Tristan Book

Mrs. Burke

Honors English 11

5/19/17

Found in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Novel

Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Broadway, 2017. Print.

In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, although briefly mentioned, the experiments the

Nazis did parallel the plot of the story in many ways. For example, how Deborah struggled with

illnesses from the medicine, and just like the prisoners struggled to survive because of the

experiments. Also, it is similar to the Hela cells as they were very secretive about them first. By

the same token, not many people knew about the experiments, except the Nazis. Furthermore,

the experiments were and still are highly frowned upon, similar to the treatment of Elsie in the

Hospital for the Negro Insane. Moreover, the experiments on the Holocaust prisoners were

similar to the when the researchers wanted to inject cancer cells into the Jewish patients. As the

researchers wanted to inject the patients with the cancer cells without their consent.

Additionally, the Deborah was similar to the Nazis because not only her but, the Nazis were

curious about the human body and how it worked. Plus the fact, that she was testing medicine on

herself without the intercession of a doctor. However, Deborah was also like a Holocaust

prisoners as information was kept from her in the beginning of the story. Although, the

information that was kept from her did not lead to her death it was still similar as it had to deal

with the human condition. Likewise, her own human condition was in jeopardy, like the
Holocaust victims. A big difference though, would be that while the Nazis where trying to wipe

out the Jewish race. However, the researchers were spreading the Hela cells to study it further.

The cells in a sense were the Nazis as they wanted to spread the Nazi race and obtain power, or

in Helas case wealth.

 Found in The Twins of Auschwitz Article

Walker, Andy. "The Twins of Auschwitz." BBC News. BBC, 28 Jan. 2015. Web. 16 May 2017.

To begin, Josef Mengele originally was an assistant to a well-known researcher who

studied twins. He was so interested in twins he began studying and experimenting a Auschwitz

in May 1943. Furthermore, Professor Paul Weindling at Oxford Brookes University stated, I

found a record of a prisoner doctor and bacteriologist who was forced to work for Mengele that

there were 732 pairs of twins. The children were transported to the camps on cattle cars packed

so tightly the dead were still standing. They were sorted into weak and strong upon arrival who

would be used for work. However, Mengele and his assistants also at the camps in search of

twins. There were a few of the children, who were now older, that had some memory of the

experiments. For example, its stated in the article that Menegele removed organs from people

without anesthetics. Moreover, if one twin died the other would be murdered, they were killed

with an injection to the heart then they proceeded to dissect them. One of the survivors had

memories of being lead into Menegeles laboratory, upon entry she saw a wall of eyes staring

back at her. Menegele was going to kill her but, when he realized she was a twin he saved her.

She was then subjected to experimentation in which they were put in a wooden cage with her

twin and were given painful injections in their backs. In another experiments more than 100

pairs of twins were injection with a bacteria that caused the Noma disease which caused boils

and gangrenous. Earlier, upon arrival at the camp each pair of twins was tattooed with identical

numbers. One of the survivors arrived at the camp at three years old and his number became his

identity, when he left he didnt even know his name.

 Found in the Nazi Science The Dachau Hypothermia Experiments Article

Berger, Robert L., Md. "Nazi Science - The Dachau Hypothermia Experiments." New England

Journal of Medicine. Massachusetts Medical Society, 2017. Web. 21 May 2017.

The immersion-hypothermia project began in August 1942 in the Dachau concentration

camp and was conducted under Dr. Rascher and overseen by Himmler. The reason for the

experiments was to find the best treatment for victims of immersion hypothermia. The

experiments were mostly for the German Air Force who were shot out of the sky and fell into the

frigid sea. Although, the experiments were also for the German forces on the Eastern Front, as

they weren't prepared for the bitter cold and many died. In order to proceed with the experiments

though, they needed test subjects to use. Furthermore, the subjects that were mainly composed

of Jewish and Russian prisoners, but also other prisoners of different religions and nationalities.

Majority of the time their participation was forced but, it was sometimes voluntary as the were

promised things in return, for example their freedom. They divided the experiment into two

parts, how long it took to lower the body temperature to death, and how to resuscitate the victim.

They conducted the experiments using two methods, they would either immerse the person in a

tank of ice water, or they would place them outside in sub-zero temperatures. The test subjects

were either under anesthesia or conscious, but majority of the time they were naked, few were

clothed. They probed the victims before they were placed in the tank, so they could tell the

temperature of their body as they froze. It was recorded that the victims, died or lost

consciousness at 25 degrees Celsius. In the second method, they strapped the victim to stretcher

and stuck them outside naked. Furthermore, Auschwitz was a perfect place for the experiment as

the winters there were extremely cold.

 Found in the Doctors from Hell novel

Spitz, Vivien, and Elie Wiesel. Doctors from Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on

Humans. Boulder, CO: Sentient Publications, 2005. Print.

Inspired by the casualties from gas gangrene on the Russian Front in the winter 1941

1942, and the German soldiers questioning their medical officers, the miracle drug,

sulfanilamide. They first used sulfanilamide to test the effectiveness of sulfa infections, and was

its first trial was in Ravensbrueck, a women's concentration camp. The first test subjects

included fifteen male inmates and sixty Polish women inmates. The first experiments were

tested on on fifteen male inmates to determine how to manifest gangrene infection artificially.

They received a ten centimeter long incision into their muscle then wood shavings, plus the

infectious bacteria were forced into the wounds. They proceeded to make each infection worse

than the next. They continued with the same experiment, except using the female Polish

inmates. There were three progressions to the operations being performed, each involving ten

people. In the first progression they used the bacterial infection and fragments of wood. Then

following in the second progression they used the bacterial infection and fragments of glass.

Finally, in the third progression they used the bacterial infection, not to mention fragments of

wood and glass. Furthermore, because no deaths had occurred they continued the experiments

by they increased the intensity. They accomplished this by tying off the muscles on either end to

interrupt the circulation of blood in the area of the infection. Five were confirmed to have the

died from experiments, and six were executed by shooting at a later date. The inmates were

convinced that they were going to be killed anyway, so they said they were preferred dying to

help in the experiments.

 Found on the Nazi Medical Experimentation: The Ethics of Using Medical Data From

Nazi Experiments Article

Cohen, Baruch C. "Nazi Medical Experimentation." The Ethics Of Using Medical Data From

Nazi Experiments. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, 2017. Web. 22 May 2017.

Doctor Robert Pozos is the Director of the Hypothermia Laboratory at the University of

Minnesota at Duluth. He is devoted to strategies to rewarm frozen victims, but much of what he

and other specialist know is result of trial and error in the hospital emergency rooms. Doctor

Leo Alexander, a major in the United States Army Medical Corps and the psychiatric consultant

to the Secretary of War, wrote a report evaluating the Nazi hypothermia experiments. His

synopsis of the experiments was a bit chilling stating that the Nazi experiments, satisfied all the

criteria of accurate and objective observation and interpretation. Dr. Raschers data though was

inconsistent and historians have suggested a couple of reasons for that. Rascher lied about his

findings to avoid confrontation with Himmler. Then after the German surrender, Himmler found

out and murdered Rascher and his wife, who was also Himmlers mistress. However, experts

have concurred that the Nazi experiments lacked scientific integrity. The Nazis also used some

very horrible terms in their reports that other things. For example, response rate was a

measure of torment, sample size meaning a truck load of Jews, and controlled subjects

meant those who suffered the most and died. Moreover, another example of the Nazi research

that would unethical is transplanting a murdered heart. This when they would take the heart out

of someone who was still living and transplant it into another person, even though both people

have an equal chance of living. Although, some look at the data as there could actually be some

data worth using as it could actually save people. Author Kristine Moe suggested, Nor,

however; should we let the inhumanity of such experiments bind us to the possibility that some
good may be salvaged from the ashes. While the data is soaked it the blood of the victims

and morally tainted, one cannot escape confronting the dreaded possibility that the doctors

actually learned something.