Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar. The
"Little Camp"-the
isolation and quarantine section of Buchenwald. Block 57. One
morning
in late May of 1944.'
Three-tiered geometric boxes lined the barrack. Each housed as many
as sixteen emaciated humans per shelf. A thirsty and exhausted
Frenchman
named Oliv struggled to climb down from the top level for his day's
work.
But he was too weak to climb out and negotiate the eight feet down.
As
Oliv lay limp, a fat, well-fed inmate doctor walked in. The other
French
prisoners pleaded with the doctor that Oliv was too ill and suffered
from
severe rheumatism, making his every movement painful. The frail man
needed medical attention. A small infirmary, stocked with medicines
and
called "the hospital," had been established in the Little Camp. The
doctor
controlled access to the facility and the drugs. Those admitted to
the hospital
could be excused from work until nursed back to working strength-and
thereby live another day.2
But the doctor, himself a prisoner yet reviled as a barbaric stooge
of the
SS, was known for refusing admission to the hospital except to those
he
favored-or those who could bribe their way in by turning over their
relief
packets. Most of all, the doctor hated the French communists.
They-and
their diseases-were everywhere in the Little Camp. The doctor
believed
that each inferior national group was a carrier of its own specific
set of diseases.
Frenchmen, he thought, brought in diphtheria and related throat
diseases as well as scarlet fever. Simply put, the Little Camp
doctor was
unwilling to use his limited hospital to lessen the prisoners'
loads, extend
their lives or relieve their suffering. The prisoners' job was to
work. His job
was to ensure they kept working-until they could work no more.3
Furious and impatient, the Little Camp doctor pushed the others out
of
the way, stepped onto the lowest of the three tiers, reached up and
grabbed
Oliv's emaciated foot as it dangled over the edge. He then yanked
Oliv over
the short sideboard and down the eight feet to the floor. Oliv
tumbled to
the floor like a doll and cracked his skull. Blood soaked down the
back of
his shirt. As the life seeped out of Oliv, his comrades hauled him
onto the
lowest bunk, and then hurried out to their backbreaking labors at
the
quarry. When they came back to Block 57 that night, Oliv was dead.
Next
to the bathroom was a makeshift morgue; they moved his body there.
Later, Oliv's body waited its turn at the crematorium.4
The French inmates of the Little Camp never forgot the brutality the
doctor showed them, while exhibiting seemingly incongruous medical
compassion to others. They never forgot that while most of them were
worked and starved into skeletons, the doctor ate well. Many
prisoners lost
40 percent of their weight shortly after arriving in the Little
Camp. But the
doctor arrived at Buchenwald fat and stayed fat. No one could
understand
how a talented physician could render his skills so effectively to
some, while
allowing others to die horrible deaths. After Buchenwald was
liberated in
April of 1945, the stories about Dr. Edwin Katzen-Ellenbogen emerged
in
French reports and then in occupation German newspapers and the
Allied
armed forces media. Katzen-Ellenbogen was accused of murdering a
thousand
prisoners by injection. 5
The United States military conducted war crimes trials at Dachau for
a
variety of lesser-known concentration camp Nazis and their inmate
collaborators,
especially the medical killers. Katzen-Ellenbogen was among
them, and was found guilty of war crimes, right along with the other
socalled
"butchers of Buchenwald." He was sentenced to a long term in
prison. The court finding, however, was not an easy one. It was
complicated
by conflicting stories of Katzen-Ellenbogen's outstanding academic
background and prewar record.6
Many found Dr. Katzen-Ellenbogen and the many lives he led
incomprehensible.
How could he alternately function as a gifted psychiatrist and
as a murderous man of medicine? At the time, none understood that
Katzen-Ellenbogen viewed humanity with multiple standards. He was an
American eugenicist. Nor was he just any eugenicist.
Katzen-Ellenbogen
was a founding member of the Eugenics Research Association and the
chief
eugenicist of New Jersey under then-Governor Woodrow Wilson.7
Viewing humanity through a eugenic prism, Katzen-Ellenbogen was
capable of exhibiting great compassion toward those he saw as
superior,
and great cruelty toward those he considered genetically unfit. In
Buchenwald, the French, with their Mediterranean and Mrican
hybridization,
were eugenically among the lowest. They were not really worthy of
life. At the same time, in Katzen-Ellenbogen's view, those of Nordic
or
Aryan descent were treasured-to be helped and even saved. It all
followed
classic eugenic thought. But in Buchenwald, it was the difference
between
life and death.
How did one of America's pioneer eugenicists wend his way from New
Jersey to Buchenwald's notorious Little Camp? The story begins in
late
nineteenth-century Poland. Katzen-Ellenbogen was the name of a
famous
line of Polish and Czech rabbis going back centuries. However, as
the doctor's
life was built, he-or perhaps his immediate branch of the
familyobscured
any connection with a Jewish heritage. Like many European Jews
who had drifted from tradition, he spelled his last name numerous
ways,
hyphenated and unhyphenated, and sometimes even signed his name
"Edwin K. Ellenbogen." He was probably born as Edwin Wladyslaw
Katzen-Ellenbogen in approximately 1882, in Stanislawow, in
Austrianoccupied
Poland.8
As a youth, Katzen-Ellenbogen developed severe vision problems. But
he achieved academic success despite the affliction, attending fine
schools
and developing extraordinary powers of observation and
ratiocination.
First, he studied at a Jesuit high school in Poland. Then he
attended the
University of Leipzig, where he secured his medical degree in 1905.
While
in medical school, he became engaged to a girl from Massachusetts,
Marie
A. Pierce, daughter of a judge and scion of a prominent family of
Americans dating back to the Minutemen. In 1905, Katzen-Ellenbogen
sailed for America, settling briefly in Massachusetts, where he
married
Marie. He added "Marie" to his various middle names, and utilized
her
family's connections to further his academic pursuits. Various
letters of
introduction were provided, as was the money Katzen-Ellenbogen
needed
to continue his university work in Europe. There he studied
psychiatry
with some of the best names in the field, during the formative years
of the
profession, and he also learned the mystifying medical art
ofhypnosis.9
In 1907, Katzen-Ellenbogen returned to the United States, where he
was naturalized as a citizen and started work in state institutions,
such as
the Danvers State Hospital of Massachusetts. One of the early
exponents of
Freud in America, Katzen-Ellenbogen became a Harvard lecturer in
abnormal psychology. He developed expertise on fake symptoms. He
authored an article in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology on "The
Detection
of a Case of Simulation ofInsanity by Means of Association Tests."
10
Katzen- Ellenbogen began to specialize in epilepsy, especially with
regard
to mental deficiency. His expert testimony was pivotal in convicting
a mur
derer who claimed diminished mental capacity due to an epileptic
attack; the
convicted man was electrocuted in 1912. He authored numerous
articles on
the subject and became a coeditor of the international quarterly,
Epilepsia.
One of his articles asserted that different races should have their
own standards
for imbecility. A child, he posited, "may be inferior as to race,
but be up
to the mark for its own racial standards ... especially ... in
America." I I
In 1911, Woodrow Wilson became governor of ew jersey. Katzen-
Ellenbogen was asked to become scientific director of the State
Village for
Epileptics at Skillman, New jersey. It was there that he would
develop his
eugenic interests. "While there," recalled Katzen-Ellenbogen, "I
particularly
studied ... the hereditary background of epilepsy." As the state's
leading
expert, Katzen-Ellenbogen was then asked by Wilson to draft ew
jersey's law to sterilize epileptics and defectives. In the process,
he became
an expert on legal and legislative safeguards and jurisprudence. 12
As a leading member of the National Association for the Study of
Epilepsy, Katzen-Ellenbogen delivered an address on epilepsy and
feeblemindedness
at Goddard's Vineland Training School. In 1913, Katzen-
Ellenbogen became charter member #14 of the Eugenics Research
Association at Cold Spring Harbor. The doctor continued his active
membership
even after he sailed for Russia in 1915, never to return to the
United States.13
Katzen-Ellenbogen bounced around the capitals of Europe for the next
few years. He was about to board a ship in Holland when he received
a
telegram informing him that his only son had died in America after
falling
from a roof. Katzen-Ellenbogen was never the same. He became morose
and introspective, questioning the value of human life, at least his
own. "I
contemplated to offer myself as physician to the leprosy colony in
the
upper State of New York," he recounted. He also considered suicide.
At the
same time, Katzen-Ellenbogen deepened his fascination with things
Catholic, purchasing a valued copy of a rare Madonna. 14
As Katzen-Ellenbogen wandered through Europe, he impressed many
people as a kind humanitarian. He met one woman briefly on a train
in 1921
and discussed his favorite Madonna. More than two decades later,
even after
learning of his notorious war crimes, she wrote him, "I cannot
believe that
anyone who likes a picture of the Madonna can be entirely bad."
Years later,
another woman, recalling their fond encounter in Germany, insisted,
"There still are people in this world who believe in yoU."15
In 1925, Katzen-Ellenbogen developed a relationship with a woman
named Olga. She described him as "the companion of my life." He
described her as "myoId housekeeper." By any measure, Katzen-
Ellenbogen developed deep parental feelings for Olga's two orphaned
grandsons, and raised them as though they were his own. Together
with his
daughter, Katzen-Ellenbogen led an ad hoc family of five. 16
They were living in Germany when Hitler rose to power. Despite his
Catholic observances, after the 1935 Nuremberg Laws
Katzen-Ellenbogen
found himself defined as Jewish and subject to encircling
anti-Jewish
decrees. Like many practicing Christians ofJewish ancestry, he fled
across
the Czech border in 1936, establishing a clinic in Marienbad. When
anti-
Jewish agitation spread into Czechoslovakia, Katzen-Ellenbogen moved
again, this time to the democratic stronghold of Prague, where in
1938 he
began working with refugee groupS.I7
After Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia in March of 1939, Katzen-
Ellenbogen followed a typical route of flight. First, he crossed
into Italy.
After war broke out in September of 1939, he escaped to France. But
when
the Nazis bifurcated France in 1940, Katzen-Ellenbogen was caught in
the
occupied zone in Paris. As a result of his many recent relocations,
he was a
suspicious refugee in a city teeming with Gestapo agents. In 1941 he
was
arrested by Gestapo counter-intelligence corps, but he was soon
released.
Like many foreigners living in Nazi-occupied Paris,
Katzen-Ellenbogen
was ultimately arrested several times for questioning or detention.
He was
denied permission to leave for neutral Portugal. Finally, just as he
was planning
to leave for Prague in the late summer of 1943, Nazi security agents
came for him. The knock on the door came at six in the morning. 18
Many eugenicists considered Nazi racial policies a biological ideal.
Katzen-Ellenbogen discounted his Jewish ancestry, considering
himself a
eugenicist first and foremost. This made him different, and almost
appealing
to the Gestapo, especially under the circumstances.
Although a prisoner, he was given access to top Nazi generals in
Paris to
discuss his detention status. The war-stretched Nazis needed
doctors, especially
in occupied lands. As a distinguished physician and psychiatrist who
spoke German and also enjoyed American citizenship,
Katzen-Ellenbogen
became very useful to both the Gestapo and the Wehrmacht. Twice he
was
brought to the Reich military prison in France to examine a German
soldier
suffering from mental problems. Katzen-Ellenbogen even testified as
an expert at the soldier's court martial. 19
Katzen-Ellenbogen found himself in a somewhat unique position. "I
was the only doctor in France, a psychiatrist," he recalled, "who
was [also]
qualified in Germany as a doctor, and they didn't have anybody [with
those
skills] in the army." Eventually, the overworked regular German army
doctor
visiting the military prison asked Katzen-Ellenbogen, "As you speak
French anyway and other languages, relieve me here. And when
something
very important happens, they can telephone for me." Thus, Katzen-
Ellenbogen became a general practitioner for the German military in
Paris
even as he remained in custody. Eventually, Katzen-Ellenbogen's
services
were requested for German military men outside the prison. For all
intents
and purposes, he was at the disposal of the German medical staff.
But in
September of 1943, when orders came from Berlin to transfer
prisoners in
France to slave labor camps in the Reich, Katzen-Ellenbogen was put
on a
train and shipped to the dreaded Buchenwald.20
Buchenwald functioned for two purposes: to inflict cruelty on the
azis' enemies and to systematically work its inmates to death in
service of
the Reich-in that order. In the hierarchy of hell, Buchenwald was
considered
among the worst of Nazi labor camps. Hundreds to thousands of people
died within its confines each week from beatings, disease,
starvation,
exhaustion or execution.21
Cruel and painful medical experiments were conducted at Buchenwald,
especially in Block 46, known for its frosted windows and restricted
access.
Nazi doctors deliberately infected prisoners with typhus, converting
their
bodies into so many living test tubes, kept alive only as convenient
hosts for
the virus. Doctors then carefully observed the progress of the
disease in
order to help evaluate potential vaccines. Some six hundred men died
from
such infections. In addition, Russian POWs were deliberately burned
with
phosphorus to observe their reactions to drugs. As part of the
Reich's program
to develop mass sterilization techniques, fifteen men were castrated
to observe the effects. Two died from the operation. Experimental
Section
V employed gland implants and synthetic hormones on homosexuals to
reverse their sex drive; the SS officers delighted in joking about
the men.
Those who survived these heinous tests, or otherwise outlived their
usefulness,
were often murdered with injections of phenol.22
Horrible punishments were everyday occurrences. Many were hung
from their wrists with their hands tied behind their backs, thus
painfully
tearing arms from their sockets. Weakened inmates who did not die
quickly
enough were bludgeoned with a large blood-encrusted club. Russian
POWs were systematically shot in the back of the neck through a
small
hole as they stood at the height-measuring wall.23
Large electric lifts continuously shuttled corpses to waiting
crematoria,
which operated ten hours a day and produced prodigious heaps of
white
ash. Death was an hourly event at Buchenwald-ultimately more than
50,000 perished. More French died than any other national group. But
before the victims were burned, they performed additional service to
the
Reich. Pathologists in Block 2 dissected some 35,000 corpses so
their body
parts could be studied and then stored in various jars on shelves.
Tattooed
prisoners were especially prized. In Block 2, their skins were
stripped off,
tanned and stretched into lampshades and other memorabilia.24
Nuremberg Trial judges denounced "conditions so ghastly that they
defy description. The proof is overwhelming that in the
administration of
the concentration camps the German war machine, and first and
foremost
the SS, resorted to practices which would shame the most primitive
race of
savage barbarians. All the instincts of human decency which
distinguished
men from beasts were forgotten, and the law of the jungle took
command.
If there is such a thing as a crime against humanity, here we have
it repeated
a million times over."25
In assessing Buchenwald just after liberation, a British
Parliamentary
delegation declared, "We have endeavored to write with restraint and
objectivity, and to avoid obtruding personal reactions or emotional
comments.
We would conclude, however, by stating ... that such camps as this
mark the lowest point of degradation to which humanity has yet
descended. The memory of what we saw and heard at Buchenwald will
haunt us ineffaceably for many years. "26
Most new arrivals at Buchenwald were instantly shocked by the camp's
brutality and the physical cruelty heaped upon them by the guards.
Upon
initial entry, it was common for new prisoners to run a
two-hundred-meter
gauntlet of guards, who viciously beat them with clubs and
truncheons as
they passed. But Katzen-Ellenbogen seemed fascinated. Recalling his
first
moments in the camp, he said, "I was really amazed about the
efficiency
and quickness about everything that happened there." He added, "We
were
treated not badly there .... " Katzen-Ellenbogen was in fact
privileged from
the moment he entered the camp. While other prisoners at that time
were
forced into tattered zebra-stripe uniforms, the doctor was permitted
to
wear civilian attire, including a three-piece suit and tie. But he
complained
that the shirt with its button-down collar was too small, and the
trousers
too long. His warm furry hat and medical armband gave him a
distinctive
look as he toured the barracks.27
Early on, Buchenwald administrators learned through the prisoner
grapevine of Katzen-Ellenbogen's helpfulness to the Gestapo in
France.
He quickly became a trusted prisoner to the camp's medical staff as
well as
its SS officers, especially chief camp doctor Gerhard Schiedlausky.
Katzen-
Ellenbogen announced to everyone that he was an American doctor from
New Jersey, and a skilled hypnotist to boot. None of this failed to
impress
the camp administrators, who often referred to him by the name Dr.
K.
Ellenbogen. One senior Nazi medic dared Katzen-Ellenbogen to
demonstrate
his skill as a hypnotist. A test subject was brought over, and
within
five minutes Katzen-Ellenbogen successfully placed him in a
trance.28
Thereafter, Katzen-Ellenbogen was assigned to the hospital at the
Little
Camp, which functioned as the segregated new prisoner intake unit.
Unlike
the other inmates who slept sixteen-deep on stark wooden shelves and
were
fed starvation rations, Katzen-Ellenbogen enjoyed a private room
with a
real bed that he shared with only one other block trustee. He ate
plenty of
vegetables and even meat purchased through black market sources in
Weimar. From time to time he cooked his own meals, an almost
unimaginable
prisoner luxury. The doctor was able to count SS and Gestapo
officers
among his friends even as fellow prisoners detested him and despised
their
Nazi taskmasters. He was widely believed to be a Gestapo spy.29
One day in mid-1944, the camp doctor, Schiedlausky, summoned
Katzen-Ellenbogen to the SS hospital. "You're a hypnotizer," said
Schiedlausky
with distress, "You're a psychotherapist. Save me." In the midst of
the human depravity he oversaw, Schiedlausky had become unable to
sleep.
Self-administered drugs were no help. Katzen-Ellenbogen replied, "I
can
help you only, Doctor, if you will forget that I am a prisoner and
you are the
SS doctor." Schiedlausky collegially replied, "Naturally."30
As Katzen-Ellenbogen analyzed Schiedlausky's dreams, he concluded
that the SS doctor's mind was troubled by a great burden. "Unless
you are
willing to tell me what it is," Katzen-Ellenbogen told him, "no
further
treatment would be of value." Schiedlausky answered, "You're right,
but I
can't tell you." At one point Katzen-Ellenbogen carne upon
Schiedlausky
weeping uncontrollably and consoled the man. Katzen-Ellenbogen
continued
to treat Schiedlausky, whose mental state deteriorated. Soon Katzen-
Ellenbogen was exercising great influence over the camp doctor.31
Schiedlausky was so impressed with Katzen-Ellenbogen that he asked
him to treat other SS men unable to sleep because of their murderous
deeds. Even though Katzen-Ellenbogen was a prisoner, the Nazis
opened
up to him. For example, a bloodthirsty Austrian-born SS lieutenant
named
Dumb6ck admitted to Katzen-Ellenbogen that he was haunted-day and
night-by the ghosts of at least forty men he had personally beaten
to
death. As though confessing to a priest, Dumb6ck admitted that
sometimes
when he caught someone stealing vegetables from the garden, he just
"[couldn't] control himself." It would typically begin as an urge to
only slap
the prisoner, but then Dumbock would begin jumping on the man's body
until his ribs caved in. Katzen-Ellenbogen helped Dumbock realize
why he
could not sleep: the killings. "That's it exactly," Dumbock agreed.
Dumbock was so grateful that he granted Katzen-Ellenbogen special
privileges-
ironically, to the vegetables in the garden. 32
Katzen-Ellenbogen proudly remembered that the SS men "trusted me
as a doctor very much."33
Back at the Little Camp, Katzen-Ellenbogen administered cruel
medicine.
He forced Frenchmen to exercise in the frigid outdoors without their
scarves and often without their shirts-this to "cure" infected
throats. He
smuggled in needed medicines through the SS medics but then sold
them
for money or favors. Such extortions allowed him to deposit some
50,000
francs into a camp bank account. He also cached large quantities of
Danish
food, medicines and cigarettes in his bedroom, mainly pilfered from
the
Danish Red Cross packets turned over by the sick and injured.34
Denying medical treatment was an entrenched eugenic practice at the
state institutions Katzen-Ellenbogen was familiar with, from Danvers
in
Massachusetts to Skillman and Vineland in New Jersey. In those
institutions,
eugenic psychiatrists felt that medical care only kept alive those
whom nature intended to die off. Katzen-Ellenbogen applied the same
principles in Buchenwald.
Katzen-Ellenbogen capriciously decided who entered the hospital.
Another camp doctor confirmed in court, "It depended on Katzen-
Ellenbogen whether a certain person would be admitted into the
little hospital
... or in the main hospital." A Czech doctor added, "If he [Katzen-
Ellenbogen] found a man with appendicitis or pneumonia and said, 'I
will
not send you to the hospital,' then the man would not get through
because
he, Dr. Katzen-Ellenbogen, was the only medical liaison [in the
Little
Camp]."35
Katzen-Ellenbogen himself casually admitted at his trial, "We
selected .... Let's say there were 35 [needing hospitalization, and
I was told]
there are only 17 free [beds]. Which 17 should have preference for
immediate
hospitalization?" He held the power oflife and death over those who
desperately
needed his help, and he sadistically exercised this power every
day.36
In 1944, for instance, two French arrivals-a Protestant minister
named Roux and a doctor named Rodochi-suffered greatly during the
horrific railroad trip to Buchenwald. Upon entering the Little Camp,
com
patriots asked that Roux and Rodochi be admitted to the hospital.
Katzen-
Ellenbogen refused the first day. Even as they became weaker, he
continued
his refusals for two more days. On the fourth day, the two died
during
roll call, having never been seen by any doctor.J7
After the war, a French physician internee identified as Denis told
investigators that many men died who might have recovered had they
been
admitted to the hospital. But when French prisoners approached,
Katzen-
Ellenbogen often chased them away, slapped and punched them, or
simply
"beat them with any instrument handy." Other inmates who were
physicians
would sometimes complain that Katzen-Ellenbogen stocked the
necessary
medicines, but that the Little Camp doctor would snarl that they
were in Buchenwald to "die like dogs-not to be cured."38
At his trial, prosecutors demanded answers.
PROSECUTOR: Isn't it also a fact, doctor, that many a prisoner died
while he
was waiting his turn to be examined there at the dispensary?
KATZEN-ELLENBOGEN: ... When patients arrived he [a medical staffer]
went always outside and looked who was the most ill and needs
immediate
attention or in a dangerous condition, to get them there first.
Q: Just answer the question please.
A: ... If you want me to answer the question yes or no, then I will
have to
answer no.
Q: All right then your answer is: at no time did any prisoner die
while waiting
his turn to be examined in the dispensary.
A: You say those questions [as though] with a revolver with "hands
up." It is
impossible to answer whether yes or no.
Q: You were there were you not?
A: I was there.
Q: You know whether a man is living or dead, don't you?
A: Yes.
Q: All right. Did any man die while he was awaiting his turn in that
line?
A: Sure he did.
Q: I though you said a moment ago that he didn't.
A: Yes, that is what I said-that is "a revolver," a little sOJes,
but not while
he was awaiting his turn [and] because of waiting, but because he
was in a
condition that a few minutes later while they brought him in he was
dead.
Q: Just listen to my questions please, Doctor. I did not ask you
because he
was waiting in that line?
A: I know. That is what I said: yes.39
Failure to be hospitalized also bestowed a death sentence because it
often facilitated assignment to the fatal work details at the nearby
Dora
works. At Dora, slave laborers were systematically worked to death
tunneling
into a mountain, constructing the secret German V-2 missile
facilities.
Dora's death rate was among the highest of any of the thousands of
labor
camps and subcamps in all of azi-occupied Europe. Many of Dora's
victims
were shuttled in from Buchenwald. Transports regularly delivered
thousands of prisoners at a time, and some twenty thousand of them
died in
backbreaking labor. In fact, for the Nazi campaign known as
Extermination
by Labor, Dora was a convenient final destination to extract a
prisoner's
final ergs of energy.40
The weakened inmates whom Katzen-Ellenbogen callously refused to
exempt from Dora work transports were essentially sentenced to
death. In
one typical transport of 1,000 to 1,200 French workers whom Katzen-
Ellenbogen reviewed, only 97 came back alive. Indeed, the Dora
Kommando, or work detail, was known everywhere as a "death
kommando."
One Frenchman, when condemned to duty at Dora, turned to Katzen-
Ellenbogen and declared, "Caesar, morituri te satutant." ("We who
are about
to die salute you.") Katzen-Ellenbogen recalled jocundly that the
man "still
had a sense ofhumor."41
At his trial Katzen-Ellenbogen was asked by prosecutors, "The
personnel
in the Medical Department ... certainly knew that Dora was a death
commando, isn't that so?" Katzen-Ellenbogen replied, "I should guess
SO."42
Prisoners reported that Katzen-Ellenbogen actually encouraged
unsuspecting
French inmates to volunteer for "death details." In one instance, a
Frenchman discovered the ruse and warned comrades to remove their
names
from the volunteer roster. Katzen-Ellenbogen reported the Frenchman
who
spread the warning and the prisoner was brutally punished.43
Certainly, many concentration camp trustees, capos and block elders
curried favor by demonstrating heightened brutality toward the
inmates
under their authority. But many used their trusted positions to
subtly connive
and cajole the SS, in small ways helping others survive. For
example,
Austrian journalist Eugen Kogon worked as a clerk in Buchenwald's
hospital
under the notorious Dr. Erwin Ding-Schuler. It was Ding-Schuler who
in 1941 wrote in his diary, "Since tests on animals are not of
sufficient
value, tests on human beings must be carried out." When testifying
against
Katzen-Ellenbogen, Kogon explained to prosecutors that it was not
necessary
to be merciless even when working for the most depraved doctors. "I
worked in exactly the opposite way," he said. "I made Major Dr. Ding
Schuler a tool of the prisoners and all this only in a positive
manner from
the beginning to the end .... That's the difference." Kogon went on
to
write numerous articles and books on the inhumanity of concentration
camps such as Buchenwald.44
Camp medical men did more than just withhold treatment. Many
actively participated in the murder process itself.
Katzen-Ellenbogen was
publicly accused of finishing off a thousand men with injections.
The fact
that thousands were killed by an instantly-acting injection-20cc of
phenol-
was amply proved. But there were no witnesses to corroborate that
Katzen-Ellenbogen was among the medics who wielded the hypodermics.
He never directly denied being involved in injections, although he
asserted
he was unaware of Schiedlausky's mass injection campaign in Block
61.
When the subject of injections was brought up in court, Katzen-
Ellenbogen nonchalantly testified that the allegation against him
was just
that-an allegation in the newspapers that could not be proved.45
However, Katzen-Ellenbogen's guilt-ridden colleague, camp doctor
Schiedlausky, did admit his involvement in the injections as well as
the
other medical atrocities that took place in Block 61.
Katzen-Ellenbogen
denied claims that he exercised a "sinister influence" over
Schiedlausky that
could have made a difference. Prosecutors charged, "You could have
stopped it, is that correct?"46
With typical insouciance, Katzen-Ellenbogen replied, "Not that I
could stop it, but that I would do my best, and I think that I would
have
succeeded to persuade Schiedlausky not to burn his fingers."
Prosecutors
shot back, "Well, isn't it a fact, doctor, that you [previously]
testified that
you would have had enough influence that his extermination of
prisoners in
Block 61 would never have happened?" Katzen-Ellenbogen admitted,
"Yes,
I said it before. It is the same thing I just said."47
Q: Well, then, you certainly were able to exercise a considerable
power over
Schiedlausky, is that not correct?
A: I wouldn't use the word "power." Influence, yes.
Q: Well, was there any other man in Buchenwald that could exercise
that
same influence over Schiedlausky?
A: Probably not, because Schiedlausky was a very secretive man, who,
for
instance, didn't say anything to anybody, even his colleagues ....
Due to the
fact that he was a patient of mine-I have a certain influence of
psychoanalysis
which is exercised over a patient."48
But ghastly science continued in Block 61. Heinous surgical
procedures
involving eye color and corneas were among the experiments performed
by
Nazi eugenicists operating in concentration camps. At Auschwitz,
chemicals
were injected into the eyes of children to observe color changes. At
Buchenwald, trachoma was among the eye diseases investigated.-t9
Katzen-Ellenbogen claimed that he did not participate in the
deliberate
infections, painful experiments and euthanasia at Buchenwald, only
pure
research. One Nazi doctor, Werner Greunuss, received life
imprisonment
for his activities at Buchenwald. While admitting that he assisted
Greunuss, Katzen-Ellenbogen explained, "I conducted with him
scientific
research about vision, and the experiments were made by [prisoner
medical
assistants] Novak and Sitte on rabbits." He added, "I worked on
literature,
particularly as my doctor thesis was in this region. Dr. Greunuss
was able to
read all my work which was then in German, and furnish me books from
Jena University Library."5o Nothing further was proved about Katzen-
Ellenbogen's involvement with eye research.
Katzen-Ellenbogen did engage in other experimental medical activity,
however. He regularly applied his skills as an accomplished
hypnotist,
including posthypnotic suggestions. There were the bedwetters, for
example.
In a hell where Katzen-Ellenbogen regularly ignored the severest
diseases,
injuries and afflictions, the doctor took an inexplicably keen
interest
in enuresis, or bedwetting. Many young boys, gripped by fright and
mistreatment,
urinated uncontrollably at night. These boys were brought to
the doctor, who placed them under hypnotic suggestion to cure their
problem.
But prisoners openly accused Katzen-Ellenbogen of using his hypnotic
skills to extract information and confessions for the SS and
Gestapo.
Katzen-Ellenbogen was proud of his work. In one case, a young man
between eighteen and twenty years old was brought in at 4 P.M. on a
Sunday
afternoon; he was placed under a trance in the presence of other SS
doctors.
On this point, Katzen-Ellenbogen in open court denied that he "was
hypnotizing people in order to extort confession of political
prisoners and
deliver them to the Gestapo." Yet he was never able to explain why
he rendered
service for bedwetters when he denied medical attention to so many
others who were dying. 51
Eugenics was always an undercurrent at Buchenwald. One block was
known as the Ahnenforschung barrack, or ancestral research barrack.
It was
worked by a small detachment known as Kommando 22a, mainly Czech
prisoners, researching and assembling family trees of SS officers.
SS officers
were required to document pure Aryan heredity. In addition, the SS
Race and Settlement Office was systematically sweeping through
Poland
looking for Volksdeutsche, that is, persons of any German ancestry.
When
this agency discovered Polish children eugenically certified to have
Aryan
blood, the youngsters were kidnapped and raised in designated Nazi
environments.
This program was called "Germanization." As a skilled and
doctrinaire
eugenicist, Katzen-Ellenbogen was assigned to perform eugenic
examinations of Polish prisoners, seeking those fit for
Germanization.
Eugenic certification saved them from extermination.52
In describing Katzen-Ellenbogen's duties, one Buchenwald medical
colleague, Dr. Horn, said, "The first one, he was consulting
psychiatrist.
That is, later on they were Germanizing Poles. For that reason you
had to
examine the Poles somatically and psychically and since later on the
SS
used us for this delicate mission, I used Katzen-Ellenbogen to write
the
psychiatric reports. It was a pretty difficult job to talk about the
intelligence
of a Polish farm worker who didn't even speak German and Katzen-
Ellenbogen speaks some sort of Slavic Esperanto very well and in all
the
cases that he wrote for me, and there were at least 60 cases which
he did, he
recommended that for every one of them that they should be
Germanized,
so none of them were hanged."53
To protect those fit for Germanization, Katzen-Ellenbogen engaged in
all manner of medical charades. "So I manufactured all kinds of new
forms
of insanity and made false reports about their condition," he
recalled. "As
the invalids were not sent out at that time, they were probably
saved from
being gassed at one of the extermination camps. In many cases,
similar
cases, particularly when Rogge, one of the SS Doctors, was making
selections
for the transport, I trained them to throw a fit, epileptic fit, and
I
don't think that so many epileptics were ever in one place at one
time as in
Buchenwald." Katzen-Ellenbogen did not save others in a similar
fashion,
just the fifty or so Polish prisoners he eugenically certified as
possessing
Aryan qualities, in spite of their mental or intellectual
conditions. 54
Katzen-Ellenbogen was an expert at faking symptoms. While on the
witness stand at his trial, he was asked if someone could be trained
to feign
symptoms. He bragged, "To throw a fit? With training, he could do
it. I
myself, for instance, could give a wonderful performance in that
respect."
Asked if a specialist could be fooled, Katzen-Ellenbogen rejoined,
"To fool
[SS] Dr. Rogge [who was making selections], yes. But not a real
specialist."
Asked again, Katzen-Ellenbogen repeated, "Not a real specialist."55
Katzen-Ellenbogen was very sure of himself. When called to testify
against other doctors in the so-called "Doctors Trial" at Nuremberg,
his
usual brashness was more than evident. When a prosecutor asked when
he
had joined the Nazi Party, Katzen-Ellenbogen snapped back, "When I
was
in America, I never asked a nigger whethet· he had syphilis, only
when he got
syphilis." Later he explained, "That's about the same [as the]
question he
put to me."56
By any measure, the forgotten story of Katzen-Ellenbogen, an expert
American eugenicist in Buchenwald, is one that stands alone. Kogon
recalled it this way for prosecutors: "Katzen-Ellenbogen's power in
the
Little Camp was an entirely extraordinary one. An extraordinarily
large
one, it should be. He was the man who was feared by the prisoners in
the
little camp as 'the man in the background.' He had under his command
the
block doctors ... and his influence upon them was considerable."57
When it came time to bring Katzen-Ellenbogen to justice, prosecutors
found his record filled with contradictions. He saved Polish men
with
German blood, he let Frenchmen die before his eyes, and he sent
thousands
to their deaths by not exempting them from death kommandos. He
was a Nazi collaborator; he was an eminent New Jersey doctor with
Harvard credentials. The haze around Katzen-Ellenbogen's record grew
thicker in the postwar chaos. The witnesses were gone-either
returned to
their homes or incinerated-the evidence was burned, and Nazi medical
cohorts were quick to support each other with glowing affidavits.
Moreover, Katzen-Ellenbogen was an expert on the fine points of
American jurisprudence-the standard that applied to his trial for
war
crimes. His court record is riddled with procedural jousting as he
corrected
prosecutors on what questions they were allowed to ask, and how
questions
should be phrased. At one point the prosecutor asked, "So that
everything
else, other than what you have qualified, has been of your own
personal
knowledge?" The defendant replied, "Most of the things I testified
to was
of my own personal knowledge. Still, I did not say that everything I
said is
correct, because I know too well the psychology of testimony, and I
think
you know it too, from your point of view that every witness tells
objectively
spoken truth."58
In one tense exchange, a prosecutor failed to establish the proper
legal
foundations for a fact; in other words he did not introduce the
particulars
first and then ask the defendant's relation to it. "As a matter of
fact," the
prosecutor asked, "do you not know that the treatment that was given
him
was this: that you had him stretched and spread-eagled out on one of
those
bunks?" Katzen-Ellenbogen rebutted the prosecutor's form, "Are you
testifying
again yourself or are you_"59
Q: You answer my question, Doctor? .. Is it not fact that you let
him lay
there for approximately three days without any food, any water or
any
treatment at all?
A: That new case that you are testifying about ....
Q: Answer my questions, is it or is it not a fact?
A: No. If you want a case like that, I answer you no ....
Q: Did he or did he not die?
A: I am not an author of fiction, Mr. Prosecutor.
Q: Is your answer yes or no?
A: Mr. Denson [the prosecutor], you are the author. You must have
known
whether you killed in the fiction that patient or not? I don't
know.60
In another exchange, Prosecutor William Denson attempted to poke
holes in Katzen-Ellenbogen's stories.
Q: Is it not a fact, doctor, that they were beaten two to three
hours later at
Schebert's order?
A: I couldn't say yes or no to that. I refer once more to the well
known psychology
of the testimony that if a man, month after month, tells the same
story, then he is lying.
Q: That is the reason you are not telling the same story?
A: Maybe so, because if everybody-I heard here so many testimonies,
I am
influenced. I made in Harvard experiments of students [who] wanted
to kill
somebody and they made a statement immediately and four weeks later.
You would see the discrepancy between the first and second
statement. I am
not above that myself.6\
When it finally came time to sum up, Katzen-Ellenbogen virtually
commanded the judges to take the contradictions and inconsistencies
into
account. From the witness box, he reminded the judges: "It is a
legal principle
of all courts of all nations, the Romans as well in that time, in
dubia pre
vera, which in the English says: 'give them the benefit of the
doubt.' That
means if you are in doubt about my guilt, you have to acquit me."62
Then he actually invited the judges to commit a reversible error.
"[But]
I reverse that case," he continued. "If you are in any doubt that I
am not
guilty, convict me because I would have a chance then in higher
court or
any other place to defend myself in a way that I perhaps didn't do
here."63
On August 14, 1947, in a Dachau barrack set up for war crimes
trials,
Katzen-Ellenbogen stood, somewhat disheveled, before the military
tribu
nal. Flanked by three shiny-helmeted MPs, his shoelaces removed to
prevent
suicide, bright lights above to aid the photographers, Edwin Marie
Katzen-Ellenbogen awaited his judgment.64
Without evidence of specific murders, he could not be hanged, as
were
other medical war criminals at Buchenwald. Instead, the tribunal
used the
legal theory that applied to so many azi conspirators. This theory
was
called "common design," meaning that Katzen-Ellenbogen joined "a
common
design" to perpetrate the horrors of Buchenwald on the inmates. "It
is
clear," concluded the tribunal, "that the accused, although an
inmate, cooperated
with the SS personnel managing the camp and participated in the
common design."65
Judgment: Guilty. Sentence: Life imprisonment.66
Katzen-Ellenbogen appealed, issuing a Pl'O se cascade ofletters,
petitions
and motions, stressing his American citizenship and desire to help
mankind.
Upon review, his sentence was commuted to fifteen years. Katzen-
Ellenbogen then appealed for special clemency on the grounds of poor
health. In July of 1950, a clemency board comprised of three
civilian attorneys
reduced his sentence to just twelve years, concluding, "Katzen-
Ellenbogen's health is poor. He is suffering from a coronary
insufficiency
causing severe myocardic damage, and a chronic congestive heart
failure. "67
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