[Music]
Shields: The economic
situation in Germany
following World War I and the
Versailles Treaty
led to the
wholesale implementation
of Hitler's policies.
They started
killing children first
and then a bit later on
started killing adults.
It's not surprising that
the nurses
in the Nazi era
got caught up in all of this.
The propaganda was everywhere,
about killing people
who were considered "life
unworthy of life".
"Useless feeders" was the term
they used.
The nurses were the ones who
held the children while they
were being killed.
They gave them the overdoses
of drugs.
They were the ones who put
them out on the verandas to
die of hypothermia.
The nurses were the ones who
withheld the feeding so the
children would die of
starvation.
[Music]
Narrator: After World War I
ended in 1918, Germany went
through severe economic
hardships, and the nation saw
the rise of different
political factions and ideals.
One group that emerged was
Adolf Hitler and his National
Socialist Party.
Shields: Of course, there was
rampant inflation,
there was great poverty, and
social disadvantage because of
the reparations which had to
be paid back after
the Treaty of Versailles.
Steinberger: Money was
devaluated,
and they saw a strong leader
that was restoring order.
Narrator: By 1933 Adolf Hitler
and the Nazi Party had taken
control of Germany, and this
began a period of racial
hygiene laws, persecution and
death camps.
Hitler wanted to create the
Master Race and eliminate Jews
and other people he considered
inferior to the Aryan race.
Innocent children and
concentration camp prisoners
suffered through horrific
medical experiments.
All of this was accomplished
with the assistance of German
doctors and nurses.
[Music]
The basis for Hitler's plan of
racial hygiene was a
concept called Eugenics, which
is the pseudo-science of
developing a superior race.
Shields: Before Hitler came to
power, across the world the
whole theory of eugenics was
something that many nations
had embraced.
Benedict: Eugenics is the
belief that through selective
breeding whether it's cows,
sheep, people, whatever
through selective breeding
positive eugenics is the
ability to breed offspring
that will carry the best traits.
Shields: This theory of
Eugenics, how people should be
allowed to breed, to the
benefit of the human race and
those who weren't fit and
healthy, should not be allowed
to have children.
Benedict: ...caught on in
England, the United States,
Japan, Scandinavia.
Germany was not at the
forefront of this.
Dr. Grodin: The Nazis actually
learned much of their eugenics
initially from the U.S.
Narrator: Some of these
eugenic health care policies
were developed in the United
States in the late 19th and
early 20th Centuries.
These U.S. policies were
emulated by Germany and
incorporated into the governing
philosophy of applied biology.
Grodin: There laws in the book
in Virginia that said you
could sterilize people.
The Nazis took their 1933
sterilization law and mimicked
it after the U.S. law.
In fact, there was a time in
which there were letters in
the U.S. journals saying,
"Look at the Nazis
have gotten ahead of us, we
better catch up."
Shields: And so of course when
Hitler came along with his
racial theories, he realized
that this Eugenics was a
really good idea, and he
manipulated it to fit his
racial theories, all mixed in
with the Jews, the Gypsies,
everybody else who was
considered racially inferior.
Narrator: All of this would
lead to an appalling era in
world history called the
Holocaust, a period of
persecution and mass murder.
Steinberger: The Holocaust has
been defined as the 12 year
period, from Hitler's rise to
power in 1933, until the end
of the war, 1945.
It was a government planned,
government supported mass
extermination or mass killing.
And while it was targeted
towards Jewish people, there
were many other groups of
individuals that suffered
during the Holocaust.
Narrator: Hitler convinced the
German people that the Jews
were their enemy and the cause
of their problems.
He then created an atmosphere
of racial intolerance and
hatred of people deemed to be
racially inferior.
Benedict: So, every genocide,
whether it's Rwanda, the
Holocaust, begins with "we"
versus "them".
So, Hitler used the Jews, and
later other people, as
scapegoats for all that was
wrong in Germany, particularly
the economic woes.
So, he set up the "we" versus
"them".
He institutionalized that.
[Music]
Narrator: In 1933 the Nazi
government passed the
Nuremberg Laws for the
protection of hereditary
health.
This legalized involuntary
sterilization.
Grodin: Hitler found a perfect
meshing of his Nazi ideology
with the eugenic Nazi medicine
or Racial Hygiene Movement.
Narrator: Germany's
sterilization laws led to the
involuntary sterilization by
doctors of about 400,000 Germans
Nazi doctors sterilized
citizens against their will,
"euthanized" 200,000 disabled
German children and adults,
and created the gas chambers
and crematoria that were used
for the mass murder of six
million Jews, Poles, and
Gypsies.
Without the full support of
physicians, scientists, and
nurses, the Holocaust, as it
unfolded, could never have
happened.
Benedict: In the U.S. there were
laws that could require that
people be sterilized
against their will.
Narrator: Sterilization laws
were widespread in the U.S.,
most notably in Indiana and
North Carolina.
But other states including
California and Virginia
allowed sterilization, even
into the 1970s.
In fact, in the early 20th
century, the U.S.
led the world in compulsory
sterilizations.
Grodin: A very famous law was
passed in Virginia that said
it was okay to sterilize the
retarded.
And it was brought before the
Supreme Court, and
[Chief Justice] Oliver Wendell
Holmes said "three generations
of imbeciles is enough".
Saying it was okay to
sterilize.
Reis: But [in the U.S.] it
didn't go further.
But in Germany it became the
leading ideology, then it was
implemented into action.
Narrator: Hitler promised the
German people they were
creating the Master Race.
Starck: I think the Master
Race would have been the
Nazis' view of a strong blonde,
blue eyed, healthy person who
had no genetic defects and who
was pure Aryan.
[Chanting]
Narrator: In the 1920s and 30s
Germany's medical community
was considered the best in the
world.
Grodin: You weren't a real
doctor in the U.S.
unless you went to Germany to
study, and when you came back
and said, "You know, I studied
in Germany."
Starck: I think with that came
some arrogance and some
feeling that, "we are so
superior to everybody else".
Steinberger: I studied
medicine in Germany.
I know some of the best
teaching of anatomy,
physiology in medicine, came
from Germany.
Germany was very advanced, not
only in the medical field, but
Germany was the best
civilization among the
European countries.
Grodin: It was the height of
technology, the height of
science, and how was it
possible that these people
became murderers?
Narrator: The majority of
nurses were not members of the
Nazi Party, however, to have a
job in Germany a nurse had to
belong to one of several
nursing organizations.
There were five organizations
for nurses.
Among these, the National
Socialist Nurses and the Red
Cross Nurses swore an oath of
allegiance to Hitler.
Additionally, the Protestant
Nurses' organization said that
it "greets National Socialism
with an open heart."
Starck: surprisingly more
physicians, percentage-wise,
joined the Nazi party than the
population in general.
And I think physicians were
very taken with the fact that
we can use our science to
improve the human race.
Narrator: Many physicians and
nurses enthusiastically
supported the Nazi regime and
were involved in all aspects
of the Holocaust.
Reis: About 40 percent of
German physicians were in the
Nazi party while the lawyers
and teachers and the other
white collar professions
joined in much lesser numbers.
If you didn't join the Nazi
party, there was no
retribution.
Narrator: Using inflammatory
propaganda, Hitler and the
Nazis began a campaign against
the Jews.
Steinberger: I know that my
father used to say that bad
things are happening to Jewish
people in Germany.
They are being discriminated
against.
Jewish children can no longer
go to their regular school.
People cannot keep their jobs
at the university or, or other
professions.
Steinberger: Hitler said
follow me, never mind God,
never mind religion, just
follow me, do what I am asking
you to do.
Reis: Since the regime was
totalitarian and they were
very good at public campaigns
and propaganda, and they had
enough scientists and
physicians that were already
marching to the drum.
Steinberger: Propaganda is an
extremely powerful way to
convince people to their way
of thinking.
Narrator: Germany's medical
establishment began to support
the Nazi Party, except for
Jewish doctors, who were
ostracized.
[Music]
Reis: The official journal of
the German Medical Association
started to have a swastika on
their journal.
They got rid of all the Jewish
physicians, authors, people in
office of all the different
associations or societies very
quick.
In five or six years, they got
them out of all the academic
and professional
establishment.
Narrator: After years of
strong Nazi propaganda
Germany's doctors and nurses
began to accept the belief
that racial hygiene would be
good for the nation.
Steinberger: Social Darwinism
said, we need to eliminate
these inferior people that were
handicapped, that were maybe
mentally disturbed.
We want a healthy, thriving
society.
Reis: In Germany, the
proponents of the eugenic
movement were the most
prominent, the most powerful,
the establishment.
The legal system became
Nazified immediately.
Grodin: Well of course It
required lawyers, it required
doctors, it required
bureaucrats, it required
administrators, but many
of the nurses were ones
who carried out the injections.
But for a long time nurses
were the agents of the
physicians and the
physicians in the Nazi
period were agents of the State.
So that's very important because
physicians were no longer
asked to care for patients but
to care for the State, the
Volk, the German Volk.
So, what was good for the
state was what was important,
not what was good for an
individual patient.
Shields: Obedience was still a
very much a part of the way
nurses were taught, and the
way we thought.
So it's not surprising that
the nurses in the Nazi era got
caught up in all this.
Narrator: Euthanasia programs
were established in Nazi
Germany in which children and
adults were killed if they
were considered unfit for life
and were a burden on the
state.
The true meaning of euthanasia
would be the mercy killing of
a person with their permission
or their request, however, this
was not the case in Nazi
Germany.
These killings were without
consent.
They were murders.
In the 1920s, German lawyer
Karl Binding and German
psychiatrist, Alfred Hoche
co-authored the book "The
Permission to Destroy Life
Unworthy of Life."
This book greatly influenced
Hitler's thinking about
euthanasia.
Shields: Everybody had that
propaganda thrown at them, it
was common, it was everywhere.
It espoused the idea that
people who were in some way
deficient should be killed so
they didn't carry on the
defective genes, and
so that they weren't a burden
on the State.
So the nurses, just as everybody
else in society, were
susceptible to this.
The nurses were working in
hospitals where children with
disabilities, people with
mental illnesses, a whole
range of conditions were cared
for.
They weren't coerced into
becoming part of these
programs.
Reis: Once you accept
humans can be dehumanized,
eventually you can engage in
exterminating.
This was a gradual and very
powerful and unfortunately
very effective process that
took place in Germany.
Narrator: The Nazi euthanasia
program first started in 1939
as a means to eliminate
handicapped children.
Benedict: You have families,
who because of all the
propaganda, are believing that
to have a child with negative
traits is a bad thing.
It's bad for the health of
Germany.
Shields: They were killing
children with disabilities,
children with down syndrome,
children with cardiac
anomalies, children with
cerebral palsy, children who
didn't develop normally, who
were considered to be "useless
feeders", that was the term used
Benedict: Public health nurses
would go to the families,
promise them, "If you will
give your child to us your
child will get the best care."
And so the people were falsely
led to believe that and
relinquished their children.
Benedict: The nurses were
involved in the killing of
children by giving them
overdoses, by taking them
outside knowing that it was
going to contribute to their
death.
Shields: I got very interested
in this when I found out that
nurses actively killed their
patients.
And I became intrigued into
how they could come to believe
that killing was a legitimate
part of their caring role,
which they did.
The propaganda around the
whole idea of killing people
for the good of the state was
profound, even down to
children doing exercises in
their school books on how much
it costs to keep people with a
disability, for example.
Narrator: Mid-wives and
physicians were mandated by
German law to report any
infant born with a birth
defect and the infant would be
placed in an institution.
Mid-wives were paid for each
birth that they reported.
Shields: Mid-wives were
licensed.
They had to go through a similar
training period as
nursing.
And many of them were
independent practitioners.
So not long after the child
was put into a home, he or she
would then be moved to another
institution further away.
Of course there was no
consent, no nothing.
These killings were done
without the parents' approval,
more or less, in the main.
Grodin: The nurses and
mid-wives who were involved in
the carrying out, maybe not even
the ideology, but were
actually the doers of the
euthanasia program.
Euthanasia is really a
euphemism for murder because
these were not terminally ill
patients.
These were children that were
taken and murdered, mostly
children who had handicap or
mental retardation.
Benedict: I think one deciding
point is in Germany the notion
that the health of the public
is more important than the
health of the individual.
So, consequently to remove an
unhealthy element was seen as
good.
Narrator: In September 1939, a
decision was made to develop
an adult euthanasia program
for patients in psychiatric
facilities.
Hitler picked the date to
coincide with Germany's
invasion of Poland.
Benedict: To expand it to
include adults the only way
we're going to make this
acceptable is to say we need
these hospital beds for the
war wounded.
Why should the state pay to
keep totally disabled people
alive when our young guys who
are sent to the front need to
come back home and have care?
Narrator: The name of this
killing organization was T-4.
Eventually six killing centers
were established.
Medical staffs were ordered to
fill out questionnaires to
evaluate whether their
patients should live or die.
Patients were placed in gas
chambers that looked like
showers.
[Door slamming shut]
Then lethal carbon monoxide
was pumped into the chambers
killing the patients.
Grodin: You have to justify and
rationalize what you're
doing because you're doing it,
but they actually believed it,
and they actually believed
that what they were doing was
saving the Volk from its
contamination, from the
infection, that there was a
disease, and the disease was
the handicapped and the
infirm, and that they needed
to be cured through killing.
Healing through killing.
Benedict: They were told they
were being transferred.
The nurses packed their
clothes, their lunch, rode
with them on the buses.
The hospitals, these six, had
specially constructed, kinda
breezeways that the buses
would go through so the
patients could be unloaded
into the hospital, without
being viewed by the community.
Narrator: However, it didn't
take long for the communities
near these hospitals to
realize what was going on.
Benedict: People would see the
buses.
The buses were very unique,
painted gray, the windows were
painted over, and so forth.
The buses would arrive and
within a very short period of
time this acrid smoke would be
billowing out of the chimneys.
Benedict: Each hospital had a
department to write condolence
letters to the families.
And there were mix-ups.
They would write and say,
"We're sorry to tell you your
Uncle Hans died of
appendicitis," and maybe he'd
already had his appendix
removed.
Benedict: People were becoming
quite knowledgeable about what
was going on.
Even children would taunt
other children, saying
"They're going to put you on
the gray bus.
You're going to go up the
chimney."
Narrator: As knowledge of the
gassing of patients became
widespread, the decision was
made to end the T-4
"euthanasia" program in
August, 1941.
This, however, did not end the
killing of patients.
The children's euthanasia
program continued unabated
until the end of the war.
[Music]
Narrator: After the end
of the T-4 program, physicians
were granted permission to
provide a merciful death to
any person they deemed to be
suffering.
These killings which took
place at many hospitals
throughout the Third Reich
were known as "wild
euthanasia" or decentralized
"euthanasia" and were carried
out on an individual basis
rather than by gassing.
Patients, usually selected by
physicians but killed by
nurses, were administered
overdoses of sedatives.
More people died in "wild
euthanasia" than in T-4.
Why did the nurses follow
orders to kill?
Shields: We do know that the
doctors were the ones who
signed the certificates that
said whether the child was
to live or die.
It was the nurses who carried
out the killings.
The doctors didn't necessarily
carry out the killings
themselves.
They may have dictated who was
to die, but it was the nurses
who carried out the killings.
There are episodes where the
nurses decided themselves to
take things into their own
hands and kill the patients
because they knew they were
going to die anyway.
so "He was suffering, so I'll
do it now.
He is going to die anyway so I
might as well do it quicker."
Benedict: There is the most
mesmerizing quote from one of
the nurses who talks about,
"How lovingly we held them in
our arms while we got them to
drink this medication.
We didn't want them to suffer
more than necessary."
While, they were killing them.
Narrator: More than 70-years
later, the question of how
Germany's nurses became
involved in these killings
still intrigues historians.
Starck: Well it is of course a
multi-faceted phenomenon, I
think, what happened there.
But it is a very good example
of you start one thing and
then it leads to something a
little worse and a little
worse.
So at first if they were asked
to hold a patient while
somebody else did an injection
or whatever.
They could do that, and they
could say to themselves, "I'm
not the one taking any action
here."
And then from there it's a
shorter step to, "Well, you
give the injection."
Shields: For some nurses, I
can see that they could easily
fall into the trap of thinking
that this was the right thing
to do.
To me though, the whole issue
is interesting because there's
a line as a nurse that you
cross.
Starck: And I think also in that
era nurses were very
subservient and very obedient
and whatever the doctor said
they should do, they felt they
had to obey and do that, or
fear the consequences.
Narrator: And similar to their
obedience to physicians,
nurses were also educated to
be obedient to senior nurses
who, at times, also ordered
killings.
Starck: Nurses were involved
in actually the killings
themselves either through
active means or through
passive means letting patients
starve or exposing them to
hazards where they would get
pneumonia and other things and
die.
Narrator: In 1939, World War
II began when the Germans
attacked and invaded
neighboring Poland.
Steinberger: Our building was
actually also hit...
Narrator: Polish survivor Anna
Steinberger recalls the
bombing.
Steinberger: And I could see
the flames on the roof of the
building.
I asked my mom, "What is going
on, do I go to school?"
And she says, "No school
today, just go hide in the
cellar."
Narrator: Polish Jews were
rounded up into ghettos and
later moved to other
institutions for medical
experiments.
Narrator: A decision was made
by the Nazis in January of
1942 at the Wannsee Conference
to go further with the Final
Solution and move the Jews
into death camps.
Benedict: There were four
camps that were specifically
created as death camps. Belzec,
Chelmno, Treblinka,
and Sobibor.
There were two additional
concentration camps that
developed a killing portion.
That would be Majdanek and
Auschwitz.
Narrator: Some skilled workers
were kept alive to work in the
camps.
Reis: The infrastructure and
the know-how and the personnel
of the six T-4 centers were
actually transferred to
Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka
and they have been the first
gas chambers.
Grodin: And then some of the
same doctors and nurses who
were involved in the
euthanasia program took the
gas chambers down and
reassembled them in east in
the Poland at the
concentration camps where
doctors selected at the ramps
and were involved in
supervising the gassings and
killings.
So physicians were involved in
all aspects.
[Music]
Narrator: Ravensbr ck,
located in Germany, was a camp
for women.
Shields: Most of the women
were Polish, there were some
Jews there, but most of the
women were dissenters or women
who had caused trouble to the
Nazis when the Nazis occupied
Poland.
Narrator: Ravensbr ck was
located close to one of the
largest and most important
hospitals in Germany where a
lot of research was going on.
Shields: Reinhard Heydrich was
the Nazi protector of
Czechoslovakia, who in 1942
was killed by a bomb.
He died from infection of the
wounds that he got.
He died several days later.
Narrator: Hitler demanded that
doctors should find a cure for
these deadly infections.
Shields: And so Ravensbr ck,
which was close by, had all
these women there that they
used as lab rats, basically.
The women were operated on by
the surgeons from this
hospital.
They had things like wounds
created in their legs that
were filled up with saw dust,
dirt, ground glass to see what
would happen to the wound, how
wounds developed, how bone
became infected.
Shields: Some of these women
were sent to the gas chambers
afterwards.
They were killed.
Some of the women died of
course from the experiments.
And some of the women survived
to give testimony in the
trials.
But nurses were definitely
involved in those experiments.
Narrator: Many German
physicians and nurses
participated in medical
experiments related to racial
hygiene in the concentration
camps and hospitals.
One of the worst was Dr. Josef
Mengele, a member of the S.S.
Kor: Then the cattle doors
opened and we stepped down on
a little strip of land called
the selection platform.
We had no idea where we are.
All we really knew that we did
not arrive in Hungary but we
were taken to Germany which
meant to us that the end was
near because there were a lot
of rumors for four years under
Hungarian occupation that Jews
were being taken to Germany
and murdered...
Narrator: Eva Mozes Kor is a
survivor of the notorious
Auschwitz where she and her
twin sister, Miriam, suffered
under Dr. Josef Mengele and
his experiments on twins.
Kor: There were four of us in
the family, children and
parents.
My mother grabbed my twin
sister and me by the hand
because we were her youngest
children and she was hoping
that as long as she could hold
on to us that she could
protect us.
Everything was moving very
fast.
I was on that little strip of
land called the selection
platform not longer than 10
minutes and in my childish
curiosity I looked around
trying to figure out what that
place was when I realized that
my father and two older
sisters disappeared in the
crowd and I never saw them
again.
So as we were holding on to
mother a Nazi was running,
yelling in German "twins,
twins."
We did not volunteer any
information because we had no
idea what was that place.
We were very extremely
troubled, confused and
exhausted and he noticed us,
approached us because we were
dress alike and we look alike
and he demanded to know from
my mother if we were twins.
And my mother didn't know what
to say she asked if that was
good and the Nazi nodded yes
and my mother said yes.
Then another Nazi came pulled
my mother in one direction we
were pulled in the opposite
direction.
As I look back, I remember my
mother's arms stretched out in
despair as she was pulled
away.
I never got to say goodbye to
her but of course I didn't
really realize it this would
be the last time we would see
her.
And all they took no longer
than about 30 minutes. Miriam
and I were alone.
We had no idea what would
happen to us and all that was
done to us for no other reason
except that we were Jewish and
we really didn't understand
why that was a crime.
Then they lined us up for
registration and tattooing.
And when my turn came I
decided to give them as much
trouble as a 10-year-old
could.
Four people, two women
prisoners and two Nazis
restrained me.
They pinned me on a bench
while they heated a gadget that
it looked like a writing pen
with a needle at the end, and
then when the needle got
really hot they dipped it into
ink and they burn into my left
arm the capital letter A-7063.
Narrator: The twins were
housed in barracks according
to age and sex.
Kor: We became part of a group
of little girls Auschwitz in
our transport of a certain set
of little girls aged 2 to age
16 that is the way they housed
us in our barrack according to
age and sex.
After roll call we will go
back to the barrack for
Dr. Mengele's daily inspection.
He would always come in
dressed in his shiny uniform,
gleaming black boots, white
gloves, and a baton in his
hand and he would count us. He
wanted to know...
Narrator: After breakfast the
twins would be readied for
experiments.
Kor: We would walk to
Auschwitz One and placed naked
in a barrack maybe 20, 30 set
of twins for six to eight
hours.
Every part of my body was
measured, compared to charts,
compared to my twin sister.
Those experiments were
not dangerous but they were
unbelievably demeaning and
even in Auschwitz I couldn't
cope to cope with it for six
to eight hours.
The only way that I could is
by blocking it out of my mind
so even today I have very
limited information on those
long hours.
Narrator: Three days a week
the children would be taken to
a blood lab.
Kor: There they would tie both
of my arms to restrict the
blood flow, take a lot blood
from my left arm at the same
time they would give me a
minimum of five injections
into my right arm.
The content of those
injections we didn't know then
nor do I know today.
To the best of my knowledge
they were germs, diseases and
drugs because the German
pharmaceutical company was
very heavily involved in the
experiments in Auschwitz.
After one of those injections
I became very ill with a very
high fever.
A fact I desperately tried to
hide.
The rumor in the camp was that
anyone taken to the hospital
never came back so I did not
want to be taken to the
hospital.
My fever was high, both of my
legs and arms were swollen and
very, very painful and I had
huge red patches throughout my
body the size of a small apple
or an egg.
Narrator: According to the
Auschwitz Museum at least
1,500 sets of twins were used
by Mengele in his experiments.
Less than 200 survived.
Some died as a result of the
conditions in the camp but the
majority died as a result of
the experiments.
Shields: They were truly
monsters. The stuff that
happened was horrendous.
There is no way, ethical
justification for much of what
for most of what they did under
the name of medical science.
It was done totally without
informed consent.
The people used as lab rats
had no choice they were often
killed immediately afterwards.
They had the most horrendous
things done to them.
Narrator: In the sterilization
experiments performed at
Auschwitz, it was often the
nurses who would select and
prepare the patients for the
experiments.
Starck: Then they assisted
whatever the physician needed,
the nurse assistant to do and
kept it secret from the
patients as to what was going
to happen, giving false
reassurance that everything is
going to be alright.
We are taking
good care of you.
Narrator: At Dachau, a variety
of unethical medical
experiments were made using
the prisoners as guinea pigs.
Starck: Some of the cruelties
are almost unbelievable.
Spitz: They had a purpose for
each one of these.
Usually to benefit downed
German pilots in freezing
water or some other
battlefield result.
Narrator: Author, Vivien Spitz
was an eyewitness court
reporter for the Nuremberg war
crimes trial of Nazi doctors.
She refers to her book
"Doctors from Hell" as she
recalls the trial testimony
she reported.
Spitz: The victims were
German, Czech, and Polish
gypsies who were deprived the
food and given only brackish
yellow sea water for days
resulting in, of course,
excruciating pain and foaming
at the mouth and in most
cases, madness.
Starck: Many of these patients
died, many of these patients
died.
Steinberger: They did
experimentations where they
would, keep people in freezing
temperatures until they were
almost dead, revive them and
then expose them again.
Grodin: Lowered the
temperature, raised the
temperature until they froze
and died.
And then they took them
directly to the autopsy table
in what they call terminal
experiments.
And so they did low pressure
studies where they took
concentration camp prisoners and
put them into especially
designed rooms where they
sucked out the oxygen,
let in the oxygen until
their lungs exploded and
they died in terminal
experiments.
There were studies of bone and
muscle and infectious
diseases.
They were trying out new
antibiotics so they took
concentration camp prisoners
and cut open and filleted and
infected their legs and wounds
to create simulated wounds.
Reis: We know that the
sterilization program, the
mercy killing program, and the
unlawful atrocious human
experimentation programs were
masterminded, planned,
suggested, implemented by
physicians.
Narrator: Dr. Josef Mengele
was able to escape from
Germany after the war and
avoided apprehension by
authorities.
Spitz: Josef Mengele was the
worst that we never got.
Mengele's family was very
wealthy manufacturers in
Bavaria.
And they managed to hide him
until they could get him out
of Germany.
Narrator: Dr. Mengele lived in
South America until 1979 when
he reportedly drowned while
swimming at a resort in
Brazil.
Music Narrator: Finally, in
May 1945, the war in Europe
ended when the Germans
surrendered to the Allies, and
the guns were silent.
After the war, the Allies
conducted the famous Nuremberg
Trials and the world became
aware of the atrocities of the
Nazi doctors and nurses.
Shields: We don't know the
figures of the nurses who were
involved because they were the
workforce in these hospitals.
Narrator: Although nurses were
not named as defendants in the
medical trials at Nuremberg,
the results of some of their
actions during the war were
brought to light.
For example, the horrific
experiments done on young
Polish women at Ravensbr ck
and the killing of the
disabled persons in the
so-called "euthanasia"
programs were made public.
Nurses, however, were not
exonerated for their crimes.
Many stood trial later on and
several were hanged for their
actions, including two male
nurses from the Hadamar
euthanasia site.
Numerous subsequent trials of
nurses resulted in prison
sentences.
At other trials, nurses were
acquitted, despite admitting
their guilt.
Starck: There was a trial for
the nurses and I think they
were 14 in all and none of
them were convicted.
Benedict: The first trial of
the first nurse and the first
physician was in 1946, and it
was the nurse and physician at
Meseritz.
And interestingly, both of
them received the death
sentence and were hanged.
The nurses who were tried in
1965 there were 15 nurses from
Meseritz to be tried.
One killed herself the night
before the trial, so 14 nurses
were tried.
And the reasons they gave
were, "I thought I was
relieving people from their
suffering."
"These people had no life at
all."
"I needed to keep my job."
Starck: I think probably loss
of memory and other things
that had changed during that
time, the nurses were not held
accountable.
And they used the defense too
that, "I was only following
orders."
Grodin: Just following orders
was not going to be an
acceptable defense to murder
or genocide.
One of the things that came
out of Nuremberg was the
notion that everybody is
responsible for their own
actions.
Benedict: But the baffling
thing to me is still the trial
in 1965 of the 14 Meseritz
nurses.
They had had 20 years to think
about what they had done.
Those nurses did not deny what
they did.
One of them said, "Yes, I
probably killed 210 people."
Now the nurses from Spiegelgrund
were tried after the war.
Anna Katschenka is
one of them and received
several years in prison.
[Music]
Narrator: Not all of the
nurses under the Third Reich
were compliant with the Nazi
ideology.
One Austrian SS nurse, Maria
Stromberger, showed great
compassion toward prisoners at
Auschwitz.
Benedict: She had heard some
of the things that were going
on at Auschwitz and just could
not believe it because she
said, "We're a good and moral
people, we wouldn't do this."
So, she went and said,
"Transfer me to Auschwitz,
I want to work there."
So her goal was to work caring
for the inmates.
Eventually she gained their
trust and would smuggle out
letters, documents,
photographs.
She smuggled in ammunition.
She saved the lives
of many of them.
Narrator: Perhaps the most
famous of the trials held at
Nuremberg before an
International Military
Tribunal was theso called
"Medical Case" or the
"Doctors' Trial."
Reis: Karl Brandt who was the
chief physician of Hitler
said, "I did what's needed to
be done.
This was good what we did.
We made German people
healthier."
So people were convinced that
they are doing something
positive in all these
atrocities.
Narrator: Twenty-three
physicians and scientists were
tried for crimes against
humanity.
Grodin: Crimes against
humanity was a new concept
which was whether it be war
time, not war time, there are
certain things beyond the pale
that we are going to hold
people accountable.
So genocide was a classic
example of a crime against
humanity and so the
doctors went on trial.
Narrator: Today many of
these killing centers
are memorials
open to the public.
But in spite of the bucolic
setting, they were centers of
inhumane experiments, mass
murder and extermination.
Many of these institutions
remain working psychiatric
hospitals even today.
Benedict: It looked like
a college campus.
It was beautiful.
Starck: I've been to prisons,
death camps in both Germany
and Austria.
It's not quite the same
because the place is more or
less clean and of course
empty.
And so you have to stand there
and be there to kind of think
how would it have been when it
was so crowded and so dirty,
and they didn't have water to
drink.
One of the patients I'm
familiar with drank water from
the floor and died from an
infection.
And it's just hard to be in
those places and realize the
conditions that were there.
[Music]
Narrator: Spiegelgrund is still
a large, active hospital in
Vienna.
During the Holocaust it
consisted of a children's ward
and became infamous for the
euthanasia of the children
there.
Benedict: The brains of many
of these children were saved
for years in the basement
of Spiegelgrund.
Starck: I think it is good
that they are open to the
public because you read about
it and you can see pictures,
but until you are actually
there and standing there, you
don't get the emotions and
the, the feeling that you
would otherwise.
Nurse: Alright it looks like
he might have a rhythm back on
the monitor.
It's sinus but slow.
Narrator: Although current
healthcare in the U.S.
is regarded as among the best
in the world, there are
elements that should cause us
to reflect upon the
similarities to German
medicine in the 1930s.
Shields: So it's important
that for us, both as nurses
who are looking at history and
nurses working today, that we
know about this history.
Because unless we know, we
can't stop it happening again,
and it will happen again.
Narrator: Today, nurses are
involved in the legal
euthanasia of patients in
Belgium, Holland and
Switzerland.
Nurses are also involved in
executions in countries where
the death penalty is legal.
Shields: My take on it is that
the nurses working in those
areas should know the history
so that they themselves can
determine whether it's
relevant to what they're
doing, and ask themselves the
question, is this an ethical
area in which I want to work.
Reis: We physicians, nurses
have the power that if we are
not careful can be abused.
By learning about how this
power was abused in the worst
way, we hope that you will
inoculate yourself and be
conscious and aware and
reflective.
[Music]
Kor: How does any person
know what is right from wrong.
And I think that I have to
have a conscience, a
conscience as the moral
compass that if somebody has
no morality then it's very
difficult for them to really
understand or judge for their
own knowledge what is wrong
and what is right.
But if it hurts another human
being I think that it is
morally wrong.
Spitz: I'm just amazed even
today to ask, someone who is a
freshman in high school what
they knew about the Nuremberg
Trials and they don't know
what you're talking about.
Narrator: Many young people
today are not aware of the
Holocaust and its place in
history.
Starck: They know that if
something happened what they
think is a long time ago, and
it's over, and it's never
going to happen again, so why
should we keep bringing it up?
Spitz: Those who cannot
remember the past, are
condemned to repeat it.
And that is exactly
what is happening.
Rozmus: I think it is
important for all health care
professionals to study what
we've done in the past, and to
learn how those particular
doctors and nurses and
dentists and other health
professionals got involved in
the acts that they got
involved in, because we're
dealing with the same issues
today and we always need to be
alert.
Nurse: Let's hold CPR for a
second.
Narrator: Regulatory
procedures in the nursing
profession today are more
stringent than in the 1920s
and 30s.
Rozmus: There is an American
Nurses Association.
They have a code of ethics for
nursing that guides the
ethical conduct of nursing,
but there is no regulatory
back-up for that code.
It is simply a guidance.
Starck: I think what is
happening today is medical
errors where sometimes nurses
and others don't speak up when
they see an error that is
possible and that's likely to
occur.
And they don't speak up for
fear of well, "The doctor must
know what he or she is doing.
And I don't want to embarrass
myself by saying something
that turns out not to be
true."
Narrator: Today, medical
experts are facing new
technological and social
issues.
Grodin: I'm quite concerned
about the physician-assisted
suicide movement in the U.S.
I think it's easier to get
yourself killed than it is to
get healthcare.
I'm concerned when you have 40
million people who have access
to no healthcare but you offer
them euthanasia, you offer
them assisted suicide.
Narrator: With these new
developments, could the world
see another era of unethical
medical practices and
experiments?
Steinberger: You know, after
the Holocaust, the motto was,
"never again, never again
should a holocaust happen."
Starck: I think the lesson we
have learned from the Nazi era
and the Holocaust, is that we
are all vulnerable to outside
pressures, influences, and that
things can happen that we may
not see at the time, that things
are going awry, and that's why
we have to all be on our guard
and we have to monitor
ourselves.
We have to monitor each other
because the health care
environment is very
challenging.
Rozmus: A couple of takeaways
from what we learned about the
nurses in the Holocaust, I
think, the first one is how
easy it is to become involved,
especially in the beginning.
How easy was it for those
nurses just to take a patient
to a special room?
They didn't know what the room
was for.
They were simply taking a
patient to a special room.
How long did it take them to
actually find out that every
patient who went to that room
did not come out alive?
That could take quite a long
period of time.
Once you've started doing
that, then maybe you're asked
to help give a patient
medication.
So, slowly the nurses could
have gotten involved, and not
even known what they were
doing.
Reis: Learning about the
Holocaust is a very powerful
way to learn empathy and
compassion.
Steinberger: Only by educating
people that we must learn to
live in peace and harmony with
each other, regardless of
color of the skin, or
background or economic
situation and so on.
Grodin: But the question, of
course, is how did one of the
most advanced societies,
advanced in art, music,
theatre, writing, medicine.
You weren't a real doctor in
the U.S.
unless you went to Germany to
study, and when you came back
and said, "You know, I studied
in Germany."
And so it was the height of
technology, the height of
science, and how was it
possible that these people
became murderers?
Narrator: It is easy to
believe the Holocaust could
never be repeated.
The factors leading up to it
are not unique to Germany.
They are human factors that
are present in every country,
every culture, and every
generation.
If it could happen in one of
the most advanced societies in
human history, it can happen
again anywhere.
Steinberger: If it happened in
Germany then it can happen
anywhere else.
So we must be very, very
vigilant.
Narrator: It is up to each of
us to learn from the past and
be ready to interrupt the
forces that may try to exploit
the few for the benefit of the
majority.
Sieg Heil...
Sieg Heil...
Sieg Heil...
Sieg Heil...
Sieg Heil...
[Music]
