The Terrible Nazi Medical Experiments

Transplantation of bones, muscles, or nerves

LEG Survivor Helena Hegier's disfigured leg (Source: Holocaust Encyclopedia)

These experiments took place mainly in the women’s camp at Ravensbrück. Between 1942 and 1943, several experiments were performed here, often taking, without anesthesia, pieces of bone, muscle, or nerves from the detainees. Attempts were made either to observe the regeneration of various tissues or to transplant tissue from one person to another. Many of the people who underwent the experiments died in terrible torment due to infections or amputations.

The information obtained from these experiments was used in medicine applied in the army on the front. Although it is inhuman how they were obtained, a number of results were later taken over and analyzed by the Allies.