THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but every camp we have heard of has got the same
sort of brutalities, hasn’t it, according to the witnesses who have been
called?
You were going to call this witness because he was going to deal with
experiments.
M. DUBOST: If the Tribunal is convinced that all the camps had the same
regime, then my point has been proved and the witness will now testify
to the experiments at the Buchenwald Camp. However, I wanted to show
that all German camps were the same. I think this has now been proved.
THE PRESIDENT: If you were going to prove that, you would have to call a
witness from every camp, and there are hundreds of them.
M. DUBOST: This question has to be proved because it is the uniformity
of the system which establishes the culpability of these defendants. In
every camp there was one responsible person who was the camp commander.
But we are not trying the camp commander, but the defendants here in the
dock and we are trying them for having conceived . . .
THE PRESIDENT: I have already pointed out to you that there has been
practically no cross-examination, and I have asked you to confine this
witness, as far as possible, to the question of experiments.
M. DUBOST: The witness will then confine himself to experiments at
Buchenwald as this is the Tribunal’s wish. The Tribunal will consider
the uniformity of treatment in all German internment camps as proved.
[_Turning to the witness_] Will you now testify to the criminal
practices of the SS Medical Corps in the camps, criminal practices in
the form of scientific experiments?
BALACHOWSKY: I was recalled to Buchenwald the 1st of May 1944, and
assigned to Block 50, which was actually a factory for the manufacture
of vaccines against exanthematous typhus. I was recalled from Dora to
Buchenwald, because, in the meantime, the management of the camp had
learned that I was a specialist in this sort of research, and
consequently they wished to utilize my services in Block 50 for the
manufacture of vaccines. However, I was unaware of it until the very
last moment.
I came to Block 50 on the 1st of May 1944, and I stayed there until the
liberation of the camp on the 11th of April 1945.
Block 50, which was the block where vaccines were manufactured, was
under Sturmbannführer Schuler, who was a doctor with the rank of a
Sturmbannführer, equal to SS major. He was in charge of the block and
was responsible for the manufacture of the vaccines. This same
Sturmbannführer Schuler was also in charge of another block in the
Buchenwald Camp. This other block was Block 46, the infamous block for
experiments, where the internees were utilized as guinea pigs.
Blocks 46 and 50 were both run by one office; it was the
“Geschäftszimmer.” All archives, index cards pertaining to the
experiments—as well as Block 50, were sent to the Geschäftszimmer, that
is, to the office of Block 50.
The secretary of Block 50 was an Austrian political prisoner, my friend,
Eugene Kogon. He and a few other comrades had, consequently,
opportunities of looking through all the archives of which they had
charge. Therefore they were able to know, day by day, exactly what went
on either in Block 50, our block, or in Block 46. I myself was able to
get hold of most of the archives of Block 46, and even the book in which
the experiments were recorded has been saved. It is in our possession,
and has been forwarded to the Psychological Service of the American
Forces.
In this book all experiments are entered which were made in Block 46.
Block 46 was established in October 1941 by a high commission
subordinate to the medical service of the Waffen SS; and we see as
members of its administrative council, a certain number of names, for
this Block 46 came under the Research Section Number 5
(Versuchsabteilung Number 5 of Leipzig) of the Supreme Command of the
Waffen SS. Inspector Mrugowski, Obergruppenführer of the Waffen SS, was
in charge of this section. The administrative council which set up Block
46 was composed of the following members:
Dr. Genzken, Obergruppenführer (the highest rank in the Waffen SS); Dr.
Poppendiek, Gruppenführer of the Waffen SS; and finally we see among
these names also that of Dr. Handloser of the Wehrmacht and of the
Military Academy of Berlin, who was also associated with the initiation
of experiments on human beings.
Thus, in this administrative council there were members of the SS, and
also Dr. Handloser. The experiments proper were carried out by
Sturmbannführer Schuler, but all the orders and directives concerning
the different types of experiments, which I shall speak about to you,
were issued by Leipzig, that is, by the Research Section
(Versuchsabteilung) of the Waffen SS. So there was no personal
initiative on the part of Schuler or the management of the camp.
As to the experiments, all orders came directly from the Supreme Command
in Berlin. Among these experiments, which we could follow step by step
(at least some of them) through the cards, the results, the registration
number of people admitted to and discharged from Block 46, were, first
of all, numerous exanthematous typhus experiments; second, experiments
on phosphorus burns; third, experiments on sexual hormones; fourth,
experiments on starvation edema or avitaminosis; finally, fifth, I can
tell you of experiments in the field of forensic medicine. So we have
five different types of experiments.
M. DUBOST: Were the men who were subjected to these experiments
volunteers or not?
BALACHOWSKY: The human beings subjected to experiments were recruited,
not only in the Buchenwald Camp, but also outside the camp. They were
not volunteers; in most cases they did not know that they would be used
for experiments until they entered Block 46. The recruitment took place
among criminals, perhaps in order to reduce their large numbers in that
way. But the recruitment was also carried out among political prisoners
and I have to point out that recruits for Block 46 came also from
Russian prisoners of war. Among the political prisoners and prisoners of
war who were used for experimental purposes at Block 46, the Russians
were always in the majority, for the following reasons:
Of all the prisoners who could exist in concentration camps it was the
Russians who had the greatest physical resistance, which was obviously
superior to that of the French or other people of western Europe. They
could withstand hunger and ill-treatment, and, generally speaking,
showed physical resistance in every respect. For this particular reason,
Russian political prisoners were recruited for experiments in greater
numbers than others. However, there were people of other nationalities
among them, particularly French. I should now like to deal with details
of the experiments themselves.
M. DUBOST: Do not go too much into details, because we are not
specialists. It will suffice us to know that these experiments were
carried out without any regard to humanity and on nonvoluntary subjects.
Will you please describe to us the atrocious character of these
experiments and their results.
BALACHOWSKY: The experiments carried out in Block 46 did without doubt
serve a medical purpose, but for the greater part they were of no
service to science. Therefore, they can hardly be called experiments.
The men were used for observing the effects of drugs, poisons, bacterial
cultures, _et cetera_. I take, as an example, the use of vaccine against
exanthematous typhus. To manufacture this vaccine it is necessary to
have bacterial cultures of typhus. For experiments such as are carried
out at the Pasteur Institute and the other similar institutes of the
world, cultures are not necessary as typhus patients can always be found
for samples of infected blood. Here it was quite different. From the
records and the chart you have in hand, we could ascertain in Block 46
12 different cultures of typhus germs, designated by the letter BU,
(meaning Buchenwald) and numbered Buchenwald 1 to Buchenwald 12. A
constant supply of these cultures was kept in Block 46 by means of the
contamination of healthy individuals through sick ones; this was
achieved by artificial inoculation of typhus germs by means of
intravenous injections of 0.5 to 1 cubic centimeter of infected blood
drawn from a patient at the height of the crisis. Now, it is well-known
that artificial inoculation of typhus by intravenous injection is
invariably fatal. Therefore all these men who were used for bacterial
culture during the whole time such cultures were required (from October
1942 to the liberation of the camp) died, and we counted 600 victims
sacrificed for the sole purpose of supplying typhus germs.