Four of the Polish women who were subjected to these experiments testified before the Tribunal. Most of the women who were used as subjects had been active in a resistance movement. (Tr. pp. 787, 816, 840, 857.) Only healthy inmates were used. (Tr. pp. 786, 815, 836, 856, 860-1.) None of them volunteered for the experiments. (Tr. pp. 789, 819, 842, 844-5, 861.) On the contrary, they protested against the experiments both orally and in writing. (Tr. pp. 789, 794, 823-5.) They stated that they would have preferred death to continued experiments, since they were convinced that they were to die in any event. (Tr. pp. 795, 824, 863.) They testified that 74 Polish women, 1 German, and 1 Ukrainian woman were experimented upon. (Tr. pp. 1438, 796, 818, 862.) Since Gebhardt placed the total number of Polish female experimental subjects in the sulfanilamide experiments at 60, the additional 16 women mentioned by the witnesses may well have been subjects in the bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration experiments. (Tr. p. 1462.)
The witness Kusmierczuk was one of the subjects in the sulfanilamide experiments. She is a Polish national and arrived in the Ravensbrueck concentration camp in the fall of 1941. (Tr. p. 857.) She was operated on in October 1942 and a severe infection developed in her case. (Tr. p. 858.) She remained in the hospital from October 1942 until April 1943, but her wound was still not healed at the time she was discharged from the hospital. Her condition deteriorated and she was readmitted to the hospital on 1 September 1943. (Tr. p. 860.) She left the hospital the second time in February 1944, but her wound did not finally heal until June 1944. (Tr. p. 861.) She identified the defendants Gebhardt, Fischer, and Oberheuser as having participated in the experiment upon her. (Tr. p. 860.) Kusmierczuk suffered permanent injuries as a result of this experiment, and her condition was described by the expert witness Dr. Leo Alexander. (Tr. pp. 864-9.) The post-operational care of this woman was not handled by Gebhardt and Fischer, but by the camp doctors. On the occasion of her second admission to the hospital in September 1943, Kusmierczuk was operated on by Dr. Treite in an effort to cure the deep-seated infection. (Tr. p. 861.) [See photographs, pp. [898] to [908].]
The expert witness Maczka, who worked as an X-ray technician in the Ravensbrueck concentration camp during the course of the experiments, testified concerning deaths of the five Polish experimental subjects resulting from the sulfanilamide experiments. Weronica Kraska developed typical tetanus symptoms a few days after the experimental operation was performed on her. After a brief illness she died under cramps caused by tetanus. (Tr. p. 1438.) Kazimiera Kurowska was artificially infected with gangrene bacillus. She was a healthy Polish girl of 23 years. From day to day her leg became blacker and more swollen. She was given care for only the first few days. After that she was taken to Room 4 in the hospital where she lay for days in unbelievable pain and finally died. Maczka was able to observe this case personally and in her opinion immediate amputation would have saved her life. (Tr. pp. 1439-40.) It is quite clear that if a German soldier’s life had been endangered by gangrene infection, an amputation would have been undertaken immediately. In this experiment, where the very effort was to develop a serious gangrene infection and to test the effects of sulfanilamide preparations, it is equally clear why the leg of Kurowska was not amputated. Aniela Lefanowicz was infected with oedema malignum. Her leg kept swelling more and more, the blood vessels eroded, and she died from bleeding. Maczka testified that the blood vessels should have been tied off and an amputation carried out in order to save her life. She was completely neglected after the first 2 or 3 days. (Tr. pp. 1440-1.) Zofia Kiecol died under similar circumstances. (Tr. p. 1441.)
Alfreda Prus was infected with oedema malignum the same day as the witnesses Kusmierczuk, Kiecol, and Lefanowicz. She was a beautiful, young 21-year-old girl, and a university student. She proved to be stronger than Kiecol and Lefanowicz and for that reason she lived a few days longer. She suffered terrible pain and finally died of hemorrhage. (Tr. pp. 1142-3.) Kusmierczuk was the only subject to survive that series of experiments. (Tr. p. 1443.)
It is hardly necessary to point out that all of the experimental subjects suffered severe pain and torture. (Tr. pp. 790-1, 802, 820, 842, 859; NO-876, Pros. Ex. 225; NO-871, Pros. Ex. 227; NO-877, Pros. Ex. 228.) The Tribunal was able to observe for itself the mutilations to which the Polish witnesses were subjected, and pictures of their scars were introduced to form a permanent part of the record. (NO-1079a, b, and c, Pros. Ex. 209; NO-1081a, and b, Pros. Ex. 211; NO-1082a, b, and c, Pros. Ex. 214; NO-1080a-g, Pros. Ex. 219.)
The post-operational care of the experimental subjects was entirely inadequate. (NO-873, Pros. Ex. 226.) Many of the subjects were given neither medicine nor morphine by order of defendant Oberheuser. (NO-877, Pros. Ex. 228.) They were given bandages from time to time when the doctors felt like it. Sometimes they waited 3 days, sometimes 4 days. There was a terrible odor of pus in the rooms. The girls were forced to help each other. (Tr. p. 1444.) Post-operational care, such as it was, was administered by the camp doctors. The witness Broel-Plater testified that:
“My leg pained me; I felt severe pain, and blood flowed from my leg. At night we were all alone without any care. I heard only the screaming of my fellow prisoners, and I heard also that they asked for water. There was nobody to give us any water or bed pans.” (Tr. p. 790.)
The witness Karolewska testified that:
“I was in my room and I made the remark to fellow prisoners that we had been operated on under very bad conditions and were left here in this room, and that we were not given even the possibility to recover. This remark must have been heard by a German nurse who was sitting in the corridor because the door of our room leading to the corridor was open. The German nurse entered the room and told us to get up and dress. We answered that we could not follow her order because we had great pains in our legs and could not walk. Then the German nurse came into our room with Dr. Oberheuser. Dr. Oberheuser told us to dress and go to the dressing room. We put on our dresses; and, being unable to walk, we had to hop on one leg going to the operating room. After one hop we had to rest. Dr. Oberheuser did not allow anybody to help us. When we arrived at the operating room quite exhausted, Dr. Oberheuser appeared and told us to go back because a change of dressing would not take place that day. I could not walk, but somebody, a prisoner whose name I do not remember, helped me to get back to the room.” (Tr. p. 822.)
At least five human lives were sacrificed in the sulfanilamide experiments, while an additional six were shot after having survived the operations. All the surviving victims suffered terrible pains and were crippled for life. Nevertheless, the experiments were not even scientifically successful. The results, as reported by Gebhardt and Fischer at the Third Conference of the Consulting Physicians of the Wehrmacht at the Military Medical Academy in Berlin in May 1943, were not adopted, and medical directives were issued which required the continued use of sulfanilamide. (Gebhardt, Fischer, Oberheuser 3, Gebhardt, Fischer, Oberheuser Ex. 10.) The sulfanilamide experiments were entirely unnecessary, since similar results could have been achieved by the treatment of wound infections of German soldiers normally contracted during the course of the war. (Tr. pp. 3334, 3338.)