Thus, in this administrative council there were members of the SS, and also Dr. Handloser. The experiments proper were carried out by Sturmbannführer Schuler, but all the orders and directives concerning the different types of experiments, which I shall speak about to you, were issued by Leipzig, that is, by the Research Section (Versuchsabteilung) of the Waffen SS. So there was no personal initiative on the part of Schuler or the management of the camp.
As to the experiments, all orders came directly from the Supreme Command in Berlin. Among these experiments, which we could follow step by step (at least some of them) through the cards, the results, the registration number of people admitted to and discharged from Block 46, were, first of all, numerous exanthematous typhus experiments; second, experiments on phosphorus burns; third, experiments on sexual hormones; fourth, experiments on starvation edema or avitaminosis; finally, fifth, I can tell you of experiments in the field of forensic medicine. So we have five different types of experiments.
M. DUBOST: Were the men who were subjected to these experiments volunteers or not?
BALACHOWSKY: The human beings subjected to experiments were recruited, not only in the Buchenwald Camp, but also outside the camp. They were not volunteers; in most cases they did not know that they would be used for experiments until they entered Block 46. The recruitment took place among criminals, perhaps in order to reduce their large numbers in that way. But the recruitment was also carried out among political prisoners and I have to point out that recruits for Block 46 came also from Russian prisoners of war. Among the political prisoners and prisoners of war who were used for experimental purposes at Block 46, the Russians were always in the majority, for the following reasons:
Of all the prisoners who could exist in concentration camps it was the Russians who had the greatest physical resistance, which was obviously superior to that of the French or other people of western Europe. They could withstand hunger and ill-treatment, and, generally speaking, showed physical resistance in every respect. For this particular reason, Russian political prisoners were recruited for experiments in greater numbers than others. However, there were people of other nationalities among them, particularly French. I should now like to deal with details of the experiments themselves.
M. DUBOST: Do not go too much into details, because we are not specialists. It will suffice us to know that these experiments were carried out without any regard to humanity and on nonvoluntary subjects. Will you please describe to us the atrocious character of these experiments and their results.
BALACHOWSKY: The experiments carried out in Block 46 did without doubt serve a medical purpose, but for the greater part they were of no service to science. Therefore, they can hardly be called experiments. The men were used for observing the effects of drugs, poisons, bacterial cultures, et cetera. I take, as an example, the use of vaccine against exanthematous typhus. To manufacture this vaccine it is necessary to have bacterial cultures of typhus. For experiments such as are carried out at the Pasteur Institute and the other similar institutes of the world, cultures are not necessary as typhus patients can always be found for samples of infected blood. Here it was quite different. From the records and the chart you have in hand, we could ascertain in Block 46 12 different cultures of typhus germs, designated by the letter BU, (meaning Buchenwald) and numbered Buchenwald 1 to Buchenwald 12. A constant supply of these cultures was kept in Block 46 by means of the contamination of healthy individuals through sick ones; this was achieved by artificial inoculation of typhus germs by means of intravenous injections of 0.5 to 1 cubic centimeter of infected blood drawn from a patient at the height of the crisis. Now, it is well-known that artificial inoculation of typhus by intravenous injection is invariably fatal. Therefore all these men who were used for bacterial culture during the whole time such cultures were required (from October 1942 to the liberation of the camp) died, and we counted 600 victims sacrificed for the sole purpose of supplying typhus germs.
M. DUBOST: They were literally murdered to keep typhus germs alive?
BALACHOWSKY: They were literally murdered to keep typhus germs alive. Apart from these, other experiments were made as to the efficacy of vaccines.
M. DUBOST: What is this document?