by Anne S. Reamey
S.S.-Hauptsturmführer Prof. Dr. August Hirt was born
April 28, 1898 in Mannheim, Germany1 to an old Strasbourg family. Little is
known of the life of August Hirt prior to his involvement with the Ahnenerbe
leading up to and during World War II, but due to his role in several radical
medical experiments and collections, his works during the war have been closely
examined. He joined the Institute of Anatomy at the Reichsuniversität
(initially the University of Strasbourg, overtaken and turned to the Anatomisches
Institut der Reichsuniversität2) early in 1941 where he became the chairman of
the anatomy department3. When Hirt became employed at the University4 he was
already an established member of the S.S. and the Ahnenerbe Society5 (the
Society for the Heritage of the Ancestors).6
August Hirt, like many Nazi doctors, is most closely
associated with his role in the medical experimentation on and gassings of
groups of Jewish prisoners. What makes him unique was motive: instead of seeing
the gassing of prisoners as a quick and effective method of extermination, Hirt
wanted to significantly expand the skull and skeleton collection for his
institute at the University of Strasbourg.7 He wanted to create a museum of
"sub-humans, in which proofs of the degeneracy and the animality of the
Jews would be collected." Hirt considered it to be a task of upmost
importance and extremely time-sensitive since soon the Jewish population would
be completely exterminated, at which point Jewish "skeletons would be as
rare and precious as a diplodocus… "." 8
The Report of Death: Catalyst for
the Collection of Medical Research
Attached to a letter from Ostuf. (Obersturmführer -
First Lieutenant) Wolfram Sievers (Reich Secretary of the Ahnenerbe Society) to
Stbf. (Sturmbannführer - Major) Dr. Rudolf Brandt,9 was a report written by
Hirt in February 1942 describing the minimal amount of Jewish skulls existing
at the Strasbourg Reich University (Reichsuniversität Strasbourg), and how to
best procure the desired number of additional skulls through the assistance of
the field Military Police ("Feldpolizei").10 It should be noted that
in the report, the skulls requested for procurement were those of "Jewish
Bolshevik Commissars". Historian Heather Pringle points out in her book,
The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust, that "by
"commissars," the army actually meant "Jews." Nazi
propagandists had skillfully portrayed Soviet political officers and officials
as Jews for years, and so deeply engrained was this notion in the minds of many
SS and Wehrmacht officers that they simply accepted it as fact."11
In addition to Hirt's personal interest in the
collection of skulls he hoped to obtain, it has also been suggested that Hirt
himself had considered getting into the skull mail-order business12 as an
additional source of income.
Himmler's Response to Hirt's
Deadly Proposal
Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler received Hirt's
report with great enthusiasm. He was "prodigiously interested" in the
project, considering it to be of "enormous value,"13 and according to
Jean-Claude Pressac, he "unceasingly gave his entire support to Professor
Hirt's proposal."14 Soon after his receipt of the report, Himmler sent
Wolfram Sievers15 of the Ahnenerbe Society to meet with Hirt personally, and
agreed to the importance of his research. Sievers then worked with Hirt to determine
the best method of transportation of his victims.
A letter used as evidence during the war crime trials
at Nuremburg, includes an attachment with a report on "securing skulls of
Jewish-Bolshevik Commissars for the purpose of scientific research," which
initially allowed Dr. August Hirt to begin his gassings of Auschwitz Jews at
Natzweiler - Struthof. A reproduction can be found here.
The Compounding of Hate:
Multi-faceted Anti-Semitism Meets the "Final Solution"
So what was it in Hirt's report that caught the eye of
Himmler and caused him to be supportive of the proposed "scientific"
endeavor? While the Jews were on the top of Hitler's list for extermination,
Himmler and Hirt brought together two strands of anti-Semitism: rumors of
Jewish conspirators and racism. During the proceedings of the fourth Yad Vashem
International Historical Conference, Robert Jay Lifton explained, "On one
hand, there is the mystical tradition of anti-Semitism and racism as
exemplified by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion - the notorious forgery
around the idea of a Jewish world conspiracy involving Jewish Bolsheviks and
Jewish capitalists. On the other, there is the "scientific" racism
that his study of these skulls directly reflects."16
In the case of Hirt's proposed skull collection
enhancement, timing was everything: Only a month prior to Hirt's proposal, a
new policy had been secretly adopted at a villa overlooking Großer Wannsee17
that would be known as the "Final Solution." In addition to their
decision to exterminate the Jews of Europe, and eventually the world, was the
debate of what to do with the Mischlinge ("part-Jews"). "Himmler
was keen to take action. He wanted the SS Race and Settlement Office (Rasse-
und Siedlungshauptamt-SS (RuSHA)) to racially evaluate all children of mixed
marriages and their progeny for three or four generations, just as
agriculturalists did when attempting to breed superior varieties of plants and
animals. Descendants who exhibited Jewish traits could then be at least
sterilized, if not murdered. For this, the SS needed a much clearer picture of
the Jewish Race." 18
The Beginning of the End for the
Prisoners of Auschwitz
After receiving permission from Himmler, Hirt began
the task of selecting his victims from the prisoners of Auschwitz (although
there is some debate as to whether Hirt himself made the selection, or if it
was done by SS members Dr. Hans Fleischhacker [Tübingen] and
SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. Bruno Berger19 [Munich], who arrived in Auschwitz the
first half of 1943 )20, as indicated by Tübingen Professor, Dr. Hans-Joachim
Lang21, with the initial selection totaling 115 people - 79 Jewish men, 30
Jewish women, 2 Poles, and 4 "Asians" (most likely Soviet POWs). Once
his selections were made, SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. Bruno Berger collected
personal data and biometrical measurements from the prisoners, completing his
task by June 15, 1943.22
Although the Ahnenerbe supported Hirt by instructing
all members working in the concentration camps to collect "any
particularly interesting and demonstrative"23 anatomical specimens, the
only known victims for the Institute's skeleton collections came directly from
Auschwitz-Birkenau. Robert J. Lifton explained that "there were apparently
difficulties in rounding up Jewish-Bolshevik commissars and possibly in
severing heads, so that it was decided to make use of full skeletons rather
than merely skulls and to collect specimens in the place where any such task
could be accomplished - namely, Auschwitz." 24
While there were killings in such substantial numbers
at Auschwitz that an extra hundred here or there would make relatively little
difference, the fate of Hirt's victims was not a well-kept secret among the
camp doctors. "Dr. L. had seen enough of Auschwitz to suspect the terrible
truth ("I told myself immediately,…. 'They are going to a museum' "),
though she and others refrained in saying so because they "lacked the
courage," felt it would be more kind to remain silent, and could not in
any case be certain of their suspicion." 25
Meanwhile, the collection of potential victims wasn't
the only problem to be dealt with. In a memo from Sievers to Brandt, Sievers
quotes the concerns of Hirt: the preparations of Natzweiler-Struthof were going
too slowly. More importantly, the camp's administration demanded that Hirt's
Institute pay for the prisoners throughout their stay at the camp. This spurred
great debates as to who was to pay for the project, and how payments were to be
made.
The reproduction of a letter that describes the
relationship between Dr. Hirt and the Natzweiler-Struthof camp administration,
including the attempt to attach a price to each victim gassed as part of Hirt's
"research" as compensation to the camp, can be found here.
Death at Natzweiler-Struthof
Following the initial selection, the prisoners were
held inside of the quarantine office at Auschwitz due to the outbreak of a
typhus epidemic26 before being relocated to Natzweiler-Struthof, the only
extermination camp on French territory.27
Both prior to and following the second World War,
Natzweiler-Struthof (31 miles outside of Strasbourg), perched 2,500 feet up on
the top of a mountain in the Vosges Mountains, was used as a ski resort for
tourists. It is only during WWII that the now-serene location (ironically one
that mimicked the German Schwarzwald across the Rhine River) was used as a
concentration camp. Originally the camp, known as "Le Struthof" to
the French, was not intended as a death camp for mass exterminations, but
rather to house Anti-Fascist resistance-fighters and convicted German
criminals,28 often referred to as the "Nacht und Nebel" (Night and
Fog) operation because fighters were arrested without warning, and without
notification to their families, making them appear to simply disappear into the
fog. 29
The camp itself, holding only about 1,500 prisoners at
a time30 (one of the smaller camps constructed by the Germans), was run by the
"brutality incarnate" Joseph Kramer 31 (condemned to death and
executed, 10th Military Region archives). Instead of being located immediately
within the camp, the building was located about a mile away off a small side
road, making the location almost peaceful.32 Due to the local quarries filled
with red granite, the prisoners of Struthof were subjected to manual labor in
order to create new monuments for Germany.33
The building eventually used as the gas chamber was
originally used as a refrigerator room with cold storage chambers by the
Struthof hotel, and converted in April 1943 to a site to test the gas masks of
SS recruits34 by filling the building with tear-gas35 to help prepare the
recruits for the dangers of chemical warfare.
The gas experimentation chamber was modified in August
of 1943 to allow for the gassings at the suggestion of Kramer. He considered
the similarities of the tear-gas testing with the requirements of a building
that was to use the "hydrocyanic salts" Hirt provided to Kramer for
the killings. Already lined with white tiles and kept cool by blocks of ice,
the SS works doctorate named the site "Bauwerk 10" or building site
10.36 The adaptation of the building was completed between August 3 and 12,
1943.37
The wall of the chamber was perforated below and to
the right of the peep-hole. A metal pipe was passed through, with the inside
end opening into a small porcelain basin, and the outside wnd consisting of a
1.5 litre fullel equipped with a tap flow and safety control. According to a
plan drawn up when the camp was liberated, it seems that a protective housing
was installed, hiding the equipment from view… Kramer proceeded as described in
his 2nd deposition of the 6 December 1945. In fact, there was no other way to
carry out the operation. Water poured into the funnel flowed onto a substance
previously placed in the basin, triggering the release of hydrocyanic gas
("Gas Blausäure") .38
As knowledge of the camp spread to the United States,
so did the awareness of Hirt's victims, according to The Simon Wiesenthal
Center and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The Nuremberg IMT (International Military Tribunal)
records indicate that an assistant to Dr. Hirt secretly noted the numbers
tattooed on the arms of the 86 victims, making their identification possible.39
The Arrival of Hirt's Victims at
Natzweiler-Struthof
Although there is little information regarding the
time gap between June 15, 1943 when Dr. Bruno Berger completed his part of the
record-keeping and the time of the arrival of the prisoners from Auschwitz to
Natzweiler-Struthof, the records that are available indicated that the 2 month
gap took place during the quarantine of prisoners during the typhus outbreak at
Auschwitz. Once it was considered that the prisoners could be transported, they
were moved to Natzweiler-Struthof in August of 1943. Joseph Kramer, commandant
of Natzweiler-Struthof, recalled, "during the month of August 1943, I
received from the Supreme S.S. Commandant in Berlin an order to accept about 80
prisoners from Auschwitz. I was to get in touch with Professor Hirt." 40
Once the prisoners did arrive, we have a clear account
of the events that followed given at the Military Tribunal in Strasbourg by
Joseph Kramer. Kramer was instructed to meet Hirt at the Institute of Anatomy.
During their meeting, Hirt provided Kramer with instructions to gas the convoy
using crystals Hirt supplied for their "treatment." There is some
debate as to the exact contents of the flask given to Kramer by Hirt, but it
usually falls within two possible answers:
Either the flask provided by Hirt, with a capacity of
about 250 ml, contained an inert combination of sodium or potassium cyanide
thoroughly mixed with a crystalline acid, such as citric, oxalic or tartic
acid, these being two agents that react with one another only in an aqueous
medium. Or the flask contained calcium cyanide, which has the peculiarity of
decomposing in water with hydrocyanic acid release. It would be possible to
determine exactly what substance was used by complicated calculations, based on
the volume of the gas chamber (approximately 20m cubed), the quantity used (1/3
or ¼ of 250 ml), and the expected HCN release, as a function of the amount of
water added, needed to bring the room's atmosphere rapidly up to a lethal
concentration for man.41
During his conversation with Hirt, Kramer was also
told he was to divide the bodies into smaller groups to be delivered directly
to Hirt following the gassings.42
One evening, about nine o-clock, the eighty prisoners
arrived. I led about fifteen women to the gas chamber. I told them they were
going to be 'disinfected.' With the help of some of the S.S. guards, I got them
completely undressed and pushed them into the gas chamber. When I closed the
door they began to scream. I put some of the crystals that Hirt had given me
into the funnel above the observation window. I would watch everything that was
going on inside through it. The women continued to breathe for half a minute
and then fell to the floor. I turned on the ventilation, and when I opened the door
they were lying dead on the ground, full of shit. I told some of the male S.S.
nurses to put the bodies in a truck and take them to the Institute of Anatomy
at 5:30 the next morning.43
Following the initial gassing, the same procedure was
repeated with four or five more groups over a period of three nights.44 In
total, 86 people would fall victim to Kramer's gassings. It should be noted
that the discrepancy in numbers by multiple sources (86 versus 87 bodies) was
due to an incident that took place at Natzweiler-Struthof. As the victims were
being herded into the gas chamber, one prisoner resisted and was shot by an SS
officer. Due to the pistol's bullet wound, the body was not sent to Strasbourg
with the others because it was considered "spoiled."45
Extract from interrogation of
Josef Kramer by Major Jadin, military investigative judge with the Military
Tribunal in Strasbourg on the 26 July 1945:
'As soon as I locked the door, they started to
scream..Once the door was locked, I placed a fixed quantity of the salts in a
funnel attached below and to the right of the peep-hole....
I felt no emotion while accomplishing these tasks,
because I had received an order to execute the 80 [actually 87] prisoners in
the manner that I have described to you. That is simply how I was brought up.'
46
In addition to Hirt's specially-selected victims, many
other prisoners were held and executed at Natzweiler-Struthof from May 1941 to
September 1944. A total of over 50,000 people from more than 30 countries were
brought to Struthof, of which almost 22,000 were killed.47
Final Transport: Natzweiler-Struthof
to the Institute
[They] were given a sham physical examination for
reassurance, then gassed… the corpses were immediately transported to the
anatomy pavilion of the Strasbourg University Hospital. A French inmate, who
had to assist the project's director… told how "preserving began
immediately," with the arrival of bodies that were "still warm, the
eyes… wide open and shining." There were two subsequent shipments of men,
from each of whom the left testicle had been removed and sent to Hirt's anatomy
lab.48
With large groups of bodies being brought into the
doors of the Institute, Professor Hirt's assistants, Otto Bong and Henri
Herypierre, began placing the bodies into the vats of synthetic alcohol they
had prepared the evening before at 55°.49 During the War Crimes trials at
Nuremberg following the war, Herypierre took the stand. He gave testimony on
the condition of the bodies as they were brought into the Institute: "They
were still warm. Their eyes were wide open and shining. They appeared congested
and red, and protruded from the socket. There were traces of blood around the
nose and mouth. There was no rigor mortis. It is my opinion that these victims
had been poisoned or asphyxiated."50 It was later reported that when
Herypierre passed Hirt in a hallway the following day Hirt abruptly warned
Herypierre, "If you don't hold your tongue, that's where you'll go
too."51
Although at the time Hirt appeared both interested and
extremely protective of his developing "collection," Hirt never again
visited the Institute to check on the process of performing autopsies and
soaking the bodies for preservation purposes. Over a year passed with nothing
more being done with the bodies than the occasional adding of alcohol to the
storage vats by an assistant.
It is unclear whether Hirt simply lost interest, or if
the Ahnenerbe's direction for Hirt to focus his research on combat gas was the
sole cause, but whatever the reason, the bodies remained abandoned for more
than a year. After a year, however, the collection was again brought to the
forefront of the minds of the leaders of the Ahnenerbe. With the Allies swiftly
approaching, many projects and records were quickly burned or abandoned, and
Hirt's vision was never fully realized.
Only once the Allies began approaching Strasbourg did
Hirt seem to recall the collection. In a letter addressed to Rudolf Brandt from
the director of the Ahnenerbe, Brandt included Hirt's concerns regarding the
bodies:
By reason of the considerable scientific work
required, the preparation of the skeletons has not yet been completed.Hirt is
wondering what to do with the collection in the event that Strasbourg is
endangered. He could macerate them and make them unrecognizable. But in this
case a part of the work of the entire project would have been performed in
vain, and that would result in a great scientific loss for this unique
collection for casts would no longer be possible. The collection, as it now
exists, attracts no attention. We could say that these were the remains of
cadavers taken from the Institute of Anatomy, where the French had left then,
and we would burn them.52
While we do not know what the director's response was
to Brandt's letter, soon after Hirt demanded that the laboratory assistants
remove the bodies from the Institute. They were then to cut up the bodies (to
help prevent identification) and incinerate them in the city's crematory ovens.
Due to the speed of Leclerc's men, fifteen bodies were left behind in the
bottoms of the alcohol vats.53
A part of Hirt's skull collections said to have been
moved to the Mittersill castle in the fall of 1944. Hirt was captured at
Strasbourg by French troops, who found "many wholly unprocessed
corpses," many "partly processed corpses," and a few that had
been "defleshed… late in 1944," and their heads burned to avoid any
possibility of identification.54
The bodies of Hirt's victims
comprised some of the gruesome evidence left behind.
The relatively limited number of Hirt's victims allows
us to investigate what it was that caused him to choose that particular group
of people, and what happened to their bodies following their deaths. Hirt's
selections were based primarily on racial characteristics: he wanted the most
prominent examples for his collection that would be used both in anthropological
studies, as well as to "demonstrate the superiority of the Nordic race.55
A Gruesome Discovery
After the march of Strasbourg began on November 23 at
7:03,56 it wasn't long before the columns of soldiers (the French First and the
American Seventh57) began to move across the city and make prisoners of those
who had previously been the captors. While some SS officers made a feeble
attempt to hold off Leclerc and his officers, they soon realized their attempts
were in vain and fled. Some had even hidden civilian clothes in advance to aid
themselves in their own escape. Others, including Professor Hirt, had fled as
early as several weeks before. Hirt himself had told his assistants
"they'll never take me alive," a fate that ultimately would prove to
be true, although certainly not in the way Hirt had expected. Hirt was captured
by French troops in Strasbourg, but committed suicide before he could be made
to stand trial.
We had known. The world had vaguely heard. But until
now no one of us had looked on this. Even this morning we had not imagined we
would look on this. It was as though we had penetrated at last to the center of
the black heart, to the very crawling inside of the vicious heart.58
Meyer
Levin, war correspondent
COPYRIGHT ©
Copyright © construindohistoriahoje.blogspot.com.br Você pode republicar este
artigo ou partes dele sem solicitar permissão, contanto que o conteúdo não seja
alterado e seja claramente atribuído a “Construindo História Hoje”. Qualquer site que
publique textos completos ou grandes partes de artigos de Construindo História Hoje tem a obrigação
adicional de incluir um link ativo para http:/www.construindohistoriahoje.blogspot.com.br. O link não é exigido
para citações. A republicação de artigos de Construindo História Hoje
que são originários de outras fontes está sujeita às condições dessas fontes e
seus atributos de direitos autorais.
Você quer saber mais?
(HOLOCAUST HISTORY)
1.
"August Hirt." Wikipedia. 01 October 2008.
14 Oct. 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/august_hirt>
2.
Henry, Diana M. "Dr. Hirt." 04 December 2008
http://www.dianamarahenry.com/natzweiler-struthof/dr.hirt.htm>
3.
"August Hirt." Jewish Virtual Library. 27
September 2008 www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/hirt.html.
4.
Copy and analysis of Prof. Dr. August Hirt's course
syllabus: Patrick Wechsler, "La Faculte de Médecine de la
"Reichsuniversität Strasburg" (1941-1945) a l'heure
nationale-socialiste, Freiburg i.B.2005
5.
The Ahnenerbe Society was an organization formed by H.
Himmler, H. Wirth and W. Darre in 1935, and incorporated in to the SS in 1939
(Lang, Hans-Joachim. "It is through names and places that history becomes
concrete." Die Namen Der Nummern: Eine Initiative zur Erinnerung an 86
jüdische Opfer eines Verbrechens von NS-Wissenschaftlern. 06 Oct. 2008
www.die-namen-der-nummern.de/html/introduction.html) with the mission of
investigating "the spirit, deed, and heritage of the Nordic Indo-Germanic
race." The organization included president Heinrich Himmler, and business
manager Standartenführer Sievers. (Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the
European Jews. New York: Holmes & Meier, Incorporated, 1985. 946-47.)
6.
Bernadac, Christian. Devil's Doctors: Medical
experiments on human subjects in the concentration camps. Barcelona, Spain:
Ferni Publishing House, 1978. 106.
7.
Friedländer, Henry. The Origins of Nazi Genocide :
From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. New York: University of North Carolina
P, 1997. 133-35
8.
Bernadac, Christian. Devil's Doctors: Medical
experiments on human subjects in the concentration camps. Barcelona, Spain:
Ferni Publishing House, 1978. 106.
9.
Sievers to Stubaf. Dr. Brandt, February 9, 1942,
enclosing report by Hirt, NO-85
10. Staff
Evidence Analysis, NO-098 (http://www.mazal.org/NO-series/NO-0098-000.htm)
11. Pringle,
Heather. The Master Plan : Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust. New York:
Hyperion P, 2006. 246
12. Pringle,
Heather. The Master Plan : Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust. New York:
Hyperion P, 2006. 246
13. Bernadac,
Christian. Devil's Doctors: Medical experiments on human subjects in the
concentration camps. Barcelona, Spain: Ferni Publishing House, 1978. 107.
14. quoted
in document NO-085 of the 9 February 1942 (Brandt to Sievers, 27 February 1942,
No-090; Himmler directive to the Ahnenherbe, 7 July 1942, No-089. Henry, Diana
M. "Dr. Hirt." 04 Dec. 2008 http://www.dianamarahenry.com/natzweiler-struthof/dr.hirt.htm
15. Wolfram
Sievers (Hildesheim, July 10, 1905- June 2, 1948) was an early manager (1935)
of the Ahnenerbe. Originally a bookseller, he joined the NSDAP in 1929, and
later worked at the Dachau concentration camp with August Hirt and became, in
1943, deputy director/conductor of the adviser of the office for realm
research. He participated in assembling a collection of skeletons for August
Hirt's study at the Reichsuniversität Strasburg, and also participated in high
altitude experiments and freezing experiments where concentration camp inmates
were kept in ice-cold water until they lost consciousness or died. 280 to 300
prisoners died in the freezing experiments. Sievers was sentenced to death in
20 August of 1947 for crimes against humanity in the Doctors' Trial, and hanged
on June 2, 1948. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_Sievers)
16. Aharonov,
Leah, Yisrael Gutman, and Avital Saf, eds. The Nazi Concentration Camps:
Proceedings of the Fourth Yad Vashem International Historical Conference.
Trans. Dina Cohen, Ina Friedman, Jeffrey Green, Witold Jedlicki, Joel Lerner,
Eve Tavor-Bannet, Batya Rabin and Arnold Schwarz. Jerusalem: Daf-Chen P.
223-24.
17. Pringle,
Heather. The Master Plan : Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust. New York:
Hyperion P, 2006. 247
18. Pringle,
Heather. The Master Plan : Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust. New York:
Hyperion P, 2006. 247
19. Bruno
Berger - originally born in Switzerland, but later became a naturalized German.
Berger was described as "a Nordic type with blue eyes and fair hair,"
an honorable and stable man even if at times "a bit impulsive," and
an excellent anatomist with a promising academic career.' He was responsible
for Hirt's inclusion in the Ahnenerbe society, Berger served as Hirt's
assistant in the Strasbourg project. Berger was a great fan of Himmler, his
level of enthusiasm seeming to increase with the outlandishness of Himmler's
theories. (Lifton, Robert J. The Nazi Doctors : Medical Killing and the
Psychology of Genocide. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1988. 286.) Lifton's book is
available online at this site at http://www.holocaust-history.org/lifton/
20. "August
Hirt." Jewish Virtual Library. 27 Sept. 2008
21. "Natzweiler-Struthof
gas chamber." History of Natzweiler-Struthof Nazi concentration camp in
Alsace, France. 2004. 27 Sept. 2008. www.scrapbookpages.com/natzweiler/history/gaschamber.html.
22. "August
Hirt." Jewish Virtual Library. 27 September 2008 www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/hirt.html.
23. Bernadac,
Christian. Devil's Doctors: Medical experiments on human subjects in the
concentration camps. Barcelona, Spain: Ferni Publishing House, 1978. 111.
24. Lifton,
Robert J. The Nazi Doctors : Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide.
New York, NY: Basic Books, 1988. 285.
25. Lifton,
Robert J. The Nazi Doctors : Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide.
New York, NY: Basic Books, 1988. 285.
26. "Natzweiler-Struthof
gas chamber." History of Natzweiler-Struthof Nazi concentration camp in
Alsace, France. 2004. 27 Sept. 2008. www.scrapbookpages.com/natzweiler/history/gaschamber.html.
27. Bernadac,
Christian. Devil's Doctors: Medical experiments on human subjects in the
concentration camps. Barcelona, Spain: Ferni Publishing House, 1978. 107.
28. "Natzweiler-Struthof
gas chamber." History of Natzweiler-Struthof Nazi concentration camp in
Alsace, France. 2004.
27 Sept. 2008. www.scrapbookpages.com/natzweiler/history/gaschamber.html.
p 3
29. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007260
PHOTOS: Diana Mara Henry, www.natzweiler-struthof.org
31. Bernadac,
Christian. Devil's Doctors: Medical experiments on human subjects in the
concentration camps. Barcelona, Spain: Ferni Publishing House, 1978. 108.
32. "Natzweiler-Struthof
gas chamber." History of Natzweiler-Struthof Nazi concentration camp in
Alsace, France. 2004. 27 Sept. 2008. www.scrapbookpages.com/natzweiler/history/gaschamber.html.
33. Abzug,
Robert H. Inside the Vicious Heart : Americans and the Liberation of Nazi
Concentration Camps. New York: Oxford UP, 1985. 3-19.
34. Klarsfeld,
Serge, ed. The Struthof Album: Study of the Gassing at Natzweiler-Struthof of
86 Jews Whose Bodies Were to Constitute A Collection of Skeletons. New York,
NY: The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1985. Pg. 5.
35. The
French army often used benzyl bromide as tear-gas
36. Klarsfeld,
Serge, ed. The Struthof Album: Study of the Gassing at Natzweiler-Struthof of
86 Jews Whose Bodies Were to Constitute A Collection of Skeletons. New York,
NY: The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1985. Pg. 5. This book is available online
at this site at: http://www.holocaust-history.org/klarsfeld/Struthof/T001.shtml
37. Klarsfeld,
Serge, ed. The Struthof Album: Study of the Gassing at Natzweiler-Struthof of
86 Jews Whose Bodies Were to Constitute A Collection of Skeletons. New York,
NY: The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1985. Pg. 5.
38. Klarsfeld,
Serge, ed. The Struthof Album: Study of the Gassing at Natzweiler-Struthof of
86 Jews Whose Bodies Were to Constitute A Collection of Skeletons. New York,
NY: The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1985. Pg. 5.
39. "Natzweiler-Struthof
gas chamber." History of Natzweiler-Struthof Nazi concentration camp in
Alsace, France. 2004. 27 Sept. 2008. www.scrapbookpages.com/natzweiler/history/gaschamber.html.
40. Bernadac,
Christian. Devil's Doctors: Medical experiments on human subjects in the
concentration camps. Barcelona, Spain: Ferni Publishing House, 1978. 108
41. Klarsfeld,
Serge, ed. The Struthof Album: Study of the Gassing at Natzweiler-Struthof of
86 Jews Whose Bodies Were to Constitute A Collection of Skeletons. New York,
NY: The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1985. Pg. 7. Based on Professor Wells Les
chambers à gaz, Secret d'État ("The Gas Chambers: State Secret",
Collection Arguments, Les Editions de Minuit, September 1984)
42. Bernadac,
Christian. Devil's Doctors: Medical experiments on human subjects in the
concentration camps. Barcelona,
Spain: Ferni Publishing House, 1978. 109
43. Bernadac,
Christian. Devil's Doctors: Medical experiments on human subjects in the
concentration camps. Barcelona,
Spain: Ferni Publishing House, 1978. 108-109
44. TRANSLATION:
The Ministry of Veterans and Victims of War - Gas Chamber - Natzweller-Struthof
Concentration Camp - Building Classified as an Historical Monument
45. Jean
Lemberger, a Struthof prisoner at the end of August 1943, and one of the 3 Jews
still alive there when 87 people arrived from Auschwitz, saw only the group of
men. They came to the camp in several convoys and were housed in hut number 10.
Lemberger noticed them for the first time on front of the
"Wachtstube" (guard station) at the camp's entrance. Dressed in
patched "zebra" clothing with a yellow star, and being of very pale
complexion, they contrasted with the camp's prisoners, who wore civilian
clothing, haphazardly painted yellow in the case of Jews. They received exactly
the same food as the other internees. Realizing they did not work, Lemberger
wanted to have himself added to their group. His kapo dissuaded him by giving
him to understand that his request was sheer folly. Then, bit by bit, the
"zebra" group melted away. Until one morning, there were none left.
Later on, it was Lemberger's turn to undertake the opposite journey, from Struthof
to Auschwitz. (Based on a telephone conversation on 14 March 1985 between the
witness and Jean-Claude Pressac, author of The Struthof Album)
46. Klarsfeld,
Serge, ed. The Struthof Album: Study of the Gassing at Natzweiler-Struthof of
86 Jews Whose Bodies Were to Constitute A Collection of Skeletons. New York, NY: The Beate Klarsfeld
Foundation, 1985. Pg. 6
47. Documents
107 and 1806/V/2 of the Struthof trial
48. "Victims
of Nazi doctor honoured." European Jewish Press. 12 Dec. 2005.27 Sept.
2008. http://www.ejpress.org/article/4582.
49. "Natzweiler-Struthof
gas chamber." History of Natzweiler-Struthof Nazi concentration camp in
Alsace, France. 2004.
27 Sept. 2008. www.scrapbookpages.com/natzweiler/history/gaschamber.html
50. Bernadac,
Christian. Devil's Doctors: Medical experiments on human subjects in the
concentration camps. Barcelona,
Spain: Ferni Publishing House, 1978. page 109
51. DRAWINGS:
by survivor Henri Gayot of Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp prisoners
building the road to the camp and of the prisoners returning to camp, some
carrying the wounded or corpses on their backs. http://www.natzweiler-struthof.org/PhotographsofNatzweilerStruthof.htm
52. Bernadac,
Christian. Devil's Doctors: Medical experiments on human subjects in the
concentration camps. Barcelona, Spain: Ferni Publishing House, 1978. page 109
53. Bernadac,
Christian. Devil's Doctors: Medical experiments on human subjects in the
concentration camps. Barcelona,
Spain: Ferni Publishing House, 1978. page 109
54. Bernadac,
Christian. Devil's Doctors: Medical experiments on human subjects in the
concentration camps. Barcelona,
Spain: Ferni Publishing House, 1978. page 110
55. Bernadac,
Christian. Devil's Doctors: Medical experiments on human subjects in the
concentration camps. Barcelona, Spain: Ferni Publishing House, 1978. page 109
56. "Natzweiler-Struthof
gas chamber." History of Natzweiler-Struthof Nazi concentration camp in
Alsace, France. 2004.
27 Sept. 2008. www.scrapbookpages.com/natzweiler/history/gaschamber.html
57. "Natzweiler-Struthof
gas chamber." History of Natzweiler-Struthof Nazi concentration camp in
Alsace, France. 2004.
27 Sept. 2008. www.scrapbookpages.com/natzweiler/history/gaschamber.html
58. Bernadac,
Christian. Devil's Doctors: Medical experiments on human subjects in the
concentration camps. Barcelona,
Spain: Ferni Publishing House, 1978. page 107
59. Abzug,
Robert H. Inside the Vicious Heart : Americans and the Liberation of Nazi
Concentration Camps. New York: Oxford UP, 1985. 3-19.
60. Quote
by novelist Meyer Levin, war correspondent; reaction to visiting Ohrdruf, the
first camp to be discovered by the American armies, quoted in Inside the
Viscious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps, p.19
61. Lang,
Hans-Joachim. "It is through names and places that history becomes
concrete." Die Namen Der Nummern: Eine Initiative zur Erinnerung an 86
jüdische Opfer eines Verbrechens von NS-Wissenschaftlern. 06 Oct. 2008 http://www.die-namen-der-nummern.de/html/introduction.html
62. "August
Hirt." Jewish Virtual Library. 27 September 2008 www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/hirt.html.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário