Jacqueline Wu 44340107 Discussion: Medical Experiment short stories
The three medical experiments short stories depicts Dr. Mengele’s unethical
scientific experiments performed on the prisoners in the Auschwitz camps.
The first short story, discusses how a little boy (Henio) was blinded by Dr. Mengele
because he was trying to figure out how to change humans’ eye colours. This shows
how cruel and apathetic his scientific experiments were. The short story also
showed how Henio was not told what was being done to him as he seemed to have
no clue why he went blind.This shows how the prisoners were just being treated as
guinea pigs, like they were inanimate objects with no feelings or pain.
In the 2nd short story, different scientific experiments were described. “Everyone
has heard of heartless children who amuse themselves by tearing off the legs and
wings of insects. Here there was one difference: the insects were human beings.”
This shows how dehumanizing the scientific experiments were and how callously
the prisoners were being treated. “Dwarfs were Dr. Mengele’s greatest passion… his
experiments and observations were carried out in an abnormal fashion…When he
made transfusions, he purposely used incorrect blood types…He did whatever
pleased him and conducted his experiments like a mad amateur.” The fact that Dr.
Mengele performed all these experiments with no specific purpose or care, and the
fact that he could be the head physician of the camp shows that all the others
working under him were all following his cruel orders. Which means all scientific
experiments performed there were unethical and unacceptable.
In the 3rd short story was written from a point of view from an assistant of
Dr.Mengele’s. The goal of all this research according to him, was to increase the
birth rate of super humans who were destined to become the ‘master race’. “This
scheme was sheer madness.” And Dr. Mengele was described as ‘evil doctor’ by this
assistant. This shows how manipulative the members of the Third Reich were, as
people working for them would follow their orders and go through such unethical
and cruel procedures to create a ‘master race’. Even the assistant mentioned it was
pure ‘madness’.