Block 10

During the Holocaust, Block 10 was a cellblock at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp where women and men were used as experimental subjects for German doctors. The experiments in Block 10 ranged from skin testing for reaction to relatively gentle substances to giving phenol injections to the heart for immediate dissection.

Although Block 10 was in the men's camps, the experiments conducted were mostly for women. To please the “elite” prisoners, the Germans would house prostitutes in Block 10. The main doctors who 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.

The victims at Auschwitz were also exported anywhere else experimental subjects were needed. For example, twenty Jewish children were transported to Neuengamme in Hamburg where they were injected with virulent tubercular serum and subjected to other experiments.

The doctors

*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 nature versus nurture controversy, and tried to prove that nature trumped nurture (i.e., 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 were married women between the ages of twenty and forty who had already had children.
*Dr. Horst Schumann — His experimental subjects were healthy men and women in their late teens or early twenties, on whom he attempted X-ray sterilization. Women were put between plates that pressed against abdomen and their back. He placed the men’s penis and scrotum on a special plate. Radiation burns and intestinal damage were a frequent result.
*Dr. August Hirt — He selected women based 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.

References

*cite web|url=http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/auschwitz/alphabet/block10.html|title=Block 10|accessdate=2007-05-01|publisher=An Auschwitz Alphabet
*cite news|url=http://www.forward.com/articles/the-deadly-origins-of-a-life-saving-procedure/|title= The Deadly Origins of a Life-saving Procedure|author= Ruth Jolanda Weinberger|work=The Jewish Daily Forward|date=2007-01-26|accessdate=2007-05-01