MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: On leaving Auschwitz we were sent to
Ravensbrück. There we were escorted to the “NN” block—meaning “Nacht
und Nebel”, that is, “The Secret Block.” With us in that block were
Polish women with the identification number “7,000.” Some were called
“rabbits” because they had been used as experimental guinea pigs. They
selected from the convoys girls with very straight legs who were in very
good health, and they submitted them to various operations. Some of the
girls had parts of the bone removed from their legs, others received
injections; but what was injected, I do not know. The mortality rate was
very high among the women operated upon. So when they came to fetch the
others to operate on them they refused to go to the Revier. They were
forcibly dragged to the dark cells where the professor, who had arrived
from Berlin, operated in his uniform, without taking any aseptic
precautions, without wearing a surgical gown, and without washing his
hands. There are some survivors among these “rabbits.” They still endure
much suffering. They suffer periodically from suppurations; and since
nobody knows to what treatment they had been subjected, it is extremely
difficult to cure them.