Gatekeepers of Extermination: SS Camp Physicians and Their Scope of Action.

The role of camp physicians of the Waffen-SS ("Armed SS," military branch of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel) in the implementation of the Holocaust has been the subject of limited research, even though they occupied a key position in the extermination process. From 1943 and 1944 onward, SS camp physicians made the individual medical decisions on whether each prisoner was fit for work or was immediately subjected to extermination, not only at the Auschwitz labor and extermination camp but also in pure labor camps like Buchenwald and Dachau. This was due to a functional change in the concentration camp system during World War II, where the selection of prisoners, which had previously been carried out by nonmedical SS camp staff, became a main task of the medical camp staff. The initiative to transfer sole responsibility for the selections came from the physicians themselves and was influenced by structural racism, sociobiologically oriented medical expertise, and pure economic rationality. It can be seen as a further radicalization of the decision making practiced until then in the murder of the sick. However, there was a far-reaching scope of action within the hierarchical structures of the Waffen-SS medical service on both the macro and micro levels. But what can this teach us for medical practice today? The historical experience of the Holocaust and Nazi medicine can provide a moral compass for physicians to be sensitive to the potential for abuse of power and ethical dilemmas inherent in medicine. Thus, the lessons from the Holocaust could be a starting point for reflecting on the value of human life in the modern economized and highly hierarchical medical sector.

Hunger Disease in Southern France Internment Camps during World War II: The Pioneering Studies of Dr. Joseph Weill.

BACKGROUND: Dr. Joseph Weill was a French Jewish doctor who made significant contributions to the knowledge of hunger disease in the refugee camps in southern France during World War II. He was involved with the clandestine network of escape routes for Jewish children from Nazi-occupied France to Switzerland. Take home messages • During the Holocaust, in the ghettoes and death camps, a few research projects, mainly on hunger and infectious diseases, were performed by Jewish physicians and scientists • Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners were incarcerated within the notorious system of internment camps in southern France • Dr. Joseph Weill (1902-1988), a French Jewish physician and a distinguished member of the Résistance managed to enter the internment camps and medically assist the inmates in addition to performing systematic research and follow-up of those who presented with hunger disease.

Genetic and phylogeographic evidence for Jewish Holocaust victims at the Sobibór death camp.

Six million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. Archaeological excavations in the area of the death camp in Sobibór, Poland, revealed ten sets of human skeletal remains presumptively assigned to Polish victims of the totalitarian regimes. However, their genetic analyses indicate that the remains are of Ashkenazi Jews murdered as part of the mass extermination of European Jews by the Nazi regime and not of otherwise hypothesised non-Jewish partisan combatants. In accordance with traditional Jewish rite, the remains were reburied in the presence of a Rabbi at the place of their discovery.

Excavation of mass graves with Serbian context: Complexity of the political milieu.

This paper will discuss the complexity of the investigation of mass graves in today's Serbia (part of ex Yugoslavia), belonging primarily to WWII with an exception of one mass grave from WWI, through the prism of historical events behind it. By interpreting historical and political circumstances, we will show why and on what occasions mass graves, as cultural-historical monuments and symbols of the sufferings of Serbs, Jews, Romani, and other nations or ethnic groups, remained outside the focus of expert teams. Also, through examples of explored sites related to WWII (Visnjica, Topola, Kragujevac, Ada Ciganlija), it will be shown the importance of engaging the forensic expert teams to locate sites, identifing victims and interpretation of historical events from their perspective.

The eyes of the angel of death: Ophthalmic experiments of Josef Mengele.

The infamous Schutzstaffel doctor Josef Mengele was known as the Angel of Death for choosing and condemning Jews, gypsies, and other prisoners to the gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Less known was his active participation in ophthalmic research with equal disregard for life and ethical principles. Mengele was not an ophthalmologist, but he worked in close collaboration and complicity with two genetic researchers at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, Karin Magnussen and Otmar Von Verschuer. The objective of the eye color protocol was to demonstrate hereditary differences in iris structure determined by race and ostensibly to "cure" heterochromia. Mengele sent heterochromous Gypsy eyes to Magnussen, extracted from the bodies of inmates who died (or he killed). Mengele injected adrenaline into children's eyes in an attempt to change eye color and to study environmental influences. Mengele was undoubtedly influenced to conduct these human experiments by his great ambition to publish to obtain academic promotion. These ophthalmologic experiments not only solidify Mengele's reputation as an angel of death but also show the symbiosis that existed between the concentration camp physicians and others in the Nazi medical establishment. Ophthalmology, like all of medicine, has had its share of unethical experimentation, but none with more disregard for life and ethical principles than that of Mengele at Auschwitz.

The Eye Color Experiment: From Berlin to Auschwitz and Back.

BACKGROUND: In an effort to alter eye color during World War II, devout Nazi researcher Karin Magnussen had adrenaline eye drops administered to inmates at the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. A Sinti family, with a high prevalence of heterochromia iridis, was forced to participate in this study. Members of this family, as well as other victims, were later killed and had their eyes enucleated and sent to Magnussen for examination. Magnussen articulated the findings of these events in a manuscript that has never been published. The author is the first ophthalmologist to review this manuscript. The generation who experienced the atrocities of World War II will soon be gone and awareness of what happened during this tragic chapter of world history is fading. OBJECTIVES: To describe these events to raise awareness among future generations. METHODS: A literature review and archival search was conducted. RESULTS: Magnussen's research was based on an animal study published in 1937. For Magnussen's study, adrenaline drops were administered to inmates, including a 12-year-old girl from the Sinti family. As there was a reported case of deaf-mutism within the family, Waardenburg syndrome seems to be the most plausible explanation for this family's heritable heterochromia. CONCLUSIONS: The effort to change eye color was doomed to fail from the beginning because there was a probable diagnosis of Waardenburg syndrome. Extinction of humans for ophthalmological research is an insane act beyond imagination. For the sake of these victims, and for the generations who still feel their pain, it is imperative to tell their stories.

The destiny of Italian prisoners in Austro-Hungarian POW camps during the First World War: remembering the defeat of Caporetto 100 years on.

The living conditions of Italian prisoners during the First World War were extremely difficult. At the end of the conflict, the treatment of Italian soldiers in Austro-Hungarian POW camps and in those of the German territories was recognized as particularly harsh in comparison with that of other prisoners. The reasons may be ascribed to three main factors. The Italian prisoners paid the price of being considered traitors, since Italy was allied with the Austro-Hungarian Empire and with Germany until 1914, subsequently switching to the side of France, the United Kingdom and Russia. The Italian government and the Italian High Command considered their soldiers poorly inclined to engage in a war which became over time increasingly costly in terms of human sacrifice. The strategy pursued by the General-in-Chief Luigi Cadorna was very aggressive and showed little care for the life conditions of his troops, who were frequently thrown into the fray and exposed to potential slaughter. Due to this negative judgement on their troops' willingness to fight, the government did not help, and even hindered, the despatch of packages of food and clothes to prisoners in the Austro-Hungarian and German camps via the Red Cross. The idea of a better life in the trenches compared with that expected in the camps as prisoners was widespread. Thirdly, the maritime blockade of the Adriatic Sea over time reduced to starvation the populations of Austria, Hungary and Germany, which obviously had grave repercussions on prisoners. It was estimated that around 100,000 Italians lost their lives in POW camps; after the defeat at Caporetto, when over 250,000 prisoners were captured, the number of deaths rose. The main causes of death were: tuberculosis, pneumonia, malnutrition and typhoid fever. At the end of the war, when coming back to Italy, former POWs were interned for months in camps (located predominantly in the Emilia region) and had to face interrogation and trials to demonstrate they were not deserters and were free to go back home. In the meantime, many lost their lives due to "Spanish" flu, pneumonia and other infectious diseases. Only the mobilization both of families and public opinion forced the Italian government to close the camps at the end of the year 1919.

"The Vienna Protocol: Medicine's confrontation with continuing legacies of its Nazi past,".

This letter to the editor describes a symposium on The Vienna Protocol and the legacy of the Pernkopf atlas, which took place as part of the annual Neuberger Holocaust Education week, in Toronto, Canada, on 10. November 2019.

[Hans Wolfgang Sachs (1912-2000) : From Nazi "Volkstumskämpfer" and chief pathologist of the Reich Physician SS to chairholder in the Federal Republic. German version]. / Hans Wolfgang Sachs (1912­2000) : Vom nationalsozialistischen "Volkstumskämpfer" und "Leitenden Pathologen beim Reichsarzt-SS" zum Lehrstuhlinhaber in der Bundesrepublik.

During the Second World War, the German Wehrmacht and the SS tested various chemical warfare agents on prisoners of concentration camps. The SS needed a pathologist to do this. Therefore Reichsarzt SS Ernst-Robert Grawitz recruited the 32-year-old Hans Wolfgang Sachs. Despite his position as senior pathologist at the office of the Reichsarzt SS, Sachs was spared interrogation and prosecution after 1945, although the prosecution presented a document about chemical warfare and human experiments during the Nuremberg medical trial. In this, Sachs was named as a participant in so-called "N-Stoff" (chlorine trifluoride) experiments. Little is known about Sachs to this day. This article is intended to close this gap. Of particular interest are the motives and reasons why Sachs joined the party and the SS, as well as his career after 1945.

Genocides and processes of subjectivation: Auschwitz as a paradigm of destructiveness towards the I-Other link.

The genocides of the previous century made it possible for a group, presenting itself as bearer of legitimacy and common interests, to organize itself in order to eliminate another group of people, regardless of their individuality, merely because they belonged to another group. This is a violation of the basic I-Other bond, which enables identification, communication, psychic life itself. This violation is described in literature on the individual level, from the victims' viewpoints, and socially, from the viewpoints of the perpetrators and unconcerned spectators. The author analyses how the destruction of this basic bond may be tackled in the analysis room, conferring on the analyst the function of participating witness, and on a social level: the collective trauma produces the collapse of the unconscious narcissistic alliances that guarantee both the individual's and the group's psychic survival. Alongside the two great differences that provide grounds for violence - the differences between the sexes and between generations - Kaës asserts that there exists another great difference that is just as significant in causing violence, that which organizes the narcissistic position of the individual with respect to the group. The work of elaboration concerns the narcissistic contracts rooted in intersubjectivity, which allow for a shared life without annihilating healthy individual narcissism in its self-referential and group aspects.

Entre los campos y los hospitales ayuda médica humanitaria a los refugiados republicanos españoles en Francia (1939-1950) / No disponible

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La ayuda cuáquera británica a los exiliados republicanos españoles en los campos de concentración del sur de Francia (1939-1940) / No disponible

Cuando, en enero de 1939, el fin de la República se volvió trágicamente inevitable, miles de personas tanto civiles como militares, huyeron al norte, a Francia, en lo que se conocería como la «Retirada». Fueron acompañadas por voluntarios de varias agencias humanitarias, entre las cuales destacaron los cuáqueros británicos. Éstos distribuyeron alimentos y ropa, y proporcionaron ayuda médica a las muchedumbres de refugiados a lo largo del camino hacia la frontera. Los cuáqueros atendieron, por un lado, a las mujeres y los niños que fueron diseminados por la amplia geografía francesa y, por otro, prestaron ayuda a los centenares de miles de refugiados que fueron Conducidos a las playas y cercados por alambradas de espino, sin cobijo, ni comida, ni letrinas. Los cuáqueros fueron los primeros en conseguir los permisos necesarios para acceder a los campos de internamiento a fin de paliar, en la medida de lo posible, la magnitud de la tragedia, aportando no solamente los elementos más básicos, como alimentos y ropa, sino también lápices y cuadernos para escribir, así como herramientas y materiales de todo tipo para trabajar. Además, la intervención de los cuáqueros fue decisiva, en muchos casos, para librar de la pesadilla de los campos a numerosos refugiados

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La enfermería en el exilio republicano español de 1939 a Francia una aproximación para su estudio / No disponible

Entre enero y febrero de 1939 pasaron por la frontera pirenaica cerca de medio millón de refugiados republicanos españoles -movimiento poblacional conocido como la «Retirada»-. A pesar de que el colectivo de enfermería fue el grupo profesional sanitario más numeroso en el exilio, apenas contamos con investigaciones que visibilicen su labor durante los primeros meses de la «Retirada» en Francia. Este trabajo pretende identificar la labor asistencial desarrollada por el colectivo de enfermería, español y francés, entre enero y septiembre de 1939, y analizar las variables de invisibilidad y desigualdad de género sobre la actuación de las enfermeras. Para ello se ha consultado documentación de once archivos franceses, prensa histórica, literatura sanitaria de la época y testimonios de algunas enfermeras y refugiados. Se ha podido visibilizar el cuidado ejercido por las enfermeras de la Cruz Roja francesa, que fue desvirtuado por la prensa conservadora francesa, y el de las enfermeras españolas, que quedaron en un segundo plano debido a su condición subalterna y femenina. Finalmente, se identifican cuáles son las principales dificultades y oportunidades para futuros trabajos sobre la enfermería española en el exilio republicano de 1939 en Francia

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Las secuelas patológicas de los campos de concentración entre los refugiados españoles en Francia retos diagnósticos y terapéuticos en el Hospital Varsovia de Toulouse (1944-1950) / No disponible

A partir de la primavera de 1945, el Hospital Varsovia de Toulouse dispensó asistencia médica a miles de refugiados republicanos españoles que permanecían exiliados en el sur de Francia. Este hospital había sido fundado en el otoño de 1944 en las afueras de Toulouse tras la invasión del Valle de Arán en el marco de la llamada Operación Reconquista de España. Revisando los numerosos casos clínicos que aparecen en las páginas de la revista Anales del Hospital Varsovia (1948-1950), se advierte que muchos pacientes presentaban enfermedades contraídas en los campos de concentración a causa de las pésimas condiciones de vida en un régimen de confinamiento. En su práctica asistencial, los médicos observaban cuadros clínicos insidiosos, de difícil diagnóstico, que tras sucesivas pruebas clínicas y de laboratorio revelaban enfermedades carenciales larvadas (debidas a la malnutrición), infecciones crónicas ocultas (tuberculosis y parasitosis intestinales) y enfermedades de transmisión sexual

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No Proof Found of Anesthesia Involvement in Medical Misconduct During the Nazi Period. Investigation of the Alleged Purchase of 150 Inmates From Auschwitz Concentration Camp by Bayer to Test a New Narcotic.

A comprehensive investigation was undertaken to find evidence of the frequently reported, but never authenticated, "purchase of 150 inmates" from Auschwitz concentration camp by Bayer to test a new narcotic, resulting in the death of all investigated inmates. The archives of Auschwitz camp, Bayer, and the so-called former Soviet Union, where evidence of this alleged misconduct could have been saved, were investigated, but no evidence was found. Many records concerning concentration camp experiments on humans had been destroyed, but given the Nazis' meticulous record-keeping, the death of 150 inmates should have been recorded somewhere. Unethical medical research was indeed undertaken by physicians in concentration camps in many medical specialties, but no records regarding anesthesia-related medical misconduct during the Nazi period were found despite the allegations to the contrary that have been investigated here.

Quantifying the Holocaust: Hyperintense kill rates during the Nazi genocide.

Operation Reinhard (1942-1943) was the largest single murder campaign of the Holocaust, during which some 1.7 million Jews from German-occupied Poland were murdered by the Nazis. Most perished in gas chambers at the death camps Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. However, the tempo, kill rates, and spatial dynamics of these events were poorly documented. Using an unusual dataset originating from railway transportation records, this study identifies an extreme phase of hyperintense killing when >1.47 million Jews-more than 25% of the Jews killed in all 6 years of World War II-were murdered by the Nazis in an intense,100-day (~3-month) surge. Operation Reinhard is shown to be an extreme event, based on kill rate, number, and proportion (>99.9%) of the population murdered in camps, highlighting its singularly violent character, even compared to other more recent genocides. The Holocaust kill rate is some 10 times higher than estimates suggested by authorities on comparative genocide.

La situación sociosanitaria de los refugiados civiles españoles en Francia, marzo-junio de 1939 / The socio-health reality of Spanish civil refugees in France, March-June 1939

El artículo intenta aproximarse a la realidad sociosanitaria de más de 210 mil refugiados civiles que cruzaron la frontera pirenaica en el invierno de 1939. Este colectivo estuvo constituido principalmente por mujeres, niños y ancianos. A su llegada a Francia, la población civil fue reconducida hacía más de 1.500 centros de alojamiento. Nos encontramos ante espacios que se diferenciaron de los campos de concentración en lo que respecta a libertad y trato humano. Hemos podido acercarnos a esta realidad gracias a los informes emitidos por las delegadas de la Commission d'Aide aux Enfants Espagnols Refugies en France entre marzo y junio de 1939

The aim of this paper consist in approaching the socio-health reality of more than 210,000 civilian refugees who crossed the Pyrenean border during the winter of 1939. This group mainly comprised women, children, and the elderly. Upon arrival in France, these civilians were redirected to more than 1,500 housing centers, which differed from concentration camps in terms of freedom and human treatment. We have been able to know details about their experience thanks to reports by the delegates of the Commission d'Aide aux Enfants Espagnols Refugies en France between March and June 1939