Auschwitz Medical Test Victims

Introduction by Jessica Skippon

BACKGROUND

In 1990 I visited Auschwitz and went to their archive. It was very basic and I was permitted to browse through the paperwork.  I found two pages, both from the Hygiene-Institut der Waffen-SS u. Polizei.

List 1: The list is dated 18-Jul-1944 from Birkenau (the women’s’ work camp at Auschwitz II) and includes the names of women having blood tests from Block 11a. The subtitle of the report says, “Enclosed blood samples are sent in to be checked for examination.” These may have been for women that were being check for venereal diseases.

List 2: This list doesn’t appear to have a title or a date. It is a list of men in two columns. There doesn’t appear to be an order in the left-hand column.  This list is handwritten and some of the names are very difficult to read.

From the US Holocaust Memorial Museum website, “The Institute was established in Nov. 1942 as “Hygienische-Bakteriologische Untersuchungs Stelle der Waffen-SS und Polizei, Süd-Ost” later changed to “Hygiene Institut der Waffen SS-und Polizei, Auschwitz”. The Institute performed hygienic and bacteriological laboratory work for local SS, Wehrmacht and police units, as well as for concentration camps (the entire Auschwitz-Birkenau complex including the sub-camps, and Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp). The Institute analyzed samples of blood and other bodily fluids collected from camp prisoners, the SS garrison troops and their families, and armed SS and Wehrmacht formations stationed in the Oświęcim area. The analysis was intended to detect cases of malaria and syphilis. The Institute was headed by SS Obersturmfuerer dr. Bruno Weber. The crucial objectives of the Institute were:

1. Attendance to the SS and police hospitals on the territory under the Institute activity, the area between Poznan and Prague, reaching Kiev in certain period.
2. Attendance to the block of Auschwitz camps, which mainly consisted in large-scale mass blood, urine and stool tests referring to the research on malaria, typhoid and other contagious diseases.
3. Attendance to the camps of civil labor.
4. Special examinations of food, water, chemical preparations and animal diseases.
5. Scientific research.

DATABASE

This database consists of 161 men and women from the two lists itemized above.

The fields in the database are:

• Sequential Report Number
• Prisoner Number
• Surname
• Given Name
• Comments
• Source

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We’d like to thank Jessica Skippon, a JewishGen volunteer, for submitting, reviewing and doing some of the data-entry to create this data set.

We also thank Mike Kalt, Html Volunteer, for placing this description online, and to Nolan Altman, Director of Special Projects and Coordinator of the Holocaust Database, for his continued devotion and dedication to JewishGen's important work.

June, 2021

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