My initial topic idea for my dissertation is to examine what life was like for the Jewish population whilst living in the extermination camps with a main focus on what happened during medical experiments conducted by Nazi officials. This will hopefully give me a wider understanding to help me come to a narrowed down topic outline.
- Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, Elie Wiesel’s Account on Life at Auschwitz, https://www.hmd.org.uk/resource/elie-wiesel-hmd-2017/
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- first hand account of the transportation from Sighet, Hungary to Auschwitz.
- quotes about the transportation journey such as “lying down was not an option, nor could we all sit down. We decided to take turns sitting … After two days of travel, thirst became intolerable, as did the heat”.
- can give an understanding of the thoughts of different Jews during the travel to Auschwitz and what life was like once they arrived.
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- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum “The Doctors Trial: The Medical Case of the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings” https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/doctors-trial
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- Documentation of the Nuremberg Trials with regard to medical experiments with survivor testimonies.
- Vladislava Karolewska was deported to Ravensbrueck concentration camp just north of Berlin and was selected as a subject for a bone regeneration experiment.
- can help give a more realistic idea about what really happened during the medical experiments as there is not many people who survived the experiments.
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- Jewish Virtual Library A Project of Aice “The Holocaust: Nazi Medical Experiments” https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nazi-medical-experiments
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- Written letters between SS officers about experiments being done in various different extermination camps and photographic documentation of experiments being conducted on women, men and children.
- Also a list of doctors who conducted many different experiments such as Josef Mengele, Karl Brandt and Carl Clauberg.
- Experiments that were conducted such as bone transplantation, poisoning, freezing, sterilisation and nerve regeneration.
- first hand account of what happened during the medical experiments and photographic evidence of what this not only looked like but the effects that it had physically on people.
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There are some good primary sources here, Leah. The doctors’ trial in particular contains a wealth of information, although it can be difficult to get one’s head around the legal processes. The Jewish Virtual Library does provide some documents, but you’ll need to think about how this material is quite fragmentary and limited in nature. Elie Wiesel leads you off, I think, in a slightly different direction. His memoir, Night, could form the basis of a dissertation looking at Holocaust survival, for which you could amass a few other memoirs and analyse them from a particular angle. What you need to decide is the angle that you’d like to pursue in your dissertation and the question you’d like to answer. Do make sure you’re also creating a list of secondary sources; there is so much that has been written on the Holocaust that it can be overwhelming.