The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl: How Two Brave Scientists Battled Typhus and Sabotaged the Nazis (61 page)
Authors: Arthur Allen
As the Block 46
:
Klee,
Auschwitz
, 304–5.
Chapter 10: “Paradise” at Auschwitz
As part of this shift
:
Betty Truck and Robert-Paul Truck,
Médecins de la honte: La vérité sur les expériences médicales pratiquées à Auschwitz
(Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1975), 146.
In November or December
:
Mieczysław Kieta, “Das Hygiene-Institut der Waffen-SS und Polizei in Auschwitz,”
Die Auschwitz-Hefte
(Weinheim: Beltz, 1987), 213–17.
As he wrote
:
Truck and Truck,
Médecins
, 146.
In the weeks before
:
Kieta, “Hygiene-Institut,” 114; Willy Berler,
Journey through Darkness: Monowitz, Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald
, trans. Martine Mitrani and Annette Charak (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2004), 200–204.
The ten members
:
Danuta Czech,
Auschwitz Chronicles
,
1939–1945
(New York: Henry Holt, 1990), 325.
Perhaps Weber wanted
:
Stanisław Lenz testimony, YVA.
Fleck’s group
:
Bruno Seeman testimony, Shoah Foundation.
On February 11
:
Czech,
Chronicles
, 328, 334; Bruno Seeman testimony.
The men entered
:
Robert J. Lifton,
The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide
(London: Macmillan, 1986), 264; Fleck, “Aufenthalt im KZ Auschwitz,” in
Denkstile
, 487–88.
In March, Fleck and
:
Arie Ryszard Fleck, YVA O.3/3521.
Ludwik and Ryszard
:
Fleck, “Aufenthalt,” 488; Fleck, “Wie wir den Anti-Flecktyphus-Impfstoff im Lemberger Ghetto hergestellt haben,” in
Denkstile
, 511.
However, Ryszard was
:
Ryszard Fleck testimony.
Fleck’s prewar reputation
:
Fleck, “Aufenthalt,” 488, and “Wie wir,” 523.
The Lwów scientists’
:
Czech,
Chronicles
, 366; Robert Proctor, “Nazi Doctors, Racial Medicine and Human Experimentation,” in
The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Perspective
, ed. George Annas and Michael A. Grodin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 21; Vera Laska, “The Stations of the Cross,” in
Medicine, Ethics and the Third Reich
, ed. John Michalczyk (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1994), 135–36.
The women—French
:
Adelaide Hautval, “Aperçu sur les expériences faites dans les camps de femmes d’Auschwitz et de Ravensbrück,” in André Lettich,
Convoi Numero 8
(Paris: Éditions Retour, 2009), 122–25; Hans-Joachim Lang,
Frauen von Block 10: Medizinische Versuche in Auschwitz
(Hamburg: Hoffmann & Campe, 2011), 167–76.
Fleck witnessed these terrible
:
Fleck, “Aufenthalt,” 488.
During this time, Fleck befriended
:
Shoah Foundation, 19441 Magda Blau.
“
It was strictly forbidden
”:
Letter of Hautval to Schnelle, April 2, 1980, LFZ, Allgemeine Korrespondenz und Notizen von Thomas Schnelle 1978–1993, 4.1, Signatur 94.
The windows of Block 10
:
Bruno Seeman testimony.
One day, Fleck
:
“Aufenthalt,” 489. See also Irena Strzelecka,
Medical Crimes: The Hospitals in Auschwitz
, trans. William Brand (O
wi
cim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, 2008), 12.
Yet even as the gassings
:
Hermann Langbein,
Against All Hope: Resistance in the Nazi Concentration Camps, 1938–1945
, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Paragon House, 1994), 14–15.
Hermann Langbein
:
Langbein,
Menschen in Auschwitz
(Vienna: Europa Verlag, 1972), 17.
Langbein, a former
:
Langbein,
Against All Hope
, 27
The camp commander
:
Rudolf Höss,
Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz
(New York: Da Capo, 1996), 323–25.
Arriving at the ramp
:
Shoah Foundation, 36554 Louis Micheels.
Langbein was working
:
Marc Klein, “Auschwitz I Stammlager,” in
De l’université aux camps de concentration: Témoignages strasbourgeois
(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1947), 447–48.
Wirths wrote detailed
:
Hermann Langbein,
People in Auschwitz
, trans. Harry Zohn (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 371–73.
The reports may have
:
Ibid., 552. For information on the SS judicial inquiry at Auschwitz and other camps, see James J. Weingartner, “Law and Justice in the Nazi SS: The Case of Konrad Morgen,”
Central European History
16 (1983): 276–94.
On May 5, 1943, Weber’s
:
Mieczysław Kieta, “Das Hygiene-Institut der Waffen-SS und Polizei in Auschwitz,” in,
Die Auschwitz-Hefte
, vol. 1, 2nd ed. (Hamburg: Rogner und Bernhard, 1995), 213–17.
Inmates were already
:
Susanne Heim:
Kalorien, Kautschuk, Karrieren: Pflanzenzüchtung und landwirtschaftliche Forschung an Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituten 1933–1945
(Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), 177; Peter Longerich,
Himmler
, trans. Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharpe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 685–86.
The United States was
:
Mark R. Finlay,
Growing American Rubber: Strategic Plants and the Politics of National Security
(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 19–20, 162–63, 205–7.
Himmler and Caesar
:
Wanda L. Blankenheim, Yad Vashem testimony, RG 0.3/3118.
At Monowitz
:
Primo Levi,
Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity
, trans. Stuart Woolf (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996).
But while the
:
See Shoah Foundation, 24748 Rosette Moss, 4616 Ellis Hertzberger, 6370 Simone Floersheim, 653 Gertruda Milchova; and Simone Alizon,
L’exercice de vivre
(Paris: Stock, 1996), 264–81, Blankenheim testimony, 15.
The women in the
:
Anna Zieba, “Das Nebenlager Rajsko,”
Hefte von Auschwitz
9 (1966): 75–90.
In October 1942, Caesar
:
Langbein,
People
, 418; Blankenheim testimony, 13.
The leaders of the
:
Alizon,
L’exercise de vivre
, 264–67;
Claudette: Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1942–1945: Recherche en laboratoire
,” trans. and ed. Lore Shelley (Chambéry: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 2002), 1–42.
Fleck and the other
:
Zieba,“Rajsko,” 75–90; Kieta, “Hygiene-Institut,” 213–17.
The walk took
:
Louis J. Micheels,
Doctor 117641: A Holocaust Memoir
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 100.
Arriving at the institute
:
Kieta, “Hygiene-Institut,” 215; Lettich,
Convoi
; Berler,
Journey
; Léon Poliakov,
Bréviaire de la Haine: Le III
e
Reich et les Juifs
(Paris: René Julliard, 1964), 118–20.
After Josef Mengele
:
Kieta, “Hygiene-Institut,” 216; Shoah Foundation, 35030 Victor Schnell; Deborah E. Lipstadt, introd. to Lucie Adelsberger,
Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Story
, trans. Susan Ray (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1995), xiii–xvii. For more on Mengele, see Gerald Posner and John Ware,
Mengele: The Complete Story
(New York: Cooper Square, 2000).
On the same floor
:
Fleck, “Wie wir,” 523.
The dandelion scientist
:
Joachim Caesar, NA, RG238, M1019, roll 11.
A general state of
:
USHMM, Hygiene Institute der Waffen SS-Polizei, Auschwitz RG 15.108 (30 microfilm reels containing photographed records of serological and bacteriological tests performed by Fleck and others at Rajsko).
In a little room
:
Kieta, “Rajsko”; Lettich,
Convoi
; Berler,
Journey
; Shoah Foundation, 6246 William Schiff.
In an attic workshop
:
Kieta, “Rajsko.”
One day, Weber
:
Shoah Foundation, Herzberger.
Their wives had been
:
Frank Stiffel, T
he Tale of the Ring: A Kaddish
(New York: Bantam Books, 1984), 256–61; Stiffel, interview with author, Jan. 2011.
Despite their celebrity
:
Bruno Seeman testimony.
As a Nazi boss
:
Blankenheim testimony.
He ran the labs
:
Berler,
Journey
.
Micheels said
:
Micheels,
Doctor
, 98–104.
Weber was needlessly
:
Ibid., 71–76, 84–85.
One irksome task
:
Lettich,
Convoi
, 74–76.
Weber enjoyed walking
:
Truck and Truck,
Médecins
, 156–57.
Fleck’s son, Ryszard
:
Imre Gönczi, personal communications, April 2011; YVA O.3/2874; Ryszard Fleck testimony.
“
Our relations with the SS
”:
Klein, “Auschwitz I,” 449–50.
In the spring of 1944
:
Ian Kershaw,
Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis
(New York: Norton, 2000), 628.
“
Before that time
”:
Blankenheim testimony, 13.
Another doctor wrote
:
Adelsberger,
Doctor’s Story
, 85.
Near the end
:
Tadeusz Kielanowski, “In der Angelegenheit des Artikels von Prof. Dr. L. Fleck über ärztliche Experimente an Menschen,” in
Denkstile
, 584.
In Lwów, as the war
:
Ryszard Wójcik, “Pakt z diabłem” (Pact with the devil),
Przegl
d tygodniowy
4 (617) (1994). Also see the five-part Wójcik series “Kapryna gwiazda Rudolfa Weigla” (The wayward star of Rudolf Weigl), in
Odra
9 and 10 (1980–81).
The dilemma
:
Third Part of the Night
, by Andrzej
uławski, Polski State Film, 1971.