Freezing Water Experiment

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It was May 20, 1944, a fourteen-year old entered the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The teenager and the other arrivals that could walk went to the concentration camp on foot. Those who did not cooperate with the Nazis were immediately gunned down. The people who made it to the camp went two days without food. Slowly, this consumed several of the prisoners as they changed from good-willed humans to ravenous savages. Beating other prisoners or betraying them to the Nazis in order save their own lives in the process (Hackett). This is the truth we know of the Holocaust. It broke the humanity and ethics of the world of the past and even present day. The concentration camps of World War II told a story of the desire to advance scientific …show more content…

The Nazis would immerse prisoners in tanks of cold, brisk water for hours on end. Doctor Sigmund Rascher undertook the experiment using 300 prisoners. About eighty to ninety of the subjects immersed in the cold water died. It is said that the experiment was so torturous that Rascher's concentration would be disturbed by the screams of the subjects (Baruch Cohen). These Nazi doctors lacked any compassion towards humanity under the excuse of research …show more content…

The Nazis tested the potability of seawater by conducting the experiment on ninety Gypsies prisoners. The subjects were only given seawater as the prime source of hydration. The test was done to see if sea salt caused severe physical disturbances or death within six to twelve days. The victims of the experiment were seen licking the floors (i.e. attempting to anguish the thirst). Dr. Eppinger, the mastermind behind the seawater experiment, committed suicide in 1946 before the Nuremberg Trials (Baruch Cohen). The Seawater experiment demonstrates the Nazis’ lack of empathy for the “inferior” races.
As unfathomable as these experiments may seem, the hemorrhage experiment was the most pointless. The deaths of German troops by hemorrhage drove the Nazis to attempt to make a blood coagulant to keep the troops from dying. In World War II, SS(Schutzstaffel) soldiers died on the battlefield of hemorrhage. A hemorrhage was an escape of blood from a ruptured blood vessel. When Himmler discovered this, he ordered Doctor Sigmund Rascher to create a blood coagulant for the SS troops. Rascher would observe his tested coagulant by observing