AFFIDAVIT OF MRS. ZDENKA NEDVEDOVA-NEJEDLA, M. D., OF PRAGUE, CONCERNING EXPERIMENTAL OPERATIONS CONDUCTED ON FELLOW INMATES AT RAVENSBRUECK CONCENTRATION CAMP
1. I, Zdenka Nedvedova-Nejedla, M. D. came to Ravensbrueck concentration camp in a transport from Auschwitz on 19 August 1943, and I worked in the sick bay as a doctor prisoner from September 1943 until 30 May 1945. In the beginning I worked in the Department for Contagious Diseases at Station No. 1 and the Ambulatory. Besides this, I was in charge of Sucking Block from the fall of 1944 until May 1945.
2. Of the victims of experimental operations, I nursed personally Helena Piasecka, who was suffering from chronic osteomyelitis after completed operation of both shin bones. I knew that these operations were performed under Professor Gebhardt’s supervision by Doctor Fischer, and a woman, Doctor Oberheuser, from the SS Hospital Hohenlychen, but I do not know which one of them had operated on Piasecka. The operation was performed in the “bunker,” camp prison, where there were not even the most primitive sanitary installations and even fewer aseptic installations. Her general condition was good, but the defect in both bones made her an invalid for life. Before the operation Piasecka was completely healthy.
3. All women on whom experimental operations had been performed were placed in one block and they were generally known as “rabbits,” so that I saw the effects of the operations on those women who had survived them. In each case of abbreviation of limbs, muscular atrophy of the highest degree set in, proving a grave injury of nerves during operations and deep indrawn scars where parts of muscles had festered away.
4. From lay reports of nursing personnel without any special training, I tried to construct the types of experimental operations.
a. Culture of virulent germs (streptococci, staphylococci, maybe even tetanus and gas phlegmon) were injected subcutaneously, intramuscularly, and even directly into bones. These were the attempts to produce osteomyelitis experimentally. The resulting sepsis was checked by daily examination of the blood and urine to test the effectiveness of new medicaments of the sulfanilamide group.
b. Parts of long bones, as much as 5 centimeters (fibulae and tibiae), were removed and in some cases replaced by metal or left without connection. These operations were probably to prove the inability of bone to grow without periosteum.
c. High amputations were performed; for example, even whole arms with shoulder blade or legs with osiliaca were amputated. These operations were performed mostly on insane women who were immediately killed after the operation by a quick injection of evipan. All specimens gained in operations were carefully wrapped up in sterile gauze and immediately transported to the SS hospital nearby (Hohenlychen presumably), where they were to be used in the attempt to heal the injured limbs of wounded German soldiers.
5. Operations were performed on 1 Yugoslav, 1 Czech, 2 Ukrainian, 2 German, and about 18 Polish women, of whom 6 were operated on by force in the bunker with the help of SS men. Two of them were shot after their operation wounds had healed. After operations, no one except SS nurses was admitted to the persons operated on, whole nights they lay without any assistance and it was not permitted to administer sedatives even against the most intensive postoperational pains. From the persons operated on, 11 died or were killed, and 71 remained invalids for life.
6. The report mentioned in paragraphs 3 to 5 was prepared on the basis of evidence given to me at Ravensbrueck in the autumn of 1943 by these fellow prisoners: Sofia Maczka, M. D., Poland; Isa Siczynska, medical student, Krakow, Poland; Jola Krzyzanowska, medical student, Krakow, Poland; Krisa Iwanska, medical student, Krakow, Poland; Emilie Skrbkova, medical student, Praha, Czechoslovakia; and Inka Katnarova, M. D., Hradec Kralove, Czechoslovakia.