Ravensbruck Concentration Camp

In 1939, Ravensbruck, a concentration camp built to house women enemies of the Reich, opened about 50 miles north of Berlin. Most of its residents were Polish, and 72 of these young Polish women became known as “rabbits.” Used in gruesome medical experiments that rival the worst experiments conducted by the infamous Dr. Mengele, the rabbits who survived were left horribly scarred and disabled, some destined to “hop” for much of their lives.

One of the Ravensbruck “rabbits” after surgery

Each rabbit suffered six separate surgeries under the direct supervision of Dr. Karl Gebhardt, Chief Surgeon in the Staff of the Reich Physician SS and Police and personal physician to Heinrich Himmler, and Dr. Herta Oberheueser, the only female doctor convicted in the Nuremberg Medical Trials. Doctors made incisions in the rabbits’ legs to break bones, sever tendons, and insert contaminated materials–rusty nails, glass, splinters–so that the Nazis could research new treatments for battlefield wounds. Without pain medication, rabbits lay in casts for weeks in crowded and secret hospital wards. Their infections resulted in high fevers, dehydration, and for some, death. All the while, Dr. Oberheueser studied her rabbits and recorded her findings to her Furher.

Dr. Herta Oberheueser

Sarah Helm’s nonfictional works,  Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitler’s Concentration Camp for Women and If This Is A Woman, as well as Martha Hall Kelly’s historical fiction, Lilac Girls, offer intimate views of the rabbits’ struggle to survive and the physicians who gave themselves to Nazi ideology. Both stories are equally tragic, equally horrific in distinctly different ways.

For the Nazis, the rabbits were little more than experimental opportunities. Hitler himself was invested in this experimentation because a friend died from battlefield wounds that he believed were treated incorrectly. Karl Gebhardt sought to redeem and defend his surgical treatment of contaminated war wounds in the face of new antibiotic treatments of such injuries. And Herta Oberheueser, a young, promising surgeon before the war, welcomed surgical opportunities to advance her career. There will always be rabbits to justify research, to defend practices, to promote careers, to explore solutions and onto which we can pin our hopes, our principles, and onto which we might take out our rage and helplessness.

For the Ravensbruck prisoners, the rabbits were their protecorates, their precious children and their unflagging belief that something good might come from something so very, very bad. As the Allied troops began to win the war in Europe and the inevitability of loss grew imminent, the Nazis were determined to kill all the surviving rabbits, leaving no evidence of the surgical atrocities committed. Still, the prisoners hid them, traded numbers with them during daily attendance, gave them extra rations of food, and encouraged them to live so that, one day, they might be living testaments to the horrors of Ravensbruck. There will always be rabbits to protect, to provide for, to encourage, and onto which we can pin our hopes, our principles, and truthfully, our courage and love.

Even today, there will be rabbits and their doctors. Sadly, both will be our friends and neighbors, our teachers, our employers and leaders. With the advent of new ideologies and practices, the lure of experimentation will convince even the most previously rational, compassionate individuals that they are called to new work. And with this advent, innocent others will give themselves over to the seemingly capable hands of such physicians.

In my own state, a handful of educational leaders–armed with research they claim is comprehensive and reliable–have succeeded in implementing reading testing that will determine whether a third grader may move to fourth grade or will be retained. This test measures fluency,  whether or not a child reads accurately, quickly and with expression. Clearly, there is a body of substantial research devoted to the role that fluency plays in effective reading. The key word, however, is “role.” Fluency itself is not the whole of good reading. Recall the cute, Shirley Temple-like girl from the former Hooked on Phonics commercials. Cute as a button, she stood confidently at a podium and read complex text fluently. It didn’t take a reading specialist, however, to question what–if anything–she understood from this text.

The fact that fluency experimentation is well-intentioned from those who sincerely believe that this measure will ensure that no child is left behind is still little defense for its mandatory state-wide execution. But the reading physicians have spoken, and the rabbits will be tested. In the future when fluency research will be inevitably and resoundingly replaced by new research (hopefully with comprehension playing a much bigger role), some of these reading specialists and the teachers who were forced to do this work will sincerely regret their actions and, regenerated, will jump on the newest reading bandwagon. Others will claim they were only doing their duty or following the research or taking the path of least resistance. Some will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to new practices which force them to denounce their former fluency allegiance.

And the rabbits? Only time will tell, but it stands to reason that at the very least, many will turn their backs on reading forever, the bitter taste of repeated testing still lingering in their mouths. They will live a life in which they are functionally literate but simply choose not to read. And this aliteracy will be as personally and socially devastating as illiteracy.

Oh yes, there will be doctors and rabbits, I’m afraid. Such is our human nature: to experiment and to succumb to experimentation. For the doctors, there is something profoundly enticing and noble about exploration and its rewards, about committing yourself to a cause, to a body of research, to a charismatic leader(s), to a golden principle. And for the rabbits, there is something profoundly innocent and vulnerable in the release–willingly or by force–to another’s cause.

In these super-charged post-election months, I am painfully aware of how some may read this metaphor, for the current administration has been compared to Nazis, their ideology to fascism, and the state of the nation to the inevitable demise of the Third Reich. Most certainly, it is not my intention to feed into this frenzy with the mention of Ravensbruck and third grade reading testing in the same blog post.

It is my intention, however, to lament the real and present danger of experimentation that has not been tested ethically, practically, and humanely. It is my intent to call physicians from all fields and in all leadership roles to task. Even those of us lay people understand that you can find research to support almost any claim. The real professionals are those who have examined the larger body of research, considered conflicting results and claims, and have decided upon the best treatment for the most patients. They are those who consider the whole and unique person, as well as the effects that any given treatment may have on him or her. The good news? These individuals are out there, but they are often marginalized by louder, more influential folks.

And it is my intention to offer caution to potential rabbits, as well as to the friends, parents, or caretakers of potential rabbits. If individuals can voluntarily submit to experimentation, then they should do so only after they have wisely considered the consequences. If they are forced to submit through laws and regulations, through social or commercial expectations,  or through prevailing ideologies, then there must be those who are willing to pick up the pieces when things go badly and to testify to the tragic consequences. Cliched as it sounds, history must not repeat itself, for most rabbits’ stories do not have happy endings.

As I read the accounts of surviving rabbits from Ravensbruck, I am sorely amazed at their will to live and to tell the world of all they experienced. Likewise, I am humbled by those prisoners who risked all to hide and feed these Polish girls.

I am also amazed at the resolve of such doctors as Dr. Herta Oberheueser. Once a promising young medical student with an entire life of helping others before her, she became a butcher convinced that she was serving the Reich with her God-given talents. How easily she transformed from healer to butcher, how devotedly she served until she was captured and tried for war crimes.  Even after serving a 20 year sentence, she began a new family medical practice and life. Until a Ravensbruck survivor recognized her and turned her into the German authorities who disbarred her from ever practicing medicine.

How did she live with what she had done? How did she muster the resolve to open a family practice? After two decades, how could she continue to claim that she had been “forced” to conduct these experiments? Herta Oberheueser was a living testament to the great power of those who relish the role of experimenter.

There will be rabbits, but we can pray that there will be fewer of them and that they will suffer less. And we can pray for the doctors, too, who often begin as idealistic, driven and talented individuals and end at best, as misguided explorers, and at worst, as fiends.