As you know, the theory of Nazism is based on the chosenness of the so-called Aryan race. To prove this "uniqueness" and inferiority of other peoples, Nazi scientists tried to conduct a variety of experiments in genetics.
Lebensborn
In Nazi Germany it was believed that only people with blond hair and blue eyes could be "true Aryans". But, since there were still few of them, in 1938, on the initiative of Hitler and his associate Himmler, the Lebensborn program was developed (in translation it means "Source of life").
Within the framework of Lebensborn, German women or eligible women from the occupied territories were voluntarily encouraged to give birth to children from SS soldiers and officers recognized as "100% Aryans." If a girl expressed a desire to participate in the program, she was given a total check. They found out if she had a family of Jews, gypsies, mental patients or criminals. The meetings of the candidates with the "Aryans" took place in special visiting houses. Before that, the parents of the future "Aryan" usually did not even know each other.
For example, in occupied Norway, about 12 thousand children were born from German soldiers and officers. As a rule, the child was left to be raised by the mother. One of those born under the Lebensborn program was ABBA's lead singer Frida Lingstad. She was born in November 1945, a few months after the liberation of Norway from German occupation.
The next part of the program consisted in the selection of children of "non-Aryan" races, for example, of Slavic or Scandinavian origin, who met the "Aryan" criteria. Usually, in the occupied territories, children from the age of one to six were taken away, taken from their parents and given to foster families or special shelters. Children received new names, they tried to make them forget their native language and the years spent at home …
Professor, Doctor of Medical Sciences Vladimir Mazharov is one of these children. His mother, Zinaida Mazharova, met the war in the Latvian city of Liepaja in her last month of pregnancy. During the occupation, Zinaida first went to prison, then wandered around concentration camps …
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Volodya was lucky - he ended up in a special children's institution near Lubeck. There the children were taught to discipline, to the vaunted "German order" … In 1947, the Latvian Irena Astors, who worked as a teacher in this orphanage, returned from Germany. In the newspaper "Soviet Latvia" she published a list of all the children under her supervision. Among them was the name of Volodya Mazharov. So at the age of six, Volodya returned to his homeland and met with his loved ones …
Mengelyata
The main hobby of Josef Mengele, a graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy and Medicine at the University of Munich, was eugenics - the science of the purity of the race. In May 1943 he was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was engaged in some kind of "genetic research."
Mengele performed vivisection manipulations using live infants as raw materials. In a special barracks, he housed people with physical defects - for example, dwarfs or freaks. But Mengele was especially interested in twin children. "Mengelyat" (as they were called) were kept in relatively good conditions - they were not beaten, they were not forced to work, they were decently fed … At the same time, the twins were actively used for the most savage experiments.
So, Mengele transfused the blood of one child to another and watched what the result would be … The blood types often did not match, and then the children suffered from terrible headaches and symptoms of fever.
Very young children were kept in a cage, monitoring their reaction to various stimuli. Older children underwent all kinds of operations, and without anesthesia. They were castrated, sterilized, in some cases removed part of the viscera, amputated limbs, infected with various viruses … All experiments were carefully recorded in the "case histories".
Another "doctor" was interested in whether it is possible to artificially change the color of human eyes, inherent in nature. For this, dyes were injected into the pupils of the experimental children. This usually caused severe pain in the eyes, and in severe cases led to sepsis and loss of vision.
Most of the children died as a result of inhuman experiments. After his death, Mengele cut out the eyes of many of them and attached them to the wall with pins as "scientific exhibits."
Experiments on gypsies
Gypsies were viewed by the Nazis as representatives of an "inferior race". That is why they lead a vagrant lifestyle, trade in theft and other unworthy pursuits, the "true Aryans" argued.
Almost immediately after Hitler came to power, the persecution of the Roma began. Among other things, women and even girls were often sterilized. To do this, they were injected into the uterus with a non-sterile needle. Infection in the uterus often led to infertility, and sometimes - to blood poisoning and death. At the same time, the gypsies did not receive any medical assistance.
In addition, the Roma became the object of various scientific and medical experiments. For example, Nazi scientists tried to understand why some members of the gypsy race are born with blue eyes. In the Dachau concentration camp, such prisoners had their eyes removed and then examined to understand the cause of the phenomenon. In the same place, in Dachau, an experiment on dehydration was conducted over 40 gypsies. They were simply not allowed to drink and were watched as they die of thirst.
Fortunately, the Nazis did not have modern technologies to artificially modify the genes of a living organism. Otherwise, the consequences could be much heavier and more extensive. For example, genetically modified soldiers would appear who do not know pity and are obsessed with the idea of enslaving the whole world in the name of the rule of the Aryans …
Irina Shlionskaya