Block no. 10 in Auschwitz I

The transcript of the podcast

The block was partially constructed back when the future Auschwitz camp grounds belonged to the Polish Army, so at that time, it was a set of Polish Army barracks. At that point, it was a single-story building. When, in the spring of 1940, these barrack buildings were taken over by the SS and the organization of the camp began, the expansion—which included adding additional floors—was a fundamental part of the initial plan for how the camp would operate. It was in these circumstances that the upper floor was added.

That is why, when looking at the various buildings around the former Auschwitz camp, you can notice that some of them have upper floors divided into smaller rooms, while others have these large halls on both sides of a corridor. That (latter or former?) is exactly how Block Number 10 looks like. When the camp was established, the original numbering was also different, and it was designated as Block 12. After the camp expanded and eight more buildings were added, the numbering changed, and that is how it became Block 10.

The first prisoners placed there were men—men brought in the earliest transports. In the spring of 1942, a wall was built to separate 10 buildings in the last row, and women were placed there. The blocks from Number 1 to Number 10 were thus the first Frauenlager, or women’s camp. The women prisoners stayed there until early August 1942, when they were transferred to Birkenau, and those buildings were once again incorporated into the main camp to hold men. We see that until April 1943, the building served the same function as most prisoner barracks: prisoners of various nationalities were housed there, working in different labor details, and up to that point, nothing distinguished it from the rest of the camp structures.

What were the circumstances that led to the start of human experiments in Block 10, and what kind of experiments were they?

The interest that German scientists took in using camp prisoners for their own purposes existed essentially from the start of the camp’s operation. Let us remember that the first camps were established in Germany itself. Afterwards, the entire network expanded along with military successes, and later on, even during wartime defeats, that network of camps remained indispensable for the Third Reich’s economy; the labor of the prisoners was a fundamental asset that the German state drew from the camps. But having a collected diversity of inmates in one place led to the notion that certain aspects related to various medical issues could be carried out there. Under normal circumstances, a crucial element of medical research is the consent of the person undergoing an experiment. In the concentration camps, no such consent was needed. Moreover, prisoners were never informed or told what the experiment was for, whether it would affect their health in any way, or what the consequences might be in a week, a month, or even 10 years down the line. Consequently, researchers linked to different research institutes and also universities sought permission for various types of experiments.

Reproductive sterilization had long been a topic of discussion in the Third Reich. It was associated with the different social plans that the Nazis introduced after taking power in Germany in 1933: euthanasia, forced sterilization - such issues had a very strong impact on German society. Hence, the concentration camps—where no resistance was possible—were safer spaces for certain activities. In particular, sterilization was related not only to creating a so-called “purity” of the German people, purging what the Nazis called “life unworthy of life,” but it also took into account one more element connected precisely with the Third Reich’s long-range plans—namely, the conquest of the East, or Eastern Europe. And here, that plan envisioned that colonization would proceed in an extremely methodical and protracted manner, not merely settling Germans in those territories but also using the local population as a workforce under extensive sterilization measures so that, in the course of a few generations, these areas would become ethnically “pure” and populated only by Germans.
The topic of mass sterilization had arisen early in the Third Reich, but it had not been seriously acted upon until 1942. In July 1942, Professor Carl Clauberg was invited to Berlin by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Also present at that meeting was Richard Glücks, who supervised the entire concentration camp system, and Professor Karl Gebhardt. Professor Clauberg was a very well-known gynecologist, especially noted for a method he had developed that was effective in treating infertility. He came to the SS’s attention when he treated the wife of an SS officer—a couple who had tried for a long time to have children. The method Clauberg proposed yielded a positive result. Hence word of this happy news spread quickly in those circles, and Clauberg was asked to come to a meeting. He suspected that the topic would be the demographics of Germany, particularly a country at war, in which, naturally, birthrates were in decline. Himmler, however, had a completely different proposal for Clauberg: to devise a method of mass sterilization by the simplest means possible. They suggested that a concentration camp would be the place to carry out such experiments, and thus, their attention turned to Auschwitz.

Why Auschwitz and not Ravensbrück, which was already operating by that time? It was because Professor Clauberg was in charge of a clinic in Königshütte (today’s Chorzów). He was headquartered there, lived there, and thus traveling between Königshütte and Auschwitz was far simpler than driving to Ravensbrück—especially given that in March 1942, a women’s sector had been established at Auschwitz. One could thus begin such experiments immediately . Indeed, in December 1942, precisely in Birkenau, one of the barracks was adapted to accommodate Professor Clauberg, and that is where the first experiments began. However, the conditions in Birkenau were exceptionally harsh and primitive. The camp was under construction; there was no sewage system, no roads. Hence it was decided that a different building in the main camp—where those basic facilities, which might appear trivial but actually mattered greatly for any medical procedure—would be more suitable. Given those circumstances, Block 10 was chosen.

However, looking at the Auschwitz main camp’s layout, Block 10 was not ideally located. It was tucked away deeper in the camp, quite far from the main gate with the “Arbeit macht frei” sign, and what is more, it was right next to Block 11, the camp prison. So, it was not what we would call the most favorable location. One can assume it was selected partly to maintain a certain secrecy as long as possible regarding what went on inside that block. Another issue was that because Block 11 was the camp prison and had SS men serving there, it guaranteed tighter supervision over Block 10. In these circumstances, Clauberg set up his laboratory, essentially transferring his setup from Birkenau to the Auschwitz main camp.

Clauberg decided to use chemical substances. After all, even in his successful infertility treatments, he had relied on numerous pharmaceuticals, so his contacts with the Schering Werke company were already well-established. Consequently, one of the chemists was supposed to prepare a special mixture for him. The experiment was to proceed in several stages. In the first stage, during what appeared to be a routine gynecological exam, a solution was to be injected into the reproductive organs, causing the fallopian tubes to stick together. The administered substance was irritating and caustic, and this effect—blockage of the tubes—was what they aimed for. In the second stage, a few weeks later, another substance, this time containing a contrast agent, was introduced. An X-ray was then taken, and it became clear that the tubes were indeed obstructed and fused. In some cases, certain women were included in a third stage, during which the substance would be reintroduced, provided it was observed that the “desired” result—i.e., that obstruction—had been achieved. The chemist who prepared the solution was Johannes Goebel, a representative of Schering Werke.

By June 1943—so rather quickly after his experiments began—Clauberg presented a report on his findings. He wrote that they still needed many improvements and adjustments, but even at that point he could affirm that, with the help of his medical staff, he was able to sterilize 1,000 women per day. That is, indeed, a very large number, demonstrating that the success rate of administering those substances was extremely high.

From the documents that have survived—namely those weekly or monthly listings of female prisoners—we see that, regarding Block 10, they are classified as prisoners for experimental purposes: Haftlinge fur Versuchszwecke and the figure in these documents ranges from 200 to as many as 320, plus 22 medical staff. This is an important group that we will discuss soon. Hence, the test group there was actually quite large.

How long would the women stay in the block? Depending on the experiment’s progression, it could be a few weeks or days; for others, the stay might last several months. Until July 1944—the following year—Clauberg stayed in Block 10. When further buildings were constructed in the so-called Lagererweiterung (camp extension), Building Number 1 was designated precisely for experimental purposes, and that was where he moved again, remaining there basically until the camp’s evacuation. As the camp evacuation became imminent, he took his materials and moved to Ravensbrück, where he continued his experiments.

Apart from Carl Clauberg, Horst Schumann was also active in Block 10 and interested in sterilization experiments?

Yes. It turned out that they were exploring different methods. Why? Probably because Schumann had already established a certain reputation as someone who was interested in these matters related to eugenics. After all, he had been director of the euthanasia centers in Grafeneck and later in Sonnenstein.
He arrived at Auschwitz for the first time in 1941. In July, a commission was to select a group of prisoners considered unfit for labor. These were to be chosen from the camp hospital. Officially, these prisoners were told that they would be taken somewhere else, where conditions would be better. In reality, those deemed beyond recovery—more than 500 people—were moved to Sonnenstein, where they were simply murdered by carbon monoxide. Schumann had broad interests; he was a physician and held a doctorate in medicine. Hence, he proposed a method using X-rays. For this purpose, an X-ray machine, adapted to his specifications, was installed in Barrack 30 in Birkenau—the same location where Clauberg had begun his experiments. While Clauberg selected only women, Schumann’s victims included men as well. Prisoners would be taken to the barrack, and then their reproductive organs were exposed to radiation. For Schumann, it was crucial to determine the beam size that would be targeted at these organs so that the destruction would be performed “correctly,” also factoring in the duration and number of prisoners involved.

The consequence of radiation exposure was bodily burns and, in the ensuing days, wounds, as well as the necrosis of organs requiring surgical intervention. Sepsis often occurred. The doses were imprecise—usually too high—thus leading to many complications. In his report, Schumann concluded that this method did not yield the expected results and leaned toward applying pharmacological methods instead.

Aside from the sterilization experiments, were there any other experiments conducted in Block 10?

This is, in fact, a very important question and a very interesting one, because in the scholarly literature on the subject, the matter of sterilization—which indeed was the main focus there, and was so shocking—does appear. Meanwhile, it turns out that the situation wherein more than 200 or sometimes even 300 female prisoners were in the block—women who had been brought to the camp and still did not know the camp’s realities in terms of the catastrophic sanitary conditions, and who were themselves still in fairly good health, because most of them had simply come straight from home—prompted other physicians to make use of that fact for their own purposes.

Why were these prisoners in such condition? The fact is that Clauberg, when selecting female prisoners, made sure they were women newly brought to the camp. In such a scenario, these would be Jewish women most frequently brought in from transit camps, where they had not spent much time—maybe a few days, sometimes even less. Furthermore, their nutritional status was still relatively good, despite those occupation-related difficulties in different parts of Europe. So medically they were suitable. Another aspect that Clauberg was also quite focused on was the fact that the prisoners had to already be mothers. Meaning, they had already gone through pregnancy and childbirth, and in this way, from a medical standpoint, achieving sterilization was clearer for him. He did not actually have to investigate whether sterilization had taken place. If, let us say, the inmate was not a mother, or for some medical reason she could not have children, that complicated matters. But here, he had women who had been pregnant, had given birth, so these conditions were simply more practical for his intended experiments. And having gathered such a group of women prompted the Standortarzt—that is, the garrison physician Eduard Wirths, a very important figure in the camp with regard to medical matters, to also take an interest in the various experiments and scholars who appeared in the camp. Wirths was responsible for everything related to health issues in the camp, for everyone: from members of the SS staff and their families to the prisoners, even down to supplying Zyklon B to the camp (that too fell under his purview). Hence, he had insight into the situation and into the locations. Even more so because his brother, Helmut Wirths, was a gynecologist, and to facilitate his career, to help him obtain academic degrees, Eduard suggested that among these female prisoners, they search for those who showed certain changes connected with cervical cancer. And once again, it was something very basic. During a routine gynecological exam, such changes could be observed. Of course, no information was given to these prisoners; instead, tissue samples were taken and sent for analysis. Moreover, some women prisoners were taken to the Ordnungdienst, where a photography lab was located. There, after the women were given drugs that caused them to lose consciousness, photographs of these changes were taken. Dr. Wirths’s brother, Helmut Wirths, was not constantly present in the camp; he only came in connection with his research. After these experiments ended, the prisoner in question was not told of her health status, and in most cases was simply sent back into the camp.

Another experiment, also quite surprising and rather significant in terms of Germany’s wartime needs, was the question of blood groups: blood transfusions and blood typing. This is obviously linked to treating wounded soldiers and giving them the right kind of blood. Thus, the women who were admitted to Block 10 had their blood types determined. They concluded that if a larger amount of blood was drawn and later given back to the prisoner (although it was blood of a different type), one could observe the changes that occurred and consider whether such a procedure might help deliver faster aid to soldiers at the front lines. And that is precisely what happened. The blood was drawn in varying quantities—somewhere between 20 and 150 milliliters, but there were instances of 300 ml or even more. Blood was collected and also kept as a reserve for producing serums, and they studied the mutual tolerances of different blood groups. Following the transfusion of a different blood type, the women would begin to run a fever, they would also experience convulsions or certain neurological symptoms, and dizziness. After some time, all of that would subside and disappear. Under these conditions, Bruno Beger, the head of the Hygiene Institute, developed a method for determining blood types. But in reality, it was not his success alone, rather that of a team of researchers working on it there in Block 10.

Another opportunity to conduct experiments in Block 10 involved bacteria, especially streptococci. Large amounts of these substances were injected into the women bodies. One survivor mentions 42 injections, another 80, and yet others speak of 100. These injections were most often given in the back or the chest. Of course, they induced illness. The prisoners say they contracted diphtheria. One nurse, who was overseeing the progression of this experiment, had to record each injection on graph paper. These experiments were carried out by SS camp physician Dr. Hans Münch. The substances injected were intended to cure rheumatism, hence some women were later sent to dentists, because it was believed that there might be some connection between the condition of their teeth, specifically the roots, and the bones, i.e., those rheumatic concerns. Certain prisoners recount that they had a large number of teeth removed—some say 5 or 6 healthy teeth—that were extracted as part of this experiment.

Another widespread topic of interest at the time, in the realm of blood testing, concerned saliva. Actually, in certain circles of medicine, it is still used to this day. Namely, it was established that one can determine the same agglutination factors, characteristic of a given blood type, in saliva as in blood. Hence, a certain group of female prisoners had to fill a small container—most often a simple test tube—with saliva each morning. Simultaneously, their blood would be drawn. Occasionally, in some instances, the prisoner’s plasma was mixed with her saliva. According to some prisoners, this mixture was used to treat epidemic typhus. Those who participated in this experiment say it was not harmful to their health.

Block 10 also saw the passage of women who lost their lives because at the Reich University in Strasbourg, professor August Hirt, wanted to expand his skeleton collection. Specifically, he wanted Jewish skeletons, with the idea of adding to his collection of skulls. Such a collection already existed at that time at the University of Vienna, so Hirt wanted to outfit his own university as part of the competition prevalent among universities. Consequently, he sent his representatives to the Auschwitz camp to examine Jewish prisoners—this also included Soviet POWs—and to pick those individuals, those cases he found interesting. Under such circumstances, anthropologist Bruno Beger, Wilhelm Gabel and Hans Fleischhacker, a preparator from the Munich Institute of Anthropology, arrived and performed the selection in a few phases. Each time, the chosen individuals—both men and women—underwent examinations aimed at ruling out infectious diseases and examining morphological features, i.e., details of their physiology. Photos were taken; Fleischhacker also shot film footage during his visits. Ultimately, 109 people were picked, but for some reason only 86 were transferred from Auschwitz to Natzweiler-Struthof camp, where all of them were murdered in a gas chamber there. The next step was to prepare their skeletons. To that end, an anatomical pathology assistant, Henry Henrypierre, prepared the bodies by submerging them in tanks, and noticed that each person’s left forearm bore a number. On his own initiative, he recorded those numbers. The bodies were found a few months later by the French army during the camp’s liberation. They were buried in a cemetery, and for many years there was only a plaque stating that these were the remains of individuals discovered under such-and-such circumstances. Sixty years went by before the names of those people were identified. This happened by comparing two documents: namely, the list recorded by the anatomical pathologist Henry Henrypierre and the list preserved at Auschwitz’s Hygiene Institute, where these prisoners had been sent for blood tests. Their names now appear on that grave site.
Another interesting detail was that one of the rooms in Block 10 was used as a laboratory. Indeed, because we have been talking all along about studies, testing, blood analyses, and other substances—some professional facility had to conduct these analyses. The facility responsible for all testing was the Hygiene Institute, which also was supposed to have headquarters in Auschwitz. It was supposed to, but it did not yet exist prior to 1942. And in order to organize such a team and properly equip that location, it turns out that Block 10 was included in the process. Namely, in autumn 1942, a few scholars brought from Lviv were placed there. These were quite exceptional researchers. They specialized in research on epidemic typhus, and the institute was directed by the noted Polish bacteriologist Rudolf Weigl. They had been arrested because of their background, for they were Jews, and significantly, they were brought to Auschwitz along with their families. So, for instance, Ludwik Fleck was brought in together with his wife Ernestyna Fleck and their son, who was then nearly of age, Ryszard Fleck. Dr. Bernard Umschweif was brought along with his wife Natalia and their son Aleksander. Dr. Jakub Seeman arrived with his wife Anna and their son Bronisław. Also attached to this group was a Dr. Owsiej Abramowicz. All of these individuals had the status of a “special prisoner.” This is a very distinctive category. Whereas in camps on Reich territory, it was fairly common for someone interned to have that status—often members or representatives of aristocratic families, or inmates who for political reasons needed to be handled differently—at Auschwitz, apart from this group, we do not find another such example. But these individuals were crucial for that lab research, so they remained in Auschwitz until April 1943, and then, once the Hygiene Institute was prepared and equipped in Rajsko, they were transferred there. While they were in Auschwitz, they stayed at Block 10, operating their own laboratory. The women among them also did various support or administrative tasks in that laboratory and lived in Block 10, in the dorm intended for nurses and designated for the staff. Meanwhile, the men were assigned to Block 20, across the way. Added to that group was also Dr. Jacques Lewin, who was brought to the camp in 1942—a distinguished bacteriologist—and he was entrusted with serological research. The medical equipment and furnishings were brought from various medical facilities in occupied Poland and France, simply having been looted by the Germans.

You mentioned that women selected for sterilization experiments were brought from Jewish transports. Typically, how did women prisoners end up in Block 10, and what was the path for the men who also ended up there?

The vast majority of women—Jewish inmates—were chosen during a selection procedure, based on a few questions posed by either doctors or SS men. Probably the first assigned group were Dutch Jewish women, then Belgians. Hence one of the rooms in Block 10 was referred to as the “Belgian room.” Probably a larger group of Belgian women stayed there at some point, but not exclusively. It turns out that some women prisoners became victims of sterilization via both chemical means and X-ray sterilization; they were transferred from the main camp. For instance, we know from the testimony of Zofia Posmysz, who was brought to Auschwitz from Kraków after being arrested for her involvement in a clandestine organization. In Auschwitz, she was assigned to work in the camp kitchen—in the Bread Supply (Brotkammer), specifically—where she oversaw dry goods and kept a basic inventory. As someone who had previously been active in conspiracy efforts, she quickly established contact in the camp with friends and with inmates who smuggled medicines into the camp. Because of that conveniently located camp kitchen, Zofia Posmysz managed to carry small packages of medications to the women’s section of the prisoner hospital in Birkenau. One day, however, a “block sperre” or lockdown was declared—meaning a selection was taking place. Prisoners were not supposed to be out of their blocks. An SS man who encountered her wrote down her prisoner number. Luckily, he didn’t check the contents of her package; had he discovered the medicine, she might have been executed on the spot. But her number got recorded, and the next day after roll call, she was summoned and, along with several other women—probably around 10—was taken to Block 10, where she was also subjected to sterilization. She stayed there for about a month, until a female doctor, who introduced herself as Dr. Slawka (actually Dorota Klein, one of the prisoner-doctors), learned of her tragic predicament from other inmates in Birkenau and helped arrange for Zofia’s transfer back to Birkenau. At the same time, she told her how sorry she was for what had been done to her.

Another inmate who was sent to these experiments in a similarly surprising fashion was Monika Dombke-Zatke. She recounts that one day in Birkenau, a group of 10 women who still looked relatively healthy was selected. They didn’t show obvious signs of starvation, and they were simply led to Block 30, the Barrack 30, where these tests were performed using the X-ray apparatus. Thus, we can see that their paths to becoming subjects in these experiments varied greatly.
As for men: basically, all the testimonies we know indicate they were Jewish prisoners, selected mainly based on appearance. Their age might have been relevant, but primarily men were chosen who were around 20–30 years old. Interestingly, after the experiment—meaning after they were exposed to radiation—they were typically directed straight back to the camp and to work, even though the effects of that radiation (namely wounds and burns in the groin area) would manifest a few days later. In a follow-up stage, they would be brought in again for surgery. For men, they generally weren’t as frequently assigned to Block 10. The entire process of irradiation took place in Birkenau, and then the removal of organs also occurred in one of the camp infirmaries—either in the main camp or in Birkenau. Those surgeries were performed by doctors who were simply ordered to carry them out. As people recall, Dr. Schumann usually endeavored to be present at those surgeries. The removed organs were preserved and sent to the University of Wrocław – then Breslau, where further research on them continued. Thus, from the outset it was a tightly controlled procedure. Neither men nor women had any say in the matter. They couldn’t refuse or attempt to escape or protest. They were simply treated as objects in pursuit of German doctors’ aims.

You mentioned a few doctors responsible for conducting experiments or research in Block 10, but the personnel there also included prisoners, men and women…

Yes, we know about them not just from testimonies, but also from the document I mentioned, which states that there was a large group of women prisoners—over 200 and up to about 300—as well as 22 staff members. That’s quite a number. So who were they? They were women who, first of all, were tasked with handling administrative matters within the block. Paradoxically, in terms of the daily routine, this block actually had a similar schedule to other blocks—there was a roll call, the prisoners were counted, followed by the distribution of food. There was a block elder, there were prisoners in charge of cleaning. And, of course, there was the group of prisoners who possessed medical qualifications. Their duty was to participate in the experiments at various stages. They were deliberately assigned to this block. One prisoner who effectively had the top credentials there was Dr. Alina Brewda, who headed the nursing and medical staff. She held a position essentially on par with the block eldest. She was a gynecologist. After completing her studies, she practiced in various hospitals, then was arrested in Warsaw and sent to the Majdanek camp. Under SS orders, along with a group of female doctors, she was transferred from Majdanek to Auschwitz, directly to Block 10. She was frequently called in by Clauberg when, for instance, a female prisoner went into shock or other medical problems arose during the experiments. She herself witnessed that some German doctors lacked the full skills or competencies for what they were doing, including the administration of the substances, which sometimes was done improperly. And indeed, in such situations, Dr. Alina Brewda appeared and was brought in by the SS doctors. Beyond that, she cared for the female inmates, and knowing the situation they found themselves in, she strove to console them and to be supportive. Some things could not be reversed at that point, so tending to these prisoners or giving them a measure of care—this was a fully conscious choice by Dr. Brewda.
Another women doctor who was in Block 10 due to her competence was Dr. Dorota Lorska. Many inmates remembered her as Slawka Klein, because she was registered at the camp under the name Klein, her prewar surname. She too was a gynecologist and understood the predicament of these women. Within the constraints of the camp environment, she tried to help them.

Yet another inmate assigned to Block 10 because of her medical qualifications was a prisoner brought from France, Dr. Adélaïde Hautval, who was a psychiatrist. She had been arrested for crossing the demarcation line. She lived in the south of France. Upon hearing that her mother was ill and then had died, she wanted to reach home immediately. She lacked the required permit, leading to her arrest. Even in prison, she saw many Jewish women inmates and very openly expressed sympathy for those Jews who had been arrested. After her deportation, she was initially placed in Birkenau, and later, because of her qualifications, transferred to Block 10. The expectation was that she would assist in the experiments—among other things, Dr. Wirths wanted her to handle certain tasks pertaining to cervical cancer, and similarly, Dr. Clauberg, who wasn’t himself solely injecting those toxic substances but always needed someone to assist, counted on Dr. Hautval’s help. But Dr. Hautval had enough courage to flatly refuse all of it after understanding the nature of what was happening. Consequently, she started fearing for her life. It helped her that she had a few sores on her legs which supposedly indicated that she had scabies, so she was simply transferred back to Birkenau. She remained there up until the camp’s evacuation.

A prisoner who was, in fact, the only fairly well-known figure in Block 10 and remembered by the women prisoners was also a gynecologist: Dr. Maximilian Samuel. He was German, working in Cologne. He was tasked with performing surgeries on the female prisoners after they had been exposed to radiation. From a few accounts we know that, upon noticing during the operation that the radiation dose had been too low and thus that the organs were still healthy, on some occasions he would sabotage the procedure, leaving healthy organs intact, thus giving those inmates a chance of future motherhood. We know of that scenario, for instance, from the testimony of Aliza Zarfati, who was deported from Greece. On the other hand, other witnesses say he was very zealous in carrying out orders. One way to explain that is that his daughter was also imprisoned in the camp, so presumably he wanted to protect her in some sense. He carried out experiments involving a colonoscope, which at the time was fairly innovative. He even had two nurses assigned to assist him, and female prisoners in whom suspicious lesions indicating possible cervical cancer had been observed were placed under Dr. Samuel’s oversight—for instance, for photographing or various other procedures. Dr. Samuel’s activities and (probably) ties with the resistance movement eventually led to his arrest by the camp Gestapo, and he was executed in the camp.

A prisoner who ended up in Block 10 under absolutely absurd circumstances was Ruth Dattel—a German Jew arrested in Berlin together with her five-year-old son Peter. She was brought to the railway ramp, feeling somewhat disoriented, but she noticed the SS men asking about occupations, among other things. She had dyed her hair blonde; Peter was also blond. At one point, an SS man asked her occupation. She replied that she had worked in an office. He apparently remarked, “Oh, so you basically can’t do anything?” Then she said that she had recently been employed as a doctor’s office assistant. That fact piqued the interest of another SS man. Under those circumstances, she and her child, five-year-old Peter, were taken to Block 10, where she was to be one of the nurses. Interestingly, that little Peter was registered there and remained in Block 10 until the camp’s evacuation—he was, so to speak, yet another child who ended up in Block 10. Granted, the children of staff from the Hygiene Institute would later be transferred out, but little Peter stayed longer. The female inmates who saw him every day reacted in various ways. Some watched over him, nurtured him, played with him. Seeing him brought them joy or a kind of hope that their own children, hidden away somewhere, might survive. For others who knew their kids had been murdered in the gas chambers, seeing this cheerful boy was heartbreaking. Prisoners recall that he was learning to count, and while they stood in rows of five, he would quickly count “5, 10, 15, 20, 25.” One prisoner, Julius Meyer, managed to get shoes for little Peter and was punished for that—he received 50 hits with a rod for his trouble. When the camp evacuation began—this too is quite a heroic story about the women—Peter started out walking (it was winter, January, snowy). Later, Ruth decided they could use a crate like a sled, and with another female inmate, Ilse Nusbaum, she tried to drag the crate. But it lacked runners, so it actually made things worse. Nevertheless, they managed to get a fair distance, and then they handed little Peter over to a Czech couple. Ruth was sent to Ravensbrück, then on to Neustadt-Glewe, and returned to Berlin alone, without Peter. Through the Red Cross’s involvement, Peter was located. He was still living with that Czech family, no longer speaking German. In 1947, the child was returned to Berlin, which was a significant event for that entire community of Holocaust survivors.

What happened to the two main figures of Block 10, namely Carl Clauberg and Horst Schumann, after the war? Did they face any consequences for their actions?

Both Clauberg and Schumann were well-known. These were not lower-ranking SS men or doctors working here or there in some rural clinic or a small-town practice. Today one might call them “recognizable names.” During the evacuation of Auschwitz, Clauberg left for Ravensbrück, where he continued sterilization experiments, broadening the group of subjects, for example by including Roma prisoners as well. After the war ended, he found himself in Germany in the zone occupied by the Red Army. He was arrested, taken to Moscow, and put on trial. He was sentenced to prison, but in 1955—based on an agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Soviet Union—he returned to Germany and decided he could resume his medical practice. To that end, he placed an advertisement in a local newspaper stating that he was seeking someone for office work: handling calls, keeping records, working evenings. He signed this ad, this notice, with his own name. Of course, it was immediately recognized. He was arrested, stripped of all his academic titles, and preparations began for a trial against him. However, that trial never commenced. He simply died in prison during the pretrial phase.

Horst Schumann remained in Germany for a long time, basically until 1951, living in the Federal Republic. Fearing arrest, he traveled first to Japan. In 1955, he left Japan for Africa, settling in Sudan, then in 1959 he fled to Nigeria. In 1960, he moved to Ghana, and under public pressure, in 1966, he was arrested and sent back to West Germany. He stood trial in Frankfurt am Main. But in 1971, the case against Schumann was discontinued on account of his alleged poor health—a claim that apparently did not align with reality, since he died only in 1983, indicating that the court had absolutely no intent to render a verdict.
For the women prisoners who experienced the experiments in Block 10 and survived the war, it was a portion of their Auschwitz history that either became their secret or was known only to their closest companions. In 2023, a three-generation Dutch family visited us—a grandmother, her daughters, and a grandson. They came in connection with the fact that the grandmother’s parents had been deported to Auschwitz: Johanna and Salomon Schrijver, who were transported from Amsterdam. Both of them were judged fit for work during the selection. Salomon was placed in the camp at Monowitz; Johanna was assigned to Block 10. Their daughter, meanwhile, had remained in the Netherlands, hidden by acquaintances in the countryside. Salomon very quickly contracted diphtheria. He was transferred to Block 20 in the main camp and died there after a very short stay. Johanna, who was in Block 10, somehow got word that her husband was in the block across the road, and supposedly they could see each other through the windows, which is quite possible because the buildings are relatively close to one another. Johanna survived the war, returned to the Netherlands, found her daughter, and in the few memories she shared with her family, she never—ever—spoke about sterilization or those extremely painful experiences.

The family had some suspicions. When one of her fellow camp inmates, who would regularly visit Johanna—a friend who was a very happy, optimistic, and full-of-life person—committed suicide, it was extremely shocking to her relatives. Especially since Johanna herself was rather sad, the wartime experiences weighed her down considerably. Though she had a daughter, got remarried?, she simply remained that way. Meanwhile, this friend, a joyful spirit, decided on suicide. And it turned out that they had known each other from the camp, specifically because both had been in Block 10. That 2023 visit was meant to examine this history that had never been recounted in the family. There are quite a number of such cases. There is a group of women prisoners who encountered Professor Hans Joachim Lang, a German scholar who spent many years collecting information about the history of Block 10. In 2013, his book Die Frauen von Block 10. Medizinische Versuche in Auschwitz (“Women of Block 10: Medical Experiments in Auschwitz”) was published, and it is from there that we have learned a lot about this block. But for a large number of the female prisoners, this was an extremely painful matter—an extraordinarily painful experience—and that is how they carried it until the end of their days.