their duty honestly, studying the evidence and collecting evidence for a justified charge. Everything changed after totalitarian and dictatorial regimes came to power in some countries. It happened in the 20th century.

After the October Revolution of 1917, the Civil War broke out on the territory of the former Russian Empire, in which both warring parties most often did not consider themselves bound by the legislative norms that were binding under the tsar. Torture of prisoners of war in order to obtain information about the enemy was practiced by both the White Guard counterintelligence and the Cheka. During the years of the Red Terror, most executions took place, but bullying of representatives of the “class of exploiters”, which included the clergy, nobles, and simply decently dressed “gentlemen”, took on a mass character. In the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, the NKVD used forbidden interrogation methods, depriving detainees of sleep, food, water, beating and mutilating them. This was done with the permission of the leadership, and sometimes on his direct instructions. The goal was rarely to find out the truth - the repressions were carried out for intimidation, and the task of the investigator was to obtain a signature on the protocol containing a confession in counter-revolutionary activities, as well as a slander of other citizens. As a rule, Stalin's "shoulder masters" did not use special torture devices, being content with available items, such as a paperweight (they were beaten on the head), or even an ordinary door, which pinched fingers and other protruding parts of the body.

In Nazi Germany

Torture in the concentration camps established after Adolf Hitler came to power differed in style from those previously practiced in that they were a strange mixture of Eastern sophistication with European practicality. Initially, these "correctional institutions" were created for guilty Germans and representatives of national minorities declared hostile (Gypsies and Jews). Then came the turn of experiments that had the character of some scientific character, but in cruelty surpassed the most terrible torture in the history of mankind.
In attempts to create antidotes and vaccines, Nazi SS doctors administered lethal injections to prisoners, performed operations without anesthesia, including abdominal ones, froze prisoners, put them in heat, and did not let them sleep, eat and drink. Thus, they wanted to develop technologies for the "production" of ideal soldiers who are not afraid of frost, heat and mutilation, resistant to the effects of poisonous substances and pathogenic bacilli. The history of torture during the Second World War forever imprinted the names of doctors Pletner and Mengele, who, along with other representatives of criminal fascist medicine, became the personification of inhumanity. They also conducted experiments on lengthening limbs by mechanical stretching, strangling people in rarefied air, and other experiments that caused excruciating agony, sometimes lasting for long hours.

The torture of women by the Nazis concerned mainly the development of ways to deprive them of their reproductive function. Various methods were studied - from simple ones (removal of the uterus) to sophisticated ones, which, if the Reich won, had the prospect of mass application (irradiation and exposure to chemicals).

It all ended before the Victory, in 1944, when the concentration camps began to liberate Soviet and allied troops. Even the appearance of the prisoners spoke more eloquently than any evidence that in itself their detention in inhuman conditions was torture.

The current state of affairs

Nazi torture became the standard of cruelty. After the defeat of Germany in 1945, humanity sighed with joy in the hope that this would never happen again. Unfortunately, although not on such a scale, but the torture of the flesh, mockery of human dignity and moral humiliation remain one of the terrible signs of the modern world. Developed countries, declaring their commitment to rights and freedoms, are looking for legal loopholes to create special territories where compliance with their own laws is not necessary. Prisoners of secret prisons have been subjected to the influence of punitive organs for many years without any specific charges being brought against them. The methods used by military personnel of many countries in the course of local and major armed conflicts in relation to prisoners and simply suspected of sympathizing with the enemy sometimes surpass cruelty and mockery of people in Nazi concentration camps. In the international investigation of such precedents, too often, instead of objectivity, one can observe the duality of standards, when the war crimes of one of the parties are completely or partially hushed up.

Will the era of a new Enlightenment come, when torture will finally be finally and irrevocably recognized as a disgrace to humanity and will be banned? So far there is little hope...

Fascist Germany, besides starting the Second World War, is also notorious for its concentration camps, as well as for the horrors that took place there. The horror of the Nazi camp system consisted not only in terror and arbitrariness, but also in those colossal experiments on people that were carried out there. Scientific research was organized on a grand scale, and their goals were so diverse that it would take a long time to even name them.

In German concentration camps on living "human material", scientific hypotheses were tested and various biomedical technologies were tested. Wartime dictated its priorities, so doctors were primarily interested in the practical application of scientific theories. So, for example, the possibility of maintaining the working capacity of people under conditions of excessive stress, blood transfusion with different Rh factors, and new drugs were tested.

Among these monstrous experiments are pressure tests, hypothermia experiments, the development of a typhoid vaccine, experiments with malaria, gas, sea water, poisons, sulfanilamide, sterilization experiments, and many others.

In 1941 experiments with hypothermia were carried out. They were led by Dr. Rascher under the direct supervision of Himmler. The experiments were carried out in two stages. At the first stage, they found out what temperature and how long a person can withstand, and the second stage was to determine how to restore the human body after frostbite. To carry out such experiments, prisoners were taken out in the winter without clothes for the whole night or placed in ice water. Hypothermia experiments were carried out exclusively on men to simulate the conditions in which the German soldiers were on the Eastern Front, since the Nazis were ill-prepared for the winter time period. So, for example, in one of the first experiments, prisoners were lowered into a container of water, the temperature of which ranged from 2 to 12 degrees, in pilots' suits. At the same time, they were wearing life jackets that kept them afloat. As a result of the experiment, Rascher found that attempts to revive a person who fell into ice water are practically zero if the cerebellum was supercooled. This was the reason for the development of a special vest with a headrest, which covered the back of the head and did not allow the back of the head to sink into the water.

The same Dr. Ruscher in 1942 began to experiment on prisoners using pressure changes. Thus, doctors tried to establish how much air pressure a person can withstand, and for how long. For the experiment, a special pressure chamber was used, in which the pressure was regulated. At the same time there were 25 people in it. The purpose of these experiments was to help pilots and skydivers at high altitude. According to one of the doctor's reports, the experiment was carried out on a 37-year-old Jew who was in good physical shape. Half an hour after the start of the experiment, he died.

200 prisoners took part in the experiment, 80 of them died, the rest were simply killed.

The fascists also conducted large-scale preparations for the use of bacteriological. The emphasis was mainly on short-lived diseases, plague, anthrax, typhus, that is, diseases that could cause mass infection and death of the enemy in a short time.

The Third Reich had large stocks of typhus bacteria. In the case of their mass use, it was necessary to develop a vaccine for the disinfection of the Germans. On behalf of the government, Dr. Paul took up the development of a typhoid vaccine. The first to experience the effect of vaccines were the prisoners of Buchenwald. In 1942, 26 gypsies were infected with typhus there, who had previously been vaccinated. As a result, 6 people died from the progression of the disease. This result did not satisfy the management, since the mortality rate was high. Therefore, research was continued in 1943. And the next year, the improved vaccine was again tested on humans. But this time, the victims of vaccination were the prisoners of the Natzweiler camp. Conducted experiments Dr. Chretien. 80 gypsies were selected for the experiment. They were infected with typhus in two ways: with the help of injections and by airborne droplets. Of the total number of test subjects, only 6 people became infected, but even such a small number did not receive any medical assistance. In 1944, all 80 people who were involved in the experiment either died of illness or were shot by concentration camp overseers.

In addition, in the same Buchenwald, other cruel experiments were carried out on prisoners. So, in 1943-1944, experiments with incendiary mixtures were carried out there. Their purpose was to solve the problems associated with bomb explosions, when soldiers received phosphorus burns. Basically, Russian prisoners were used for these experiments.

Here, experiments were carried out with the genitals, in order to identify the causes of homosexuality. They involved not only homosexuals, but also men of traditional orientation. One of the experiments was a genital transplant.

Also in Buchenwald, experiments were carried out on infecting prisoners with yellow fever, diphtheria, smallpox, and poisonous substances were also used. So, for example, to study the effect of poisons on the human body, they were added to the food of prisoners. As a result, some of the victims died, and some were immediately shot for an autopsy. In 1944, all participants in this experiment were shot using poison bullets.

A series of experiments were also carried out in the Dachau concentration camp. So, back in 1942, some of the prisoners aged 20 to 45 were infected with malaria. A total of 1200 people were infected. Permission to conduct the experiment was obtained by the head Dr. Pletner directly from Himmler. The victims were bitten by malarial mosquitoes, and, in addition, they were also injected with sporozoans, which were taken from mosquitoes. For treatment, quinine, antipyrine, pyramidon, as well as a special drug, which was called "2516-Bering", were used. As a result, about 40 people died from malaria, about 400 died from complications after the disease, and another part died from excessive doses of medicines.

Here, in Dachau, in 1944, experiments were carried out to turn sea water into drinking water. For the experiments, 90 gypsies were used, who were completely deprived of food and forced to drink only sea water.

No less terrible experiments were carried out in the Auschwitz concentration camp. So, in particular, throughout the entire period of the war, sterilization experiments were carried out there, the purpose of which was to identify a quick and effective way to sterilize a large number of people without large time and physical costs. During the experiment, thousands of people were sterilized. The procedure was carried out with the help of surgery, x-rays and various drugs. Initially, injections with iodine or silver nitrate were used, but this method had a large number of side effects. Therefore, irradiation was more preferable. Scientists have found that a certain amount of X-rays can deprive the human body of producing eggs and sperm. During the experiments, a large number of prisoners received radiation burns.

The experiments with twins conducted by Dr. Mengele in the Auschwitz concentration camp were especially cruel. Before the war, he dealt with genetics, so the twins were especially "interesting" to him.

Mengele personally sorted the "human material": the most interesting, in his opinion, were sent for experiments, the less hardy - for labor work, and the rest - to the gas chamber.

The experiment involved 1,500 pairs of twins, of which only 200 survived. Mengele conducted experiments on changing the color of the eyes, injecting chemicals, resulting in complete or temporary blindness. In addition, he attempted to "create Siamese twins" by stitching the twins together. In addition, he experimented with infecting one of the twins with an infection, after which he performed autopsies on both to compare the affected organs.

When Soviet troops approached Auschwitz, the doctor managed to escape to Latin America.

Not without experiments and in another German concentration camp - Ravensbrück. In the experiments, women were used who were injected with tetanus, staphylococcus, gas gangrene bacteria. The purpose of the experiments was to determine the effectiveness of sulfanilamide preparations.

Prisoners were made incisions, where fragments of glass or metal were placed, and then bacteria were planted. Subjects were carefully monitored after infection, recording changes in temperature and other signs of infection. In addition, experiments on transplantology and traumatology were carried out here. Women were deliberately mutilated, and to make it easier to follow the healing process, they cut out parts of the body down to the bone. Moreover, their limbs were often amputated, which were then taken to a neighboring camp and sewn on to other prisoners.

Not only did the Nazis mock the prisoners of the concentration camps, they also carried out experiments on the "true Aryans". So, recently a large burial was discovered, which at first was mistaken for the Scythian remains. However, later it was possible to establish that there were German soldiers in the grave. The find horrified archaeologists: some of the bodies were decapitated, others had sawn tibia bones, and still others had holes along the spine. It was also found that during life, people were exposed to chemicals, and cuts were clearly visible in many skulls. As it turned out later, these were the victims of the experiments of the Ahnenerbe, a secret organization of the Third Reich, which was engaged in the creation of a superman.

Since it was immediately obvious that carrying out such experiments would be associated with a large number of victims, Himmler took responsibility for all deaths. He did not consider all these horrors to be murder, because, according to him, the prisoners of concentration camps are not people.

The ethics of scientific research was updated after the end of World War II. In 1947, the Nuremberg Code was developed and adopted, protecting the well-being of research participants to this day. However, before scientists did not disdain to experiment on prisoners, slaves and even members of their own families, violating all human rights. This list contains the most shocking and unethical cases.

10 Stanford Prison Experiment

In 1971, a team of scientists at Stanford University, led by psychologist Philip Zimbardo, conducted a study of human reactions to the restriction of freedom in prison. As part of the experiment, volunteers had to play the roles of guards and prisoners in the basement of the building of the Faculty of Psychology, equipped as a prison. Volunteers quickly got used to their duties, however, contrary to the predictions of scientists, terrible and dangerous incidents began to occur during the experiment. A third of the "guards" showed pronounced sadistic tendencies, while many "prisoners" were psychologically traumatized. Two of them had to be excluded from the experiment ahead of time. Zimbardo, concerned about the antisocial behavior of the subjects, was forced to stop the study ahead of schedule.

9 Monstrous Experiment

In 1939, a graduate student at the University of Iowa, Mary Tudor, under the guidance of psychologist Wendell Johnson, set up an equally shocking experiment on the orphans of the Davenport orphanage. The experiment was devoted to the study of the influence of value judgments on the fluency of children's speech. The subjects were divided into two groups. During the training of one of them, Tudor gave positive marks and praised in every possible way. She subjected the speech of the children from the second group to severe criticism and ridicule. The experiment ended in failure, which is why it later got its name. Many healthy children never recovered from their trauma and suffered from speech problems throughout their lives. A public apology for the Monstrous Experiment was not issued until 2001 by the University of Iowa.

8. Project 4.1

The medical study, known as Project 4.1, was conducted by US scientists on Marshall Islanders who became victims of radioactive contamination after the explosion of the US Castle Bravo thermonuclear device in the spring of 1954. In the first 5 years after the disaster on the Rongelap Atoll, the number of miscarriages and stillbirths doubled, and surviving children developed developmental disorders. In the following decade, many of them developed thyroid cancer. By 1974, a third had neoplasms. As experts later concluded, the purpose of the medical program to help the local residents of the Marshall Islands was to use them as guinea pigs in a "radioactive experiment."

7. Project MK-ULTRA

The CIA's secret MK-ULTRA mind-manipulation research program was launched in the 1950s. The essence of the project was to study the influence of various psychotropic substances on human consciousness. The participants in the experiment were doctors, military, prisoners and other representatives of the US population. The subjects, as a rule, did not know that they were being injected with drugs. One of the secret operations of the CIA was called "Midnight Climax". Men were selected from several brothels in San Francisco, injected with LSD into their bloodstream, and then filmed for study. The project lasted at least until the 1960s. In 1973, the CIA leadership destroyed most of the documents of the MK-ULTRA program, causing significant difficulties in the subsequent investigation of the case by the US Congress.

6. Project "Aversion"

From the 70s to the 80s of the 20th century, an experiment was conducted in the South African army aimed at changing the sex of soldiers with non-traditional sexual orientation. About 900 people were injured during the top-secret operation "Aversion". Alleged homosexuals were calculated by army doctors with the assistance of priests. In the military psychiatric ward, test subjects were subjected to hormonal therapy and electric shock. If the soldiers could not be "cured" in this way, they were waiting for forced chemical castration or sex reassignment surgery. "Aversion" was directed by psychiatrist Aubrey Levin. In the 90s, he immigrated to Canada, not wanting to stand trial for the atrocities he committed.

5 Human Experimentation In North Korea

North Korea has been repeatedly accused of researching prisoners that violate human rights, however, the government of the country denies all accusations, saying that they are treated humanely in the state. However, one of the former prisoners told a shocking truth. A terrible, if not terrifying experience appeared before the eyes of the prisoner: 50 women, under the threat of reprisals against their families, were forced to eat poisoned cabbage leaves and died, suffering from bloody vomiting and rectal bleeding, accompanied by the screams of other victims of the experiment. There are eyewitness accounts of special laboratories equipped for experiments. Entire families became their targets. After a standard medical examination, the wards were sealed and filled with asphyxiating gas, and the "researchers" watched through the glass from above as parents tried to save their children by giving them artificial respiration for as long as they had strength left.

4. Toxicological laboratory of the USSR special services

The top-secret scientific unit, also known as the "Chamber", under the leadership of Colonel Mairanovsky, was engaged in experiments in the field of toxic substances and poisons, such as ricin, digitoxin and mustard gas. Experiments were carried out, as a rule, on prisoners sentenced to capital punishment. Poisons were given to the subjects under the guise of drugs along with food. The main goal of scientists was to find an odorless and tasteless toxin that would not leave traces after the death of the victim. In the end, scientists managed to find the poison they were looking for. According to eyewitness accounts, after ingestion of C-2, the subject would become weak, quiet, as if cowering, and dying within 15 minutes.

3. Tuskegee Syphilis Study

The infamous experiment began in 1932 in Tuskegee, Alabama. For 40 years, scientists literally denied patients treatment for syphilis in order to study all stages of the disease. The victims of the experience were 600 poor African-American sharecroppers. Patients were not informed about their illness. Instead of a diagnosis, doctors told people they had "bad blood" and offered free food and treatment in exchange for participating in the program. During the experiment, 28 men died from syphilis, 100 from subsequent complications, 40 infected their wives, and 19 children received a congenital disease.

2. "Squad 731"

Employees of a special detachment of the Japanese armed forces under the leadership of Shiro Ishii were engaged in experiments in the field of chemical and biological weapons. In addition, they are responsible for the most horrific experiments on people that history knows. The detachment's military doctors dissected living subjects, amputated the limbs of captives and sewed them to other parts of the body, deliberately infected men and women with venereal diseases through rape in order to study the consequences later. The list of atrocities committed by Unit 731 is long, but many of its members have never been punished for their deeds.

1. Nazi experiments on people

Medical experiments carried out by the Nazis during World War II claimed a huge number of lives. In concentration camps, scientists performed the most sophisticated and inhuman experiments. In Auschwitz, Dr. Josef Mengele examined more than 1,500 pairs of twins. A variety of chemicals were injected into the eyes of the test subjects to see if their color would change, and in an attempt to create Siamese twins, the test subjects were stitched together. Meanwhile, members of the Luftwaffe tried to find a way to treat hypothermia by forcing prisoners to lie in ice water for several hours, and at the Ravensbrück camp, researchers deliberately inflicted wounds on prisoners and infected them with infections in order to test sulfonamides and other drugs.

1. Homosexuality
Homosexuals have no place on the planet. At least that's what the Nazis thought. Therefore, they, led by Dr. Karl Wernet in Buchenwald, since July 1944, have been sewing capsules with "male hormone" into the groin of gay prisoners. Then the healed were sent to concentration camps to women, ordering the latter to provoke newcomers to sex. History is silent about the results of such experiments.
2. Pressure
The German physician Sigmund Rascher was too concerned about the problems that the pilots of the Third Reich could have at an altitude of 20 kilometers. Therefore, he, being the chief physician at the Dachau concentration camp, created special pressure chambers in which he placed prisoners and experimented with pressure. After that, the scientist opened the skulls of the victims and examined their brains. 200 people took part in this experiment. 80 died on the surgical table, the rest were shot.
3. White phosphorus
From November 1941 to January 1944, drugs capable of treating white phosphorus burns were tested on the human body in Buchenwald. It is not known whether the Nazis succeeded in inventing a panacea. But, believe me, these experiments have taken a lot of prisoners' lives.
4. Poisons
The food in Buchenwald was not the best. This was especially felt from December 1943 to October 1944. The Nazis mixed various poisons into the products of the prisoners, after which they investigated their effect on the human body. Often such experiments ended with an instant autopsy of the victim after eating. And in September 1944, the Germans got tired of messing with experimental subjects. Therefore, all participants in the experiment were shot.
5. Sterilization
Carl Clauberg is a German doctor who became famous for his sterilization during World War II. From March 1941 to January 1945, the scientist tried to find a way by which millions of people could be made infertile in the shortest possible time. Clauberg succeeded: the doctor injected the prisoners of Auschwitz, Revensbrück and other concentration camps with iodine and silver nitrate. Although such injections had a lot of side effects (bleeding, pain and cancer), they successfully sterilized a person. But Klauberg's favorite was radiation exposure: a person was invited to a special chamber with a chair, sitting on which he filled out questionnaires. And then the victim just left, not suspecting that she would never be able to have children again. Often such exposures ended in severe radiation burns.

6. Sea water
The Nazis during World War II once again confirmed that sea water is undrinkable. On the territory of the Dachau concentration camp (Germany), the Austrian doctor Hans Eppinger and Professor Wilhelm Beiglbeck decided in July 1944 to check how long 90 gypsies could live without water. The victims of the experiment were so dehydrated that they even licked the freshly washed floor.
7. Sulfanilamide
Sulfanilamide is a synthetic antimicrobial agent. From July 1942 to September 1943, the Nazis, led by the German professor Gebhard, tried to determine the effectiveness of the drug in the treatment of streptococcus, tetanus and anaerobic gangrene. Who do you think they infected to conduct such experiments?
8 Mustard Gas
Doctors cannot find a way to cure a person from a mustard gas burn unless at least one victim from such a chemical weapon gets on their table. And why look for someone if you can poison and exercise on prisoners from the German Sachsenhausen concentration camp? This is what the minds of the Reich did throughout World War II.
9. Malaria
SS Hauptsturmführer and MD Kurt Plötner still could not find a cure for malaria. The scientist was not even helped by a thousand prisoners from Dachau, who were forced to take part in his experiments. Victims were infected through the bites of infected mosquitoes and treated with various drugs. More than half of the subjects did not survive.
10. Frostbite
German soldiers on the Eastern Front had a hard time in winter: they had a hard time enduring the harsh Russian winters. Therefore, Sigmund Rascher conducted experiments in Dachau and Auschwitz, with the help of which he tried to find a way to quickly reanimate the military after frostbite. To do this, the Nazis put Luftwaffe uniforms on the prisoners and placed them in ice water. There were two ways of heating. The first - the victim was lowered into a bath of hot water. The second one was placed between two naked women. The first method proved to be more efficient.
11. Gemini
Over one and a half thousand twins were subjected to the experiments of the German doctor and doctor of sciences Josef Mengele in Auschwitz. The scientist tried to change the color of the eyes of the experimental subjects by injecting chemicals directly into the protein of the visual organ. Another crazy idea Mengele - an attempt to create Siamese twins. For this, the scientist sewed prisoners together. Of the 1,500 participants in the experiments, only 200 survived.

The Great Patriotic War left an indelible mark on the history and destinies of people. Many have lost loved ones who were killed or tortured. In the article we will consider the concentration camps of the Nazis and the atrocities that took place on their territories.

What is a concentration camp?

Concentration camp or concentration camp - a special place intended for the detention of persons of the following categories:

• political prisoners (opponents of the dictatorial regime);
• prisoners of war (captured soldiers and civilians).

The concentration camps of the Nazis were notorious for their inhuman cruelty to prisoners and impossible conditions of detention. These places of detention began to appear even before Hitler came to power, and even then they were divided into women's, men's and children's. Contained there, mostly Jews and opponents of the Nazi system.

Life in the camp

Humiliation and bullying for the prisoners began already from the moment of transportation. People were transported in freight cars, where there was not even running water and a fenced-off latrine. The natural need of the prisoners had to celebrate publicly, in a tank, standing in the middle of the car.

But this was only the beginning, a lot of bullying and torment was being prepared for the Nazi concentration camps objectionable to the Nazi regime. Torture of women and children, medical experiments, aimless exhausting work - this is not the whole list.

The conditions of detention can be judged from the letters of the prisoners: “they lived in hellish conditions, ragged, barefoot, hungry ... I was constantly and severely beaten, deprived of food and water, tortured ...”, “They shot, flogged, poisoned with dogs, drowned in water, beaten with sticks, starved. Infected with tuberculosis ... strangled by a cyclone. Poisoned with chlorine. Burned ... ".

The corpses were skinned and hair cut off - all this was later used in the German textile industry. Doctor Mengele became famous for his horrific experiments on prisoners, from whose hand thousands of people died. He investigated the mental and physical exhaustion of the body. He conducted experiments on twins, during which they transplanted organs from each other, transfused blood, sisters were forced to give birth to children from their own brothers. He did sex reassignment surgery.

All fascist concentration camps became famous for such bullying, we will consider the names and conditions of detention in the main ones below.

Camp ration

Usually the daily ration in the camp was as follows:

• bread - 130 gr;
• fat - 20 gr;
• meat - 30 gr;
• cereals - 120 gr;
• sugar - 27 gr.

Bread was handed out, and the rest of the food was used for cooking, which consisted of soup (given out 1 or 2 times a day) and porridge (150-200 gr). It should be noted that such a diet was intended only for workers. Those who for some reason remained unemployed received even less. Usually their portion consisted of only half a serving of bread.

List of concentration camps in different countries

Nazi concentration camps were created in the territories of Germany, allied and occupied countries. The list of them is long, but we will name the main ones:

• On the territory of Germany - Halle, Buchenwald, Cottbus, Dusseldorf, Schlieben, Ravensbrück, Esse, Spremberg;
• Austria - Mauthausen, Amstetten;
• France - Nancy, Reims, Mulhouse;
• Poland - Majdanek, Krasnik, Radom, Auschwitz, Przemysl;
• Lithuania - Dimitravas, Alytus, Kaunas;
• Czechoslovakia - Kunta-gora, Natra, Glinsko;
• Estonia - Pirkul, Parnu, Klooga;
• Belarus - Minsk, Baranovichi;
• Latvia - Salaspils.

And this is not a complete list of all the concentration camps that were built by Nazi Germany in the pre-war and war years.

Salaspils

Salaspils, one might say, is the most terrible concentration camp of the Nazis, because, in addition to prisoners of war and Jews, children were also kept there. It was located on the territory of occupied Latvia and was the central eastern camp. It was located near Riga and functioned from 1941 (September) to 1944 (summer).

Children in this camp were not only kept separately from adults and massacred, but were used as blood donors for German soldiers. Every day, about half a liter of blood was taken from all children, which led to the rapid death of donors.

Salaspils was not like Auschwitz or Majdanek (extermination camps), where people were herded into gas chambers and then their corpses were burned. It was sent to medical research, during which more than 100,000 people died. Salaspils was not like other Nazi concentration camps. The torture of children here was a routine affair that proceeded according to a schedule with meticulous records of the results.

Experiments on children

The testimonies of witnesses and the results of investigations revealed the following methods of extermination of people in the Salaspils camp: beatings, starvation, arsenic poisoning, injection of dangerous substances (most often for children), performing surgical operations without painkillers, pumping out blood (only for children), executions, torture, useless severe labor (carrying stones from place to place), gas chambers, burying alive. In order to save ammunition, the camp charter prescribed that children should be killed only with rifle butts. The atrocities of the Nazis in the concentration camps surpassed everything that humanity has seen in the New Age. Such an attitude towards people cannot be justified, because it violates all conceivable and inconceivable moral commandments.

Children did not stay long with their mothers, usually they were quickly taken away and distributed. So, children under the age of six were in a special barracks, where they were infected with measles. But they did not treat, but aggravated the disease, for example, by bathing, which is why the children died in 3-4 days. In this way, the Germans killed more than 3,000 people in one year. The bodies of the dead were partly burned, and partly buried in the camp.

The following figures were given in the Act of the Nuremberg trials “on the extermination of children”: during the excavation of only a fifth of the territory of the concentration camp, 633 children's bodies aged 5 to 9 years were found, arranged in layers; a platform soaked in an oily substance was also found, where the remains of unburned children's bones (teeth, ribs, joints, etc.) were found.

Salaspils is truly the most terrible concentration camp of the Nazis, because the atrocities described above are far from all the torments to which the prisoners were subjected. So, in winter, the children brought in barefoot and naked were driven to a half-kilometer barrack, where they had to wash in ice water. After that, the children were driven to the next building in the same way, where they were kept in the cold for 5-6 days. At the same time, the age of the eldest child did not even reach 12 years. All who survived after this procedure were also subjected to arsenic etching.

Infants were kept separately, injections were given to them, from which the child died in agony in a few days. They gave us coffee and poisoned cereals. About 150 children per day died from the experiments. The bodies of the dead were taken out in large baskets and burned, thrown into cesspools or buried near the camp.

Ravensbrück

If we start listing the women's concentration camps of the Nazis, then Ravensbrück will be in the first place. It was the only camp of this type in Germany. It held thirty thousand prisoners, but by the end of the war was overcrowded by fifteen thousand. Mostly Russian and Polish women were kept, Jews accounted for about 15 percent. There were no written instructions regarding torture and torture; the overseers chose the line of conduct themselves.

Arriving women were undressed, shaved, washed, given a robe and assigned a number. Also, the clothes indicated racial affiliation. People turned into impersonal cattle. In small barracks (in the post-war years, 2-3 refugee families lived in them) about three hundred prisoners were kept, who were placed on three-story bunks. When the camp was overcrowded, up to a thousand people were driven into these cells, who had to sleep seven of them on the same bunk. There were several toilets and a washbasin in the barracks, but there were so few of them that the floors were littered with excrement after a few days. Such a picture was presented by almost all Nazi concentration camps (the photos presented here are only a small fraction of all the horrors).

But not all women ended up in the concentration camp; a selection was made beforehand. The strong and hardy, fit for work, were left, and the rest were destroyed. Prisoners worked at construction sites and sewing workshops.

Gradually, Ravensbrück was equipped with a crematorium, like all Nazi concentration camps. Gas chambers (nicknamed gas chambers by prisoners) appeared already at the end of the war. The ashes from the crematoria were sent to nearby fields as fertilizer.

Experiments were also carried out in Ravensbrück. In a special barrack, called the "infirmary", German scientists tested new drugs, first infecting or crippling the test subjects. There were few survivors, but even those suffered for the rest of their lives from what they suffered. Experiments were also conducted with the irradiation of women with X-rays, from which hair fell out, skin was pigmented, and death occurred. Genital organs were cut out, after which few survived, and even those quickly grew old, and at 18 they looked like old women. Similar experiments were carried out by all concentration camps of the Nazis, the torture of women and children is the main crime of Nazi Germany against humanity.

At the time of the liberation of the concentration camp by the Allies, five thousand women remained there, the rest were killed or transported to other places of detention. The Soviet troops who arrived in April 1945 adapted the camp barracks for the settlement of refugees. Later, Ravensbrück turned into a stationing point for Soviet military units.

Nazi concentration camps: Buchenwald

The construction of the camp began in 1933, near the town of Weimar. Soon, Soviet prisoners of war began to arrive, who became the first prisoners, and they completed the construction of the "hellish" concentration camp.

The structure of all structures was strictly thought out. Immediately outside the gates began "Appelplat" (parade ground), specially designed for the formation of prisoners. Its capacity was twenty thousand people. Not far from the gate was a punishment cell for interrogations, and opposite the office was located, where the camp leader and the officer on duty lived - the camp authorities. Deeper were the barracks for prisoners. All barracks were numbered, there were 52 of them. At the same time, 43 were intended for housing, and workshops were arranged in the rest.

The Nazi concentration camps left behind a terrible memory, their names still cause fear and shock in many, but the most terrifying of them is Buchenwald. The crematorium was considered the most terrible place. People were invited there under the pretext of a medical examination. When the prisoner undressed, he was shot, and the body was sent to the oven.

Only men were kept in Buchenwald. Upon arrival at the camp, they were assigned a number in German, which they had to learn in the first day. The prisoners worked at the Gustlovsky weapons factory, which was located a few kilometers from the camp.

Continuing to describe the concentration camps of the Nazis, let us turn to the so-called "small camp" of Buchenwald.

Small Camp Buchenwald

The "Small Camp" was the quarantine zone. Living conditions here were, even in comparison with the main camp, simply hellish. In 1944, when the German troops began to retreat, prisoners from Auschwitz and the Compiègne camp were brought to this camp, mostly Soviet citizens, Poles and Czechs, and later Jews. There was not enough space for everyone, so some of the prisoners (six thousand people) were placed in tents. The closer 1945 was, the more prisoners were transported. Meanwhile, the "small camp" included 12 barracks measuring 40 x 50 meters. Torture in the concentration camps of the Nazis was not only specially planned or for scientific purposes, the very life in such a place was torture. 750 people lived in the barracks, their daily ration consisted of a small piece of bread, the unemployed were no longer supposed to.

Relations among the prisoners were tough, cases of cannibalism and murder for someone else's portion of bread were documented. It was a common practice to store the bodies of the dead in barracks in order to receive their rations. The clothes of the deceased were divided among his cellmates, and they often fought over them. Due to such conditions, infectious diseases were common in the camp. Vaccinations only exacerbated the situation, as injection syringes were not changed.

The photo is simply not able to convey all the inhumanity and horror of the Nazi concentration camp. Witness accounts are not for the faint of heart. In each camp, not excluding Buchenwald, there were medical groups of doctors who conducted experiments on prisoners. It should be noted that the data they obtained allowed German medicine to take a step forward - there were not so many experimental people in any country in the world. Another question is whether it was worth the millions of tortured children and women, those inhuman sufferings that these innocent people endured.

Prisoners were irradiated, healthy limbs were amputated and organs were cut out, sterilized, castrated. They tested how long a person is able to withstand extreme cold or heat. Specially infected with diseases, introduced experimental drugs. So, in Buchenwald, an anti-typhoid vaccine was developed. In addition to typhoid, the prisoners were infected with smallpox, yellow fever, diphtheria, and paratyphoid.

Since 1939, the camp was run by Karl Koch. His wife, Ilse, was nicknamed the "Buchenwald witch" for her love of sadism and inhuman abuse of prisoners. She was more feared than her husband (Karl Koch) and the Nazi doctors. She was later nicknamed "Frau Lampshade". The woman owes this nickname to the fact that she made various decorative things from the skin of the killed prisoners, in particular, lampshades, which she was very proud of. Most of all, she liked to use the skin of Russian prisoners with tattoos on their backs and chests, as well as the skin of gypsies. Things made of such material seemed to her the most elegant.

The liberation of Buchenwald took place on April 11, 1945 by the hands of the prisoners themselves. Having learned about the approach of the allied troops, they disarmed the guards, captured the camp leadership and ran the camp for two days until the American soldiers approached.

Auschwitz (Auschwitz-Birkenau)

Listing the concentration camps of the Nazis, Auschwitz cannot be ignored. It was one of the largest concentration camps, in which, according to various sources, from one and a half to four million people died. The exact details of the dead have not yet been clarified. Most of the victims were Jewish prisoners of war, who were destroyed immediately upon arrival in the gas chambers.

The concentration camp complex itself was called Auschwitz-Birkenau and was located on the outskirts of the Polish city of Auschwitz, whose name has become a household name. Above the camp gates were engraved the following words: "Work sets you free."

This huge complex, built in 1940, consisted of three camps:

• Auschwitz I or the main camp - the administration was located here;
• Auschwitz II or "Birkenau" - was called the death camp;
• Auschwitz III or Buna Monowitz.

Initially, the camp was small and intended for political prisoners. But gradually more and more prisoners arrived in the camp, 70% of whom were destroyed immediately. Many tortures in Nazi concentration camps were borrowed from Auschwitz. So, the first gas chamber began to function in 1941. Gas "Cyclone B" was used. For the first time, the terrible invention was tested on Soviet and Polish prisoners with a total number of about nine hundred people.

Auschwitz II began its operation on March 1, 1942. Its territory included four crematoria and two gas chambers. In the same year, medical experiments began on women and men for sterilization and castration.

Small camps gradually formed around Birkenau, where prisoners were kept working in factories and mines. One of these camps gradually grew and became known as Auschwitz III or Buna Monowitz. About ten thousand prisoners were kept here.

Like any Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz was well guarded. Contacts with the outside world were forbidden, the territory was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, guard posts were set up around the camp at a distance of a kilometer.

On the territory of Auschwitz, five crematoria were continuously operating, which, according to experts, had a monthly output of approximately 270,000 corpses.

On January 27, 1945, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp was liberated by Soviet troops. By that time, about seven thousand prisoners remained alive. Such a small number of survivors is due to the fact that about a year before that, mass murders in gas chambers (gas chambers) began in the concentration camp.

Since 1947, a museum and a memorial complex dedicated to the memory of all those who died at the hands of Nazi Germany began to function on the territory of the former concentration camp.

Conclusion

For the entire duration of the war, according to statistics, approximately four and a half million Soviet citizens were captured. They were mostly civilians from the occupied territories. It's hard to imagine what these people went through. But not only the bullying of the Nazis in the concentration camps was destined to be demolished by them. Thanks to Stalin, after their release, when they returned home, they received the stigma of "traitors". At home, the Gulag was waiting for them, and their families were subjected to serious repression. One captivity was replaced by another for them. In fear for their lives and the lives of their loved ones, they changed their last names and tried in every possible way to hide their experiences.

Until recently, information about the fate of prisoners after their release was not advertised and hushed up. But the people who survived this simply should not be forgotten.