Twin's Experience During the Holocaust
There are about 1.6 billion twins born each year and many during the Holocaust were experimented on. The Holocaust started with the kidnapping of humans on January 30, 1933, and ended in 1945. Germany was defeated in World War I and experienced hardship from the loss. This made Germany unstable, starting the Nazis’ rise to power led by Adolf Hitler. As Hitler’s power expanded the extermination of Jewish people skyrocketed. Mengele got involved with the Nazi Party and sparked an interest in twin studies. Twins experienced many things during the Holocaust such as the ramp process, gruesome experiments, and life after the destruction of Concentration camps.
During the Holocaust, twins were studied and used
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Some twins died or were murdered and then experimented on. When the twins' measurements were done they laid undressed next to each other and were compared to one another. Features that were the same between them were hereditary and the ones that were different were environmental (Rozenberg, 2021). Tests were then done which included huge blood transfusions from one twin to another. Then they had eye tests where harmful drops or chemicals were injected into their eyes. The purpose of these injections or drops was to attempt to turn the eyes blue (Rozenberg, 2021). This caused pain, infections, and temporary or permanent blindness. They also made injections into the spine and spinal taps without anesthesia. They were injected with unknown substances. Then they would purposefully give one twin typhus or tuberculosis in an attempt to kill them (Rozenberg, 2021). When the diseased twin died, they murdered the other and compared the diseased twin to the healthy one. In addition to that they did surgeries on them without anesthesia including castration, organ removal, and amputations (Rozenberg, 2021). Twins were then studied after their deaths, which was the final experiment. Their death could have been caused by disease or purposefully killed for after-death measurements and examinations (Rozenberg, 2021). Some other things that could have killed them was being stabbed with a needle and piercing their heart, which had chloroform or phenol causing almost instant death (Rozenberg, 2021). Once they died some organs, eyes, blood samples, and tissue would be further studied. The twins that did survive then went through the end of Nazi concentration