“A month later they were returned to Oswieczim, where they were subjected to two operations for checking the results; one, longitudinal, the other, a horizontal incision. The reproductive organs were removed for study. As a result of the destruction of hormones, the girls completely changed in appearance and resembled old women.”
With this I end the quotation.
Experiments on sterilization of women and castration of men were carried out in Oswieczim on a mass scale beginning in 1942, and some time after the sterilization the men were castrated for a special study of the tissues.
You can find a confirmation of this fact in the report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union on Oswieczim, where numerous statements of individual internees who underwent such operations have been quoted. The Tribunal will find the excerpt which I wish to read on Page 197 of the document book, second paragraph, second column of the text. I quote two paragraphs:
“Valigura, who was subjected to such experiments, stated:
“ ‘A few days after I had been brought to Birkenau, I believe it was in the first days of December 1942, all the young men from 18 to 30 years of age were sterilized by X-raying the scrotum. I myself was among those sterilized. Eleven months later, that is to say, on the 1st of November 1943, I was castrated. Together with me on that same day 200 men were sterilized.’
“Witness David Sures, from the town of Salonika (Greece), stated the following:
“ ‘Toward July 1943 I myself and 10 other Greeks were placed on some kind of list and sent to Birkenau. There we were stripped and subjected to sterilization by X-rays. A month later we were summoned to a central section of the camp where all those sterilized underwent an operation of castration.’ ”
I believe that it was not by accident that the experiments on people began with sterilization and castration. This was a quite natural result of the theories of German fascism, interested in lowering the birthrate of those people whom they considered to be vanquished. It was a part of Hitler’s depopulation technique; and in confirmation of this I would now like to quote a very short excerpt from Rauschning’s book, The Voice of Destruction, which has already been submitted to the Tribunal. This extract has not yet been read into the record, and the Tribunal will find it on Page 207 of the document book.
Hitler said to Rauschning: