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Medical Experimentation: Clauberg & Mandel

Clauberg

Professor Carl Clauberg performed experiments into sterilization at both Auschwitz and Ravensbrück. This was done on Hitler's initiative, as he had been convinced by several doctors that mass sterilization could provide a powerful weapon against Germany's enemies during total war.

Clauberg injected chemical substances into wombs during normal gynocological examinations. Thousands of Jewish and Gypsy (Roma) (Roma) women were subjected to this treatment. Clauberg sought to answer Himmler's query about how long it would take to sterilize one thousand women, and eventually informed him that, using methods he developed, a staff of one doctor and ten assistants could do the job in a single day. The injections totally destroyed the lining membrane of the womb and seriously damaged the ovaries of the victims, which were then removed and sent to Berlin to test the effectiveness of the method (Encyclopedia of the Holocaust,, Vol. 3, p. 964).

Mandel

... after Ravensbruck ... [Maria Mandel] was the head of the women's camp at Auschwitz; the prisoners referred to her as 'the beast.' For her share in the selections for the gas chambers and medical experiments and for her torture of countless prisoners, she was condemned to death in 1947 as a war criminal (Laska, Vera. ed. Women in the Resistance and in the Holocaust: The Voices of Eyewitnesses. CT: Greenwood Press, 1983).


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