Seraphim
01-27-2004, 06:54 AM
By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - Elizabeth Fried says she survived eight months at the hands of Dr. Josef Mengele and his Nazi cohorts. Injections given, blood taken. When it was over, she was sterile.
Fried, now 88, is one of almost 1,800 Jews who have come forward for the first time with accounts of being Hitler's human guinea pigs during World War II.
Their stories, told to Jewish groups dispersing money from Holocaust court settlements, prove that thousands more were tortured under the guise of scientific research than previously thought, according to an expert.
A few of the written testimonies submitted to a settlement committee in the last year are being released Monday, said Gideon Taylor, executive vice president of the Conference on Jewish Materials Claims Against Germany.
So far, 1,778 Jewish victims of Nazi medical experiments from 33 countries have responded.
"We certainly didn't expect this number," Taylor said of the 1,778 who responded, many noting that they were less interested in the $5,400 payouts that will begin getting mailed this week than in having their stories known.
Taylor said such a large number of people making claims indicates there were thousands more who either died during the experiments or have died in the years since. "Our knowledge has been significantly broadened," he said.
Data collected from the claimants show there were about 178 different types of medical experiments conducted in more than 30 camps and ghettos. Some victims were not Jewish, including a group of Polish nuns, Taylor said.
"It's a glimpse into one of the most shocking parts of the Holocaust," he said. "You just read these testimonies. It forces you to believe the unbelievable. These people have been through hell. There's no other way to describe it."
He said it was "closer to torture than it is to anything you could call medicine."
In submissions likely to change the way history books chronicle one of the worst horrors of the Holocaust, several victims have agreed to let their names be released.
Among those was Polish-born U.S. resident Hyman Turenshine, 76, who said he remained silent for years about the sterilization experiments he underwent in Auschwitz in 1944 — but was motivated to speak out by those who suggest the Holocaust never occurred.
Written statements by Turenshine and others who are speaking out will be given to Holocaust institutions, including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
"Every day when I go to wash or shave, I look down at the number tattooed on my arm and am reminded and haunted by everything that happened," said Turenshine.
"The payment isn't what's important to me. Instead, our stories need to become part of a permanent historical record," he said.
Fried said Mengele included her in his experiments for eight months in 1944 because she was a twin. She said the experiments took away her ability to have children.
"Dr. Mengele took blood often and gave me injections. He never looked me in the eye. I also had to clean and cook for him as if I were his maid," she wrote.
Others wanted to remain anonymous.
One 82-year-old man described an experiment in which the Nazis unleashed dogs with poison on their teeth to chase him and another man and rip flesh from their legs. A 76-year-old man described repeatedly being cut by a Nazi doctor and nurses with unsanitized instruments so they could see how wounds responded to various medicated creams and liquids.
Another 73-year-old woman told of Mengele pulling her from a line of people headed to the gas chambers at Auschwitz to go to his laboratory, where she was injected with drugs and chemicals or where "they made cuts into my body and left the wounds open for them to study."
"I was used as a guinea pig for medical experiments," she writes. At another point, she says, "As bad as the experiments were, without them I would not be here today to write this."
NEW YORK - Elizabeth Fried says she survived eight months at the hands of Dr. Josef Mengele and his Nazi cohorts. Injections given, blood taken. When it was over, she was sterile.
Fried, now 88, is one of almost 1,800 Jews who have come forward for the first time with accounts of being Hitler's human guinea pigs during World War II.
Their stories, told to Jewish groups dispersing money from Holocaust court settlements, prove that thousands more were tortured under the guise of scientific research than previously thought, according to an expert.
A few of the written testimonies submitted to a settlement committee in the last year are being released Monday, said Gideon Taylor, executive vice president of the Conference on Jewish Materials Claims Against Germany.
So far, 1,778 Jewish victims of Nazi medical experiments from 33 countries have responded.
"We certainly didn't expect this number," Taylor said of the 1,778 who responded, many noting that they were less interested in the $5,400 payouts that will begin getting mailed this week than in having their stories known.
Taylor said such a large number of people making claims indicates there were thousands more who either died during the experiments or have died in the years since. "Our knowledge has been significantly broadened," he said.
Data collected from the claimants show there were about 178 different types of medical experiments conducted in more than 30 camps and ghettos. Some victims were not Jewish, including a group of Polish nuns, Taylor said.
"It's a glimpse into one of the most shocking parts of the Holocaust," he said. "You just read these testimonies. It forces you to believe the unbelievable. These people have been through hell. There's no other way to describe it."
He said it was "closer to torture than it is to anything you could call medicine."
In submissions likely to change the way history books chronicle one of the worst horrors of the Holocaust, several victims have agreed to let their names be released.
Among those was Polish-born U.S. resident Hyman Turenshine, 76, who said he remained silent for years about the sterilization experiments he underwent in Auschwitz in 1944 — but was motivated to speak out by those who suggest the Holocaust never occurred.
Written statements by Turenshine and others who are speaking out will be given to Holocaust institutions, including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
"Every day when I go to wash or shave, I look down at the number tattooed on my arm and am reminded and haunted by everything that happened," said Turenshine.
"The payment isn't what's important to me. Instead, our stories need to become part of a permanent historical record," he said.
Fried said Mengele included her in his experiments for eight months in 1944 because she was a twin. She said the experiments took away her ability to have children.
"Dr. Mengele took blood often and gave me injections. He never looked me in the eye. I also had to clean and cook for him as if I were his maid," she wrote.
Others wanted to remain anonymous.
One 82-year-old man described an experiment in which the Nazis unleashed dogs with poison on their teeth to chase him and another man and rip flesh from their legs. A 76-year-old man described repeatedly being cut by a Nazi doctor and nurses with unsanitized instruments so they could see how wounds responded to various medicated creams and liquids.
Another 73-year-old woman told of Mengele pulling her from a line of people headed to the gas chambers at Auschwitz to go to his laboratory, where she was injected with drugs and chemicals or where "they made cuts into my body and left the wounds open for them to study."
"I was used as a guinea pig for medical experiments," she writes. At another point, she says, "As bad as the experiments were, without them I would not be here today to write this."