Doctors from Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans

By Vivien Spitz

Book Overview

A chilling, bestselling, and meticulously researched eyewitness account of the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial, Doctors from Hell exposes how 23 Nazi physicians tortured and killed in the name of science, revealed through rare trial transcripts and previously unseen courtroom evidence.

Doctors from Hell is a searing eyewitness account of the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial, told by Vivien Spitz, who was just 22 years old when she served as a court reporter during one of the most disturbing war crimes trials in history. With clarity and restraint, Spitz reveals how Nazi physicians, sworn to heal, became agents of torture and death in the name of science, patriotism, and personal ambition.

Drawing directly from courtroom testimony, the book documents the crimes of 23 doctors and medical assistants who conducted brutal experiments on concentration camp inmates. Victims were forced into high-altitude chambers without oxygen, subjected to amputations and transplant experiments, deliberately wounded and infected with typhus, exposed to mustard gas, or left untreated to compare medical outcomes. In one of the most chilling cases, 112 Jewish inmates were murdered so their skeletons could be collected for study.

Spitz supports this account with rare trial transcripts and previously unpublished photographs used as evidence, materials long inaccessible to the public. Her factual, unsensational style allows the horror to speak for itself.

A powerful foreword by Dr. Frederick R. Adams places these crimes in a modern ethical context, tracing their roots to earlier eugenics programs and raising urgent questions about medical experimentation, informed consent, and professional silence. Meticulously researched and deeply unsettling, Doctors from Hell is both a historical record and a warning that medical ethics must never be taken for granted.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591810329
• ISBN13: 9781591810322
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Sentient Publications
• Length: 356 Pages
• Weight: 1.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Medical Demons

Way back in 1980, I had the opportunity to know a Polish American girl in Toledo,Ohio. She and her family are originally from Krakow, Poland. Her mother showed me the horrible scars on her deformed left leg and some presumably whip marks on her back. She told me she was interned in 1944 at the notorious concentration camp in Ravensbruck,Germany which was a concentration camp for women. The horrendous deformity and scars on her left leg were the result of experiments consisting of injecting germs to develop infection down to the bone and testing it with different drugs. She was lucky she survived in spite of her weighing only 50 lbs at that time. The book "Doctors from Hell" is just appropriate for its title and content. Reading the book brings back memory of that mother and all the horrendous detail of not only her own experience but also those of her fellow inmates in that concentration camp. The book's authenticity is just summed up by that mother's narration to me, a human being who was actually in and escaped from that "Hell" on earth. I highly recommend it.

Unbelievable!

This book is a real shocker, to think that people can have no empathy for another human beings feelings is beyond belief. "How could they do this" in no way begins to describe the horror and torture they inflicted on these poor defenceless souls. A real eye-opener but a "must" read book. Very well written.

Gruesome and Accurate Account

The first-hand testimony, taken from trial transcripts, paints a gruesome portrait of the doctors involved in horrific experiments on humans in the Nazi death camps. (I reluctantly call these men "doctors" after reading this disturbing book.) Accurate documentation of their unbelievable deeds provides the reader with a nightmare look at this dark time in history. An essential reference for students of history.

A bleak, stark, and severe account

Written by skilled journalist Vivian Spitz, who counts being the youngest court reporter at the Nuremberg Trials among her many accomplishments, Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account Of Nazi Experiments On Humans presents literal testimonies of Nuremburg war crimes trials specifically pertaining to murderous medical experiments performed on living people. A bleak, stark, and severe account; the dry yet thoroughly detailed testimony speaks for itself. Information concerning the conviction and sentencing of defendants is also included. The author offers closing chapters about adapting to a normal life after her role in bearing witness to unspeakable atrocities, including her encounters with poisonous and sometimes threatening Holocaust deniers. A straightforward primary source appreciable to scholars and lay readers alike, and a welcome contribution to Holocaust Studies and reference shelves.