“Special hospitals, surgical blocks, histological laboratories, and other departments were set up in the camp. But they were intended not for the treatment but for the extermination of people. Here German professors and doctors carried out mass experiments on men, women, and children who were in perfectly good health. They carried out experiments on sterilization of women, on castration of men, experiments on children, artificial infection with cancer, typhus, and malaria, of masses of people who were afterward subjected to observation. They tested the action of poisonous substances on living persons.”
I would like to stress that experiments on the sterilization and castration of women and men were carried out on a particularly large scale. Whole blocks in the camp were especially designated for experiments using particularly effective methods of sterilization and castration.
I will read two short excerpts from the report of the Extraordinary State Commission, which the Tribunal will find on the back of Page 196 of the document book, Paragraph 5. I quote:
“Experiments on women were carried out in the hospital blocks of the Oswieczim Camp. Up to four hundred women were detained simultaneously in Block 10 of the camp, and experiments on sterilization were carried out on them by means of X-rays and subsequent removal of the ovaries, experiments in engrafting cancer in the neck of the uterus and forced abortion, and on testing countermeasures against injuries to the uterus by X-ray.”
I omit three sentences and proceed with the quotation:
“In Block 21”—that is another block, the women’s block was Number 10—“mass experiments on castration of men were carried out for the purpose of studying the possibility of sterilization by X-ray. The castration itself was carried out some time later after the X-ray process. These experiments on X-raying and castration were carried out by Professor Schumann and Dr. Dering. It frequently happened that after treatment by X-ray, one or both testicles of the subject were removed for examination.”
I beg the Tribunal to allow me, in order to show the extent of these experiments, to read short excerpts from the testimony of the Dutch Doctor De Vind. It is contained in the Exhibit Number USSR-52 (Document Number USSR-52) already presented to the Court. I will not read the testimony in full but will just quote the statistics, which the Tribunal may find on the back of Page 203 of the document book, last paragraph, first column. I repeat that these numbers refer only to one block, Block 10. The following women were interned in this block:
“Fifty women of different nationalities who arrived in March 1943; 100 Greek women who arrived in March 1943; 110 Belgian women who arrived in April 1943; 50 French women who arrived in July 1943; 40 Dutch women who arrived in August 1943; 100 Dutch women who arrived on 15 September 1943; and 100 Dutch women who arrived one week later; and finally 12 Polish women.”
I will quote a further excerpt from the statement of the Dutch Doctor De Vind, which has also been submitted previously to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-52 (Document Number USSR-52), I quote that part of the statement in which he speaks of experiments carried out by a certain Professor Schumann on 15 young girls. Your Honors will find this excerpt on Page 204 of the document book, first column of the text, third paragraph:
“Professor Schumann (a German). These experiments were carried out on 15 girls of 17 to 18 years of age, including Shimmi Bella, from Salonika (Greece) and Buena Dora, from Salonika (Greece). Only a few of them survived; but unfortunately they are still in the German hands, and we have consequently no objective data on these brutal experiments. However, the following has been established beyond doubt: The girls were placed between two plates within the field of ultra-short waves; one electrode was placed on the abdomen and the other on the buttocks. The focus of the rays was directed on the ovaries which were consequently burned out. As a result of the irregular dosage, serious burns appeared on the abdomen and on the buttocks. One girl died of these terrible sufferings; the other girls were sent to Birkenau to the medical unit or to working kommandos.