Introduction to the Horrors of Auschwitz
Renee Duering still remembers how painful it felt when an Auschwitz prisoner tattooed the bearing number on her arm. "Be glad you get a number, otherwise you would land directly in the oven," said the man to her. The Nazis gave her the choice: "Either you go to Birkenau destruction camp or become a topic for medical research. She won’t kill that." Duering, who was born in Cologne in 1921, chose the latter and became a human guinea pig in the hands of the Nazis – Gynecologist Carl Clauberg.
Carl Clauberg’s Insidious Hormone Research
Clauberg studied medicine at Kiel University and did his doctorate in 1925. His way of helping sterile women to get pregnant made him maintain as an authority for hormone research. On May 1, 1933, Carl Clauberg joined the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) and the SA ("Sturm Department", a paramilitary organization of the NSDAP). Like many doctors in Germany, he hoped that the NS management would help him promote his research. Under the regime, it was expected that every German woman was as many children as possible – preferably blond and blue-eyed. Clauberg has also carried out research on how women can sterilize. This supported the inhuman, racist attitude of the Nazis, the goal of which was the extermination of Jews, Sinti and Roma as well as other marginalized groups such as gays and black and disabled.
The Hell of Block 10
In 1942 Clauberg sent Heinrich Himmler, the chief architect of the Holocaust, and the second most powerful Nazi after Adolf Hitler. Clauberg said he needed institutions to implement his "new method for non-surgical sterilization of inferior women". Until the spring of 1943, the doctor did not receive a own institute, but a block in Auschwitz. There he founded his own experimental laboratory in Block 10. There the first Jewish women were transferred from the neighboring Auschwitz-Birkenau warehouse. Clauberg himself admitted that the female prisoners were faceless; He was only interested in her lower abdomen. Years later, Renee Duering remembered the torture she had sounded on his hands.
Human Guinea Pigs
"We were individually taken into a room and placed on a black glass table that was an X-ray table. While the liquid was injected into our body, the X-ray machine ran so that the doctor could see what happened … the injection burned so terrible." Neither Renee nor the other women knew what was done to them at the time. Previously, Clauberg had only performed these experiments on animals. His instruments were not sterile and Clauberg would use them several times. There was no anesthesia either – only the injection. Depending on the condition of the fallopian tubes, the doctor could inject the belly of his subjects a toxic substance that stuck together the walls of the fallopian tubes and burned them. If this did not work, the procedure was repeated. "I had to lie there for three days for terrible pain," Duering recalled. Frequent side effects from Clauberg’s experiments included with a male-filled peritonitis swelling of the abdominal blood poisoning, work-like pain and terrible burning sensations.
The Failure to Get Justice
But he never had the opportunity to carry out sterilizations on an industrial scale. On January 27, 1945, the Red Army Freed Auschwitz. Clauberg had already fled to the Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp, where he continued his experiments. As soon as the Soviets had completed Ravensbrück in April, he fled again. He was found two months later, arrested and sentenced to 25 years in a penalty camp in Moscow. But in 1955 it was released early. According to the files of the Kiel public prosecutor, he believed that he received a "royal reception in his hometown". Clauberg returned to work at Kiel University Hospital. Since the medical profession was still far from being denazified, a colleague who had worked in Auschwitz was more than welcome. In November 1955, the Central Council of Jews submitted a complaint against Clauberg, with over 100 witnesses being ready to testify against him.
The Pill Arrived in 1960 Thanks to Human Experiments
Many of the doctor’s victims continued to live with trauma and infertility. However, Renée Duering gave birth to a daughter in a miraculous way, despite Clauberg’s terrible interventions. On August 18, 1960, the first hormonal contraceptive became known in the United States. The examinations carried out by Clauberg contributed significantly to his development. The Schering company, which had financed the experiments of Clauberg, was included in the Bayer Pharmaceutical Group – which still markets the contraceptive pill today. "This revolutionary method of family planning became a key factor for emancipation and a turning point for society," the company announced on its website. But the women in Block 10 did not have the freedom to choose motherhood.
