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During the Holocaust, Block 10 was one cellblock of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

Contents 1 Background Information On Block 10 2 The Doctors 3 In Conclusion 4 References

Block 10 was a place where women and men were experiments for German doctors in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. A prisoner who was placed in Block 10 might undergo skin testing for reaction to relatively gentle substances or receive a phenol injection to the heart for immediate dissection. Although Block 10 was in men camps, the experiments conducted were mostly for women. To please the “elite” prisoners, the Germans would house prostitutes in Block 10. The main doctors that worked in Block 10 were Dr. Josef Mengele, Dr. Clauberg, Dr. Horst Schumann, and Dr. August Hirt. Each of them had different methods in doing experiments on the inmates.

Dr. Josef Mengele- He killed the inmates for dissection, disposed of them when they were weak, or he just saw no use for them. He concentrated on the Nurture V. Nature Controversy, which stated that heredity counted for everything and environment nothing. He was obsessed with eye color, blood type, and the disease that left gaping holes in the cheeks of Gypsy children.

Dr. Carl Clauberg- He focused on sterilization by injection. His method was to inject a caustic substance into the cervix in order to obstruct the fallopian tubes. His experimental subjects would be married women between the ages of twenty and forty and have already had children.

Dr. Horst Schumann- His experimental subjects were healthy men and women in their late teens or early twenties. He performed X-ray experiments on them. Women were put between plates that pressed against abdomen and their back. He placed the men’s penis and scrotum on a special plate. Then he would start the machine which would make loud noises.

Dr. August Hirt- He selected women on their racial characteristics. They were given a physical examination for reassurance and then gassed. The corpses were transported to the anatomy pavilion of the Strasbourg University Hospital.

The victims at Auschwitz were exported anywhere else experimental subjects were needed. For example Twenty Jewish children were transported to Neuengamme in Hamburg where they were subjected to injections of virulent tubercular serum and to other experiments until they were removed from Neuengamme and secretly murdered.

1. http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/auschwitz/alphabet/block10.html

2. http://www.forward.com/articles/the-deadly-origins-of-a-life-saving-procedure/