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Naval Discipline - Flogging

Means of Punishment
"The master-at-arms [assisted the prisoner] off with his shirt, leaving him naked to the waist, but throwing the garment loosely over his shoulders. Removing the port gangway ladder, his wrists were made fast, with a lashing, to the brass man-rope eyebolts, and his ankles to a small grating laid on the deck. Thus standing straight up, his arms were stretched considerably above his head. The assistant surgeon then stepped up close on one side of the man to see that the punishment was not excessive. The boatswain had, in the mean time, produced a green baize bag, which contained the 'cats.' These consisted of a wooden handle, about fifteen inches long, covered with cloth, with nine tails of white line about as thick as thick pack-cord, twenty inches long, and the ends 'whipped,' not knotted. One of these cats was handed to the chief boatswain's mate, who was mildly cautioned by the captain to 'do his duty, and not favor the man, or he would be triced up himself.' ...At this the master-at-arms removed the blue shirt, and [the] boatswain's mate swung round and brought the 'cats' down across the man's shoulders, the master-at-arms called out, aloud, 'One - two,' and so on, until 'twelve,' when the captain said, 'Stop. Take him down.'" Quotation and illustration from Edward Shippen, Thirty Years at Sea; the Story of a Sailor's Life, 1879.


Samuel F. Holbrook, a Navy carpenter, offers examples of the harshness of Navy discipline in his 1857 autobiography Threescore Years.
Two young sailor new to the Navy and awaiting assignment absent themselves from the receiving ship. Found and returned to the ship within hours, they are kept in irons for two days, and finally brought on deck to be punished. "Here were three hundred men, boys and marines, assembled round the old hulk to see these two young men nearly flayed alive, for going over to New York without leave. When all had assembled, the two prisoners were brought from their place of confinement, more dead than alive. The first was stripped and seized up. On these occasions, every man and officer stands with hats off, and perfectly silent, in order to show the 'supremacy' of a law that cuts a man's flesh to pieces. Capt. Chauncey, standing on a slight elevation, and with a stentorian voice, addressed the crowd: 'Men! What the law allows you, you shall have, but by the eternal God if any one of you disobeys that law, I'll cut your back bone out. Go on with him, boatswain's mate and do your duty, or by God, you shall take his place.'"

"The shrieks of the youngster were dreadful, calling upon God and all the holy angels to save him. After the first dozen, another boatswain's mate took the cat, and when he had received two dozen, he fainted, and hung by his wrists. The punishment was suspended for a few moments until he had revived sufficiently to stand on his feet; he then took four dozen more, making six in all, and when taken down he could not stand. The other received seven dozen; he fainted, however, before he had received the first, and received the greater portion of his punishment in that state. The flesh was fairly hanging in strips upon both backs; it was a sickening sight."

Holbrook tells of a variation on flogging when six bluejackets found guilty of stealing Spanish coins they are loading in the hold of a frigate. Although the crime is discovered within hours and the coins recovered, the group is confined and sentenced to each receive 75 lashes of the cat. Jim, the sailor thought to be the ring leader, is sentenced to additional lashes. When Jim's back is uncovered for the punishment it is a sickening sight. He had been part of a gun crew wounded in battle and horribly burned from neck to hips. Even after several years the flesh is still tender. Under these circumstances the captain would not flog him on the back.

Instead, the stripes are on his bare buttocks. The culprit is brought over a carronade (cannon carriage). Standing at the breech, he bends over towards the muzzle. His wrists are secured, one on each side the gun to the forward axletree, and his legs to the gun tackle bolts in the carriage. His pants are then pulled down presenting the the boatswain's mate with a prominent field for operation. One lick of the cat here is worse than a dozen on the back. The standard order is issued, "Do your duty, boatswain's mate, or you'll take his place." Lashes are laid on and the blood begins to flow.

Besides confinement and flogging, the six offenders are compelled to carry a 32 pound shot with 32 pounds of chain attached to their legs and a wooden yoke about the neck four feet long and nine inches wide with "Thief" painted on it in several places.

In summation of flogging, Holbrook comments, "I fancy that those editors and legislators who sit in their cozy armchairs, in office or congressional hall, and talk wisely about the necessity of flogging for sailors, need only once to witness the infliction of the punishment they think so needful, and experience with their own breasts the feeling of dark humiliation which falls upon the soul at seeing the manhood being scourged out of a fellow creature, to alter their convictions as to the expediency of flogging."

Answering the critic who would ask why the bluejacket does not protest, he continues. "A 'man-of-war' is not the place for too free an expression of opinion. The regulations of the service do not admit to freedom of speech. They contain such a word as 'mutiny', for which they provide 'death or such other punishment as a court-martial shall provide.' And, as there can be no half-way-talk concerning so brutal a practice as flogging a human being - a creature created in the image of God - the consequence is an ominous silence. 'A still tongue makes a wise head' - nowhere more so than in the service, where it is truly said, 'You are allowed to think what you please, but you must not think aloud.'"


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All Services

Flogging was not limited to the Navy. The Lewis and Clark Expedition (U.S. Army) records a number of floggings in the first two years of the journey (1804-1805). One deserter was sentenced to 500 lashes. Another offense was sentenced to run a gauntlet of whips. One Indian chief observing the ordeal of flogging was horrified and suggested it would be more humane to put the man to death.

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The Law
The Colonial Naval Rules of 1775 regarding punishments, state, "No Commander shall inflict any punishments upon a seaman beyond twelve lashes upon his bare back with a cat-o'-nine tails; if the fault shall deserve a greater punishment, he is to apply to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy in order to the trying of him by a Court-Martial, and in the meantime, he may put him under confinement."

In 1799, Congress passed a law that restricted a Commander of a naval vessel to applying no more than twelve lashes on the bare back of a sailor or marine, unless more were ordered by a court-martial. The law, as noted above, was abused in many cases.

New Hampshire Senator Hale in 1850 added an anti-flogging clause to the Naval Appropriation Bill. Commander Uriah P. Levy had been instrumental in securing Senator Hale's interest in the measure. Hale showed that one sailor had been sentenced at court-martial "to receive 500 lashes, and actually received 400." This punishment was given in twelve lash installments. The attempt to ban flogging didn't pass as the Navy Department reported that it would be impossible to maintain discipline at sea without this form of punishment.

Finally, in 1851-1853 Commodore R. F. Stockton, Senator from California, further restricted flogging by legislation. But it wasn't until 17 July 1862, that Congress finally abolished flogging entirely.

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Reference:
For an in depth discussion on the history of naval discipline see :
James E. Valle, Rocks & Shoals : Order and Discipline in the Old Navy 1800-1861, Annapolis MD, Naval Institute Press, 1980
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[Bluejacket.com]. All rights reserved.

The Inquisition



"The Christian resolve to find the world evil and ugly, has made the world evil and ugly."
- Friedrich Nietzsche


Today, the xtian church does not have the power it once had, yet, we have witnessed the xtian abuses of children, child rape, molestation and other vile acts that reveal the true nature of many xtians and the effects their "god" has upon his followers. The pedophilia scandals are just a small sample of what xtians are capable of.

Years ago, when the xtian church had complete control over government, human life and spirit, we can see from the inquisition, just how sick these people are and just what lengths they will go to get you to accept "jesus." Just as is seen in the numerous xtian abuses of children today, years ago, with the inquisition, girls as young as nine and boys as young as ten were tried for witchcraft. Children much younger were tortured to extract testimony against their parents.¹ Children were then flogged while they watched their parents burn.
A documented case in the Silesian town of Neisse reveals a huge oven was constructed, which over a ten year period, more than a thousand "condemned witches, some as young as two years old" were roasted alive.² Many victims were also extremely old, some in their 80's. This made no difference to the church.

The xtian church murdered, tortured, mutilated and destroyed millions and millions of lives both directly through the Inquisition and indirectly through all of the wars they incited. The damage and destruction this foul religion has perpetrated against humanity is almost beyond comprehension. Most people aren't even aware of the facts. Between the years of 1450-1600, the xtian church was responsible for the torture, and burning of some 30,000 alleged "witches."³

During the reign of the Roman Emporer Constantine CE 306-337 the doctrines of the xtian church were regarded as the foundation of law.4 Heretics (persons who opposed church teachings) were sought out, tortured and eventually murdered. Heresy was an offense against the state as well as the church. For hundreds of years, civil rulers tried to stamp out all heresy.

As early as CE 430, the church leaders declared heresy punishable by death. In CE 906, "The Canon Episcopi" was the first church body to expressly forbid the use of witchcraft.5 Before the Inquisition was fully underway, the church accepted heretics back into the fold, under terms it considered reasonable. The following is an example:

For three Sundays, the heretic was stripped to the waist and whipped from the entrance of the town/village all the way to the church door. He/she was to permanently deny him/herself meat, eggs and cheese except on Easter, pentecost and xmas, when he/she is to eat of them as a sign of his/her penance. For twenty days, twice a year he/she was to avoid fish and for 3 days in each week fish, wine and oil, fasting, if his/her health would permit.

He/she was to wear monastic vestments with a small cross sewn on each breast. He/she was to hear mass daily. Seven times a day, he/she was to recite the canonical hours and in addition, at Paternoster ten times each day and twenty times each night.
He/she was to observe total abstinence from sex. Every month he/she was to report to a priest who was to keep the heretic under close observation. He/she was to be segregated from the rest of the community.6

There is no precise date for the beginning of the Inquisition, most sources agree it manifested during the first 6 years of the reign of the catholic pope, Gregory IX, between 1227 and 1233. Pope Gregory IX who ruled from 1227-1241 is often referred to as the "Father of the Inquisition."

The Inquisition was a campaign of torture, mutilation, mass murder and destruction of human life perpetrated by xtians. The church increased in power until it had total control over human life, both secular and religious.
The Vatican wasn't satisfied with the progress made by regional leaders in rooting out heresy. Pope Innocent III commissioned his own inquisitors who answered directly to him. Their authority was made official in the papal bull of March 25th, 1199.7Innocent declared "anyone who attempted to construe a personal view of god which conflicted with the church dogma must be burned without pity."8


In 1254, to ease the job of the inquisitors, Pope Innocent IV decreed that accusers could remain anonymous, preventing the victims from confronting them and defending themselves. Many churches had a chest where informants could slip written accusations against their neighbors. Three years later, he authorized and officially condoned torture as a method of extracting confessions of heresy. 9

Victims were tortured in one room,

then, if they confessed, they were led away from the chamber into another room to confess to the inquisitors.
This way it could be claimed the confessions were given without the use of force. The Inquisitional law replaced common law. Instead of innocent until proven guilty, it was guilty until proven innocent.

Inquisitors grew very rich, accepting bribes and fines from the wealthy who paid to avoid being prosecuted. The wealthy were prime targets for the church who confiscated their property, land and everything they had for generations. The Inquisition took over all of the victims' possessions upon accusation. There was very little if any chance of proving one's self innocent, so this is one way the catholic church grew very wealthy. Pope Innocent stated that since "god" punished children for the sins of their parents, they had no right to be legal heirs to the property of their parents. Unless children came forth freely to denounce their parents, they were left penniless. Inquisitors even accused the dead of heresy, in some cases, as much as seventy years after their death. They exhumed and burned the accused's bones and confiscated all property from their heirs, leaving them with nothing. 10

The actions of the inquisitors had devestating effects on the economy that left entire communities totally impoverished while the church glutted with wealth. They also crippled the economy by holding certain professions suspect. Inquisitors believed the printed word to be a threat to the church and interfered with the communication brought about by the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. Maps, cartographers, traveling merchants and traders were all placed under intense suspicion; a threat to the church.

Although the church had begun murdering people it deemed heretics in the 4th century and again in 1022 at Orléan, papal statutes of 1231 insisted heretics suffer death by fire. Burning people to death prevented spilling of blood. John 15:6 "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned."
The nazarene quote incited all of this.

The pedophilia witnessed today is just a small example of the insanity and the twisted, warped minds of most xians and where any power that they obtain leads to.

The Witch hunts, 1450-1750 were what R H Robbins (The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology) called "the shocking nightmare, the foulest crime and deepest shame of western civilization." In this 300 year period, the church stepped up the mass murder and systematic torture of innocent human beings. Torturers were allowed as much time as they needed to torture their victims. Most courts demanded that prior to the torture, the victim be thoroughly shaved, claiming that any Demon left undetected in the victim's body hair might intervene to deaden the pain that the torturers inflicted or answer for the victim.11

Doctors would be in attendance if it seemed the victim might die from the torture. The victim would then be allowed to recover a little before more torture was applied. If the victim died during the torture, inquisitors claimed the Devil intervened with the purpose of sparing the victim further pain or preventing them from revealing his secrets.12 Those who fainted had vinegar poured into their nostrils to revive them. The victim's families were required under law to reimburse the courts for the costs of torture. Entire estates were seized by the church. Priests blessed the torture instruments prior to their being used. Certain devices were employed to inflict the maximum pain; indisputable evidence of the sick xtian mind:

Judas Cradle

The victim was pulled up by a rope or chain and then lowered to the point. The torturer controlled the pressure by attaching weights to the victim or rocking or raising and dropping the victim from various heights.

Brodequin (The Boots)

The brodequin was used to crush the legs by tightening the device by hand, or using a mallet for knocking in the wedges to smash the bones until the bone marrow spurted out. People who passed out were further condemned as the losing of consciousness to be a trick from the Devil in order to escape pain.

Burning the feet. Oil, lard and grease were applied to the feet before roasting them over a fire. A screen was used to control or increase the pain as exposure to the fire was applied on and off for maximum suffering. Also, as a variation, some victims were forced to wear large leather or metal boots into which boiling water or molten lead was poured.



Hanging and the Strappado

The victim's hands were bound behind the back. They were then yanked up to the ceiling of the torture chamber by a pulley and a rope. Dislocation ensued. Xtians preferred this method, as it left no visible marks of torture. Heavy weights were often strapped to the victim to increase the pain and suffering.
Squassation was a more extreme form of the torture. This method entailed strapping weights as much as hundreds of pounds, pulling limbs from their sockets. Following this, the xtian inquisitor would quickly release the rope so they would fall towards the floor. At the last second, the xtian inquisitioner would again yank the rope. This dislocated virtually every bone in the victim's body. Four applications were considered enough to kill even the strongest of victims.

Many were hung upsidedown as well until strangulation ensued.

Heretic's Fork


This device was often used to silence the victim on the way to the burning stake, so they could not reveal what had occurred in the torture chamber or defend themselves in any way.

Ripping the flesh

Xtian clergy delighted in the tearing and ripping of the flesh. The Catholic church learned a human being could live until the skin was peeled down to the waist when skinned alive. Often, the rippers were heated to red hot and used on women's breasts and in the genitalia of both sexes.

Breast Rippers


The Iron Torture Chair was studded with spikes. The victim was strapped in nude and a fire was lit beneath the chair. Heavy objects were also be used. They were placed upon the victim to increase the pain of the spikes. Blows with mallets were also inflicted. Often, other torturous devices were applied with the chair such as the flesh ripping pincers, shown above and leg crushing vices.


Skull Crusher
This one speaks for itself. Xtian clergy preferred this device because it did not leave visible marks, unless the skull was completely crushed, which happened.


The Rack

The Rack, aka the Ladder was another device that was used extensively. The procedure was to place the nude or near nude victim horizontally on the ladder or rack. Ropes were used to bind the arms and legs like a tourniquet. The knot could be steadily twisted to draw tight the ropes and stretch the victim to where the muscles and ligaments tore and bones broke. Often, heavy objects were placed upon the victim to increase the pain. This was considered by the church to be "one of the milder forms of torture."

The Wheel

The nude victim, was stretched out, lying face downward on the ground or on the execution dock, with his or her arms and legs spread, and tied to stakes or iron rings. Wooden crosspieces were placed under the wrists, elbows, ankles, knees and hips. The inquisitor then smashed limb after limb and joint after joint, including the shoulders and hips, with the iron-tyred edge of the wheel, taking care not to bring about the death of the victim. There were splinters of smashed bones, blood spurted everywhere and the victim's entire skeleton was crushed and smashed. Thereafter the shattered limbs were “braided” into the spokes of the large wheel. The wheel has to be one of the most gruesome of all torture devices. The idea is, that the victims' limbs are shattered and entwined around the spokes of the wheel, attaching them to it.


The Thumbscrew

The thumbscrew was a device where the victim's thumbs were placed and systematically crushed. Similar devices were used on the toes. Thumbscrews were often applied at the same time as the strappado and other torture devices to inflict more pain.

The Water Torture

The victim was stripped and bound to a bench or table and a funnel was inserted and pressed down into his throat. Water was poured into the funnel in jug fulls with his/her nose being pinched, forcing him/her to swallow. After this was repeated enough times to where the victim's stomach was almost to burst, the bench or table was then tilted, with the victim's head pointing to the floor. The water in the stomach put painful pressure on the victim's lungs and heart. There was not only the incredible pain with this, but also, the feeling of suffocation. Inquisitors would also beat upon the stomach with mallets to the point of internal rupture.
In another variation, the victim was forced to swallow large quantities of water together with lengths of knotted cord. The cords were then violently yanked from the victim's mouth resulting in disemboweling.

The Iron Maiden aka the "virgin mary"

Covering the front side of this device was a statue of the virgin bitch, inside were spikes, sharp knives or nails. Levers would move the arms of the statue, crushing the victim against the knives and nails.

Other devices and methods:


Forced feeding of overly salted foods that resulted in extreme thirst, then, the denial of water.

Immersion in scalding water laced with Lime.

Yanking back and forth by 2 or more inquisitors with ropes attached to a spiked iron collar. This tore the flesh on the victim's neck. Variations used screws that could be tightened.

The prayer stool. A spike board on which the victim was forced to kneel.

Stocks which were fitted with iron spikes

Slowly roasting victims over fire.

"Walking a Witch" entailed forcing a victim to walk back and forth for days on end until completely exhausted. A variation of this was having the victim sit cross legged upon a wooden stool, being deprived of movement or sleep. Some victims were as much as 80 years old.


"Thrawing." Similar to the spiked iron collar, only a rope was tied tightly around the head and the victim was yanked back and forth.


"Turkas." These were a variation of pincers used to pull out fingernails.


Many were thrown in filthy dungeons with no light or human contact, in addition, often being chained or confined in the stocks.


"Scoring above the Breath" the ancient belief that bleeding a witch above the mouth and nose would break a spell incited inquisitors to tear flesh, stick with needles and other instruments upon the victim's face.
Galileo Galilei,the famous Italian astronomer and physicist was one of the most noted victims of the inquisition. A letter in which he attempted to demonstrate the Copernican theory, that the Earth is not the center of the universe, was forwarded by some of his enemies (xtians) to the inquisitors in Rome. He was tried in 1633 and found guilty of heresy. He was forced to recant (publicly withdraw his statement) and was sentenced to life imprisonment under house arrest.
In 1979, Pope John Paul II declared that the Roman Catholic Church "may have been mistaken in condemning him," and he established a commission to study the case.13
In 1993, the Catholic Church "officially" pardoned Galileo. In other words, they forgave him for teaching that the planets revolve around the Sun, not the Earth. (See the above link).


Loss of human life:


Salzburg, Austria, 1677-1681 over 100 murdered


Basque region of the Pyrenees; 1608, Lawyer Pierre de Lancre was sent to the region to "root out and destroy those who worshipped Pagan Gods." Over 600 tortured and murdered.


Witch judge Henri Boguet c. 1550-1619 sent some 600 victims to their deaths in Burgundy, many of them young children who were systematically tortured and then burned alive.


A pregnant woman was burned alive and from the trauma, she gave birth before she died. The baby was tossed back into the flames.


Swedish town of Mora, 1669, more than 300 murdered. Among them, 15 children. 36 children between the ages of 9 and 15 were made to run the gauntlet and were beaten with rods upon their hands once a week for an entire year. Twenty of the youngest children, all under the age of 9 were whipped on their hands at the church door for 3 sundays in succession. Many more were severaly beaten for witchcraft offenses.


In Scotland, under the rule of Oliver Cromwell, a total of 120 in a single month were murdered in 1661. Estimates of the total dead have been as high as 17,000 between 1563 and 1603.


In Würzburg, Germany, the Chancellor wrote a graphic account in the year of 1629:
"...there are three hundred children of three or four years, who are said to have had intercourse with the Devil. I have seen children of seven put to death, and brave little scholars of ten, twelve, fourteen and fifteen years of age..."
Between the years of 1623 and 1633, some 900 "witches" were put to death throughout Würzburg. This was largely maintained by the Jesuits.


The Chronicler of Treves reported in 1586 that the entire female population of two villages was wiped out by inquisitors. Only two women were left alive.


Noted cases included the Knights Templar, Joan of Arc who was chained by the neck, hands and feet and locked in a cramped iron cage, Galileo, who stated that the Earth revolved around the Sun and was not the center of the universe as the church taught(See above).
The above accounts were taken from Cassel Dictionary of Witchcraft by David Pickering.


On Sunday, March 12th, 2002, the Pope John Paul II apologized for the "errors of his church for the last 2000 years."


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REFERENCES:

¹The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe, page 124
²Cassel Dictionary of Witchcraft by David Pickering, article on "Germany", page 108
³Cassel Dictionary of Witchcraft by David Pickering, article on "Inquisition", page 146
4 World Book Encyclopedia article on "Inquisition." ©1989
5 Wizards and Sorcerers by Tom Ogden, article on "Inqusition."
6 The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe, page 77
7Wizards and Sorcerers by Tom Ogden, article on "Inquisition."
8The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe, page 77
9Wizards and Sorcerers by Tom Ogden
10The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe, page 80
11Cassel Dictionary of Witchcraft by David Pickering article on "Torture."
12Cassel Dictionary of Witchcraft by David Pickering, article on "torture."
13World Book Encyclopedia article on "Galileo." ©1989

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Nazi torture and medical experimentation
January 1, 1946
Types of torture used by the Germans throughout their occupation of Western Europe, Poland and Russia are summed up by the Supreme Allied Headquarters’ Psychological Warfare section in a thirteen-volume report of the German atrocities in France:

There is a shocking catalogue of German torture methods: putting people’s hands in boiling water until the skin and fingernails came off like gloves; stamping on a man’s foot for ten minutes with a special steel boot and repeating the process for two weeks; pressing a hot poker into the hands; hanging persons by their hands behind their backs until their shoulders were out of joint, then gashing the soles of their feet and making the victims walk on salt; pulling teeth and cutting and twisting off the ears; running electric current through the victims’ bodies and other fiendish devices too horrible to describe. These tortures and other brutalities, the list of which is too long to include, were used by the German occupation forces …{rn 6}

So carefully worked out was the Nazi program of destruction of undesirable ethnic and national groups that their minutely detailed plan included the elimination of children who might present a future threat to German imperialism. Those who were undesirable racially were exterminated, those whose nationality had not marked them for death the Nazis tried to win over to their ideology.

[page 246]

[…]

Many commandants of concentration camps actually singled out children for particular cruelty. The commandant of the Janowski camp in Lvov, Obersturmfuehrer Wilhaus especially enjoyed this form of sport. He was in the habit of standing on the balcony of the camp office and taking pot-shots at the prisoners working below to amuse his wife and nine-year-old daughter. Sometimes Wilhaus would order someone to throw three- or four-year-old children into the air while he shot at them. His daughter would clap her hands and cry: “Do it again, Papa, do it again.” And he would go on shooting.{rn 8}

The statement of the Extraordinary Soviet State Committee after the investigations of the Oswiecim camp{rn 9} contains a section dealing with the treatment given children and the testimony of some of them after they were set free by the Red Army:

Sami Mudianov, aged 15, said: “We were forced to work in groups of fifteen or twenty, hauling carts of all kinds of freight, but mostly dead bodies, which we brought to a special wing where they were piled up for cremation. We worked from four in the morning until night. At the end of October 1944, the Germans who inspected our work ordered us to be punished because the wing was not clean enough. One hundred and fifty of us were lined up in the street and taken to a swimming pool. They made us strip and poured cold water on us and then led us back naked. Many of the children got sick after that.”

Andreas Larinciakos, a nine-year-old boy from Cles, Hungary, testified: “When we were taken to Wing No. 22 in the camp, we

[page 247]

were beaten by German women under whose charge we were. They beat us with sticks.

“While I was in the camp, Doctor Mengele took my blood many times. In November 1944, all the children were transferred to Camp A, the gypsy camp. When they counted us, one was found missing, so Branded, the manageress of the women’s camp and her assistant Mendel, drove us out into the street at one in the morning and made us stand there in the frost until noon the next day.”

Children born in the camp were taken from their mothers and put to death by the SS. Pregnant women among new arrivals were immediately sent to a special barracks, where premature birth was induced. Women who resisted were sent to the gas chamber.

Sofya Isakovna Flax, an ex-prisoner from Cracow, testified: “Many of the women who arrived in August 1944 had children aged between five and twelve. All of them, together with their mothers, were sent to the crematoriums. I was in the seventh month of my pregnancy. SS Dr. Koenig, who examined me, sent me to barracks V-3, Birkenau. There were sixty-five women there in similar condition. Three days later I was given an injection in the hip to induce premature birth. The injections were given four days in succession. On the fifth day I gave birth, and my child was taken away.”

[…]

Medical experimentation by the Nazis on prisoners in the concentration camps was practised throughout occupied Europe. However, evidence collected after the German retreat shows that in Poland and Russia the scale of experimentation was unsurpassed in its horror and magnitude.

The Extraordinary Soviet State Committee in its report on the crimes committed by the Germans in the Oswiecim death camp

[page 248]

states that the Nazis displayed “monstrous inventiveness” in the medical experiments practised on living persons in the name of science.

[…]

German doctors played a leading role in selecting prisoners for gassing and cremation. The weak, sick and disabled were dispatched to the gas chambers.

In addition to experimentation undertaken in the name of medical science, the German admitted to a policy of ridding themselves of all whom they considered unworthy to live. In 1941 they set up a special institute in Kiev where persons “unworthy to live” were murdered to further the cause of Nazi science. An account of what occurred in this “annihilation institute” was

[page 249]

given to a United Press correspondent when Dr. Gustav Wilhelm Schuebbe, head of the institute, was captured in Germany by U.S. First Army troops in April 1945.{rn 10}

Dr. Schuebbe stated that during the nine months he worked at the institute in Kiev, from 110,000 to 140,000 persons had been put to death. Those “unworthy to live” included epileptics, schizophrenics, Jews, members of foreign races and gypsies. Victims were killed by injections of EMM which, Dr. Schuebbe said, was a preparation of morphium tartrate.

“Of course we, the circle of German physicians,” he said, “were aware of the importance of this job. I still maintain the following: that just as one prunes a tree by removing old, undesirable branches in the spring, so for its own interest, a certain hygienical supervision of the body of a people is necessary from time to time. This also includes sterilization.”

The victims of “hygienical supervision” must be reckoned in many hundreds of thousands; the victims of Nazi theory and science are reckoned in the millions.

Hitler, and Hitler’s Germany have been defeated. But in 1945 there is no rejoicing for world Jewry. Two-thirds of Europe’s pre-war Jewish population have been wiped out. The blood of six million men, women and children cries out for justice. There can be no victory for anti-fascists, Jews and non-Jews alike, unless justice be done for crimes that cannot be forgotten.

Reference Notes (page 534)

Note 6. New York Times, May 4, 1945.
Note 7. New York Herald Tribune, November 18, 1944.
Note 8. Soviet Extraordinary State Committee, report December 1944.
Note 9. Report of February and March 1945.
Note 10. New York Herald Tribune, May 1, 1945.


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Source:

The Black Book of Polish Jewry, 1946 (English-language edition), pages 245-249.


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Webmaster note:

This was one of the winning entries in the 5th Annual David McCalden Most Macabre Halloween Holocaust Tale Challenge in 2008.