In Auschwitz, SS doctors used prisoners as human subjects for experiments. They sterilised women and men, infected prisoners with diseases, tested drugs on them and killed them so that their organs could be studied. These so-called medical experiments were not science. They were crimes committed by trained physicians against people who had no possibility of refusing.
Why did SS doctors experiment on prisoners?
For the SS, the camps were a supply of people whose lives had no value. Some experiments served the racial policy of Nazi Germany: the search for a cheap method of mass sterilisation was meant to prevent “undesirable” groups from having children. Others were carried out for German pharmaceutical companies, or simply served the careers of individual doctors who wanted material for their research.
Most of the victims were Jews, but Roma and Sinti, Poles and Soviet prisoners of war were also used. Many died during or after the experiments; others were killed so that their bodies could be examined, and the survivors suffered lasting physical and psychological harm.
Block 10: sterilisation experiments on women
In Block 10 of Auschwitz I, the gynaecologist Carl Clauberg tested a method of sterilising women without surgery by injecting a chemical substance into the uterus. Several hundred Jewish women were held in the block for his experiments. The injections caused severe pain, inflammation and lasting damage; some women died, and others were killed so that autopsies could be performed.
X-ray sterilisation in Birkenau
In Birkenau, the SS doctor Horst Schumann tested sterilisation by X-rays on Jewish men and women. Prisoners were exposed to high doses of radiation, which caused severe burns, and many later died. Some of the men were afterwards castrated so that their organs could be examined. In 1944 Schumann himself concluded that surgical castration was quicker and more certain than his method.
Josef Mengele: twins, dwarfism and noma
The best-known of the Auschwitz doctors is Josef Mengele, who arrived in the camp in May 1943 and became chief physician of the Roma family camp in Birkenau. He was obsessed with twins, whom he looked for among new arrivals on the unloading ramp, as well as people with dwarfism and other unusual physical features. He also studied noma, a disease that destroys the tissue of the face, which spread among Roma children in the camp.
Mengele’s subjects were measured, photographed and examined, sometimes for weeks. Some were then killed by phenol injection so that their organs could be compared at autopsy. Organs, blood samples and even whole heads were sent to research institutes in Germany, including the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin-Dahlem. Read more about the twins in our article on children in Auschwitz.
Other doctors and experiments
Several other SS doctors used Auschwitz prisoners for research:
- Johann Paul Kremer studied the effects of starvation on the liver. He selected emaciated prisoners, had them killed by phenol injection and removed their organs for examination.
- Friedrich Entress, Helmuth Vetter and Eduard Wirths tested new drugs on prisoners from 1941 to 1944, some of whom were deliberately infected with diseases. Some of the tests were commissioned by IG Farben, particularly its Bayer division.
- August Hirt and Bruno Beger selected 115 prisoners in Auschwitz for a “skeleton collection” planned for the university in Strasbourg. In 1943 they were transported to the Natzweiler-Struthof camp and murdered in its gas chamber.
What happened to the doctors after the war?
Few of the Auschwitz doctors were punished in proportion to their crimes. Johann Paul Kremer was sentenced to death in Kraków in 1947; the sentence was commuted, and he was released in 1958. Carl Clauberg was arrested by the Soviets and later released to West Germany, where he was arrested again but died in 1957 before he could be tried. Horst Schumann practised medicine abroad for years before being extradited to West Germany; his trial was halted because of ill health. Eduard Wirths took his own life in 1945.
Josef Mengele escaped to South America after the war. He was never caught and died in Brazil in 1979. His crimes were confirmed by the testimony of surviving twins, many of whom spoke publicly for the rest of their lives.
Remembrance
Today Block 10 stands in the main camp at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial, next to Block 11 and the Death Wall. The experiments carried out at Auschwitz and other camps led directly to the Nuremberg Code of 1947, which set out the principle that no one may be made the subject of medical research without their voluntary consent.
For more about the camp and its victims, see our article on the three main camps of Auschwitz.
Many of the victims of these experiments were Roma and Sinti prisoners. Read more about the camp staff and their trials in our article on the SS at Auschwitz.
Frequently asked questions
SS doctors carried out sterilisation experiments on women and men, X-ray experiments, drug tests on deliberately infected prisoners, and Josef Mengele’s experiments on twins and other prisoners.
A block in the main camp where the SS doctor Carl Clauberg carried out sterilisation experiments on several hundred Jewish women.
He escaped to South America after the war, was never caught and died in Brazil in 1979.
Plan your visit to the Memorial
Visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau in person is the most powerful way to understand its history. We organise guided visits with licensed Memorial educators from Kraków, Warsaw, Prague, Vienna and other cities. See our tours
