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 Dr Robert Jay Lifton THE NAZI DOCTORS:
                        Medical Killing and the
                            Psychology of Genocide ©
 
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“Euthanasia”: Direct Medical Killing 
 
as Sonderkommando Lange [its commander],” and represented an early blending of three elements of the Final Solution: the “euthanasia” program, laboratory science and SS technology (contributing to innovations in gassing), and Einsatzgruppen units (here working with the new gassing technology). In October 1941, Brack and Eichmann decided to use these vans for Jews in general who were “incapable of working.” Three were installed at the first pure extermination camp at Chelmno/Kulmhof (using personnel from Soldau), where they killed mainly Jews, but also Gypsies, typhus victims, Soviet POWs, and the insane. In a replica of the T4 procedure, victims were told they would shower while their clothing was being disinfected. SS officers wore white coats and carried stethoscopes. Prisoners had their valuables registered, then followed a “To the Bath” sign, up a ramp and into the van. When no more noise was audible from the van, it was driven to the woods nearby where Jewish Kommandos unloaded the corpses into mass graves. (Because of noxious gases, a crematorium was later installed.) Chelmno/Kulmhof, in reclaimed German territory, was the first of the extermination camps in the General Government, followed by Bélzec, Sobibór, and Treblinka, all of which still more closely resembled “euthanasia” killing centers in the use of stationary gas chambers and T4 personnel.84 (See chapter 7 and pages 142-44.)  
 
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical Killing and the
Psychology of Genocide

Robert J. Lifton
ISBN 0-465-09094
© 1986
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