21 Schumann (Holocaust: Auschwitz)
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This article is from the Holocaust FAQ, by Ken McVay kmcvay@nizkor.org with numerous contributions by others.
21 Schumann (Holocaust: Auschwitz)
Himmler, writing to SS-Oberfu"hrer Brack, on August 11, 1942,
expressed an interest in sterilization experiments involving
the use of x-rays (Get pub/camps/auschwitz/sterilization). In April
of 1944, he received a report of the work of Dr. Horst Schumann
"on the influence of X-rays on human genital glands" at Auschwitz.
The report included the following statement:
Previously you have asked Oberfuehrer Brack to perform this
work, and you supported it by providing the adequate material in
the concentration camp Auschwitz. I point especially to the
second part of this work, which shows that by those means
castration of males is almost impossible or requires an effort
which does not pay. As I have convinced myself, operative
castration requires not more than 6 to 7 minutes, and therefore
can be performed more reliably and quicker than castration by
X-rays.
Schumann set up an X ray station at Auschwitz in 1942, in the woman's
camp Bla. Here men and women were forcibly sterilized by being
positioned repeatedly for several minutes between two x-ray machines,
the rays aiming at their sexual organs. Most subjects died after
great suffering, or were gassed immediately because the radiation
burns from which they suffered rendered them unfit for work. Men's
testicles were removed and sent to Breslau for histopathological
examination. The frequently following ovariotomies were performed
also by the Polish prisoner, Dr. Wladyslav Dering. Dering once bet
with an SS man that he could perform ten ovariotomies in an
afternoon, and won his bet. Some of his victims survived. Dering
was declared a war criminal but eluded justice and for a time
practiced medicine in British Somaliland. (Laska, 223. Encyclopedia,
Vol. 3, 965)
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