During WWII the Nazi party set various Concentration and death camps in order to fulfill their "Final Solution" to the Jewish problem. The camps were mainly filled wioth Jewish prisoners but they also contained; Gypsies, Homosexuals, Catholics, Russians, and People who had known or protected any Jews or other undesirables. Inside the camps people were selected for different fates, some were imidieatly killed, some sent to work, and others were kept for the various medical experiments the Nazi doctors wanted to preform on human subjects.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/holocaust/
The experiments
High altitude
- These were preformed by Dr. Sigmund Rascher. The prisoners were placed in pressure chambers and had the pressure increased and increased up to about 68,000 ft. Their physiological responses were watched as they lost consciousness and died.
Freezing
- These experiments were done to find out what
would happen to men who had to drop into the freezing cold north
sea. They were done by Dr. Sigmund Rascher at Dachau and Auschwitz.
The victims were either placed in a freezing tub of water
or outside in sub zero temperatures. It was learned that most
victims lost consciousness and died when the body reached about
25 C.
Sulfanilamide
- To find ways of counteracting gangrene, the Nazi doctors would deliberately cut open a person's leg or arm and infect it to see how the diseases progressed. They would often infect the war like wounds with gas gangrene and agitate the woulds with glass and sand. They wanted to see if drugs like Sulfanilamide would help to cure the disease.
Twins
- Twins were inspected to see what would happen
to one if something was done to another. They were usually killed
after they had been examined for a few weeks. The doctors wanted
to know how they happened and to see if they could find out
the secret of multiply births in order to populate the would with
more Aryans. These experiments were preformed by the infamous
DR. Joseph Mengele.
Poison
- These experiments were done to find the poison that was most effective for gassing prisoners. The two most often used were Phenol and Cyanide. They would put poison in the prisoner's food or shoot them with poison bullets. Victims who did not die, were killed so that autopsies could be done.
Tuberculosis
- Dr. Kurt Heissmeyer wanted to find a cure for TB so he injected several hundred victims with live TB virus to see if he couldfind a cure. If they did not die from the disease they were killed so that the doctor could perform autopsies.
Bone, muscle, and joint transplantation
- At Ravensbruck doctors trying to find out if body parts could be transplanted, would cut off parts of prisoners bodies and try to attach them to others. They would also cut of bodily organs and try to re-grow them outside the body.
Sterilization
- The main reason for all of the concentration
camps was to find an effective way to get rid of the undesirables,
so one of the experiments was sterilization. Most men were castrated
or had their testies burned by radiation. Women had caustic acids
injected into their uterus'.
Artificial insemination
- Dr. Carl Clauberg preformed artificial insemination experiments on many woman prisoners in Auschwitz. These experiments were preformed to find ways of increasing the Aryan race. He would often taunt the victims, telling them that he had put animal sperm in them and they were growing monsters. These woman lived in Block 10 and were in constant fear that they would be chosen as a "block10 whore."
