| INTRODUCTION |
| |
[institu…] tion; the large selections performed by
Nazi doctors at the ramp and the smaller ones within the camp, especially on
the medical blocks; the socialization of Nazi doctors to the killing project;
the struggles of prisoner doctors to survive and remain healers despite
dependency upon Nazi doctors; the use of phenol injections for killing; and the
experiments done on Auschwitz inmates and the relation of these experiments to
Nazi biomedical principles. Finally, this section includes three studies of
individual Nazi doctors: one, that of Ernst B., revealing the ambiguity of Nazi
decency; and the other two charting respectively the psychological behavior of
Josef Mengele as an ideological fanatic and of Eduard Wirths as a formerly
“good man” who set up the entire medical killing machinery of
Auschwitz.
In part III, I explore psychological principles drawn
directly from Nazi doctors, notably that of "doubling": the formation of a
second, relatively autonomous self, which enables one to participate in evil.
Then I turn to more general principles of Nazi genocide as they may apply to
other and possibly all forms of genocide. The book closes with a somewhat
personal afterword. |
| |
| The Interviews |
| |
My assumption from the beginning, in keeping with my
twenty-five years of research, was that the best way to learn about Nazi
doctors was to talk to them; interviews became the pragmatic core of the study.
But I knew that, even more than in earlier work, I would have to supplement the
interviews with extensive reading in and probing of all related issues —
having to do not only with observations by others on Nazi medical behavior but
with the Nazi era in general, as well as with German culture and history and
with overall patterns of victimization in general and anti-Jewishness in
particular.
From the beginning I sought counsel from authorities on
every aspect of the era — historians, social scientists, novelists and
playwrights (some themselves survivors of camps) — about ways of
understanding the regime and its behavior; about readings, libraries, trial
documents, and other sources; and about other people to talk to. With the help
of foundation grants I began to travel: preliminary trips to Germany in January
1978 and to Israel and Poland in May and June of that year. I lived in Munich
from September 1978 through April 1979, during which time I did the greater
part of the interviews, mostly in Germany and Austria, but also again in Poland
and Israel, as well as in France, England, Norway, and Denmark. In January
1980, I did more work in Israel and Germany; and in March of that year, I
interviewed three Auschwitz survivors in Australia. I have never been so
intense a traveler nor so engrossed or pained a psychological investigator.
|
|
