WEBVTT 00:04.780 --> 00:10.440 The economic situation in Germany following World War I and the Versailles 00:10.440 --> 00:16.740 Treaty led to the wholesale implementation of Hitler's policies. 00:18.280 --> 00:23.340 They started killing children first and then a bit later on started killing 00:23.340 --> 00:23.840 adults. 00:25.320 --> 00:32.180 It's not surprising that the nurses in the Nazi era got caught up in all this. 00:33.520 --> 00:38.200 The propaganda was everywhere about killing people who were considered life 00:38.200 --> 00:39.460 unworthy of life. 00:40.100 --> 00:42.540 Useless feeders was the term they used. 00:43.660 --> 00:49.120 The nurses were the ones who held the children while they were being killed. 00:49.480 --> 00:51.920 They gave them the overdoses of drugs. 00:52.060 --> 00:55.800 They were the ones who put them out on the verandas to die of hypothermia. 00:55.800 --> 01:00.340 The nurses were the ones who withheld the feeding so the children would die of 01:00.340 --> 01:00.940 starvation. 01:13.970 --> 01:19.710 After World War I ended in 1918, Germany went through severe economic 01:19.710 --> 01:24.610 hardships and the nation saw the rise of different political factions and ideals. 01:26.250 --> 01:30.750 One group that emerged was Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Party. 01:31.770 --> 01:37.050 Of course there was rampant inflation, there was great poverty and social 01:37.050 --> 01:42.470 disadvantage because of the reparations which had to be paid back after the Treaty 01:42.470 --> 01:43.210 of Versailles. 01:43.370 --> 01:51.010 Money was devaluated and they saw a strong leader that was restoring order. 01:51.590 --> 01:57.690 By 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party had taken control of Germany and this 01:57.690 --> 02:02.090 began a period of racial hygiene laws, persecution and death camps. 02:02.750 --> 02:07.210 Hitler wanted to create the master race and eliminate Jews and other people he 02:07.210 --> 02:09.470 considered inferior to the Aryan race. 02:11.450 --> 02:15.490 Innocent children and concentration camp prisoners suffered through horrific 02:15.490 --> 02:16.670 medical experiments. 02:18.070 --> 02:21.930 All of this was accomplished with the assistance of German doctors and nurses. 02:27.140 --> 02:32.640 The basis for Hitler's plan of racial hygiene was a concept called eugenics, 02:32.900 --> 02:36.040 which is the pseudoscience of developing a superior race. 02:36.900 --> 02:43.220 Before Hitler came to power, across the world, the whole theory of eugenics was 02:43.220 --> 02:46.160 something that many nations had embraced. 02:46.720 --> 02:54.960 Eugenics is the belief that through selective breeding, whether it's cows, 02:55.160 --> 03:03.680 sheep, people, whatever, through selective breeding, positive eugenics is the ability 03:03.680 --> 03:09.440 to breed offspring that will carry the best traits. 03:10.120 --> 03:16.620 This theory of eugenics, how people should be allowed to breed to the benefit of the 03:16.620 --> 03:21.360 human race and those who weren't fit and healthy should not be allowed to have 03:21.360 --> 03:21.760 children. 03:22.020 --> 03:28.040 Caught on in England, the United States, Japan, Scandinavia. 03:28.040 --> 03:31.140 Germany was not at the forefront of this. 03:31.280 --> 03:35.600 And the Nazis actually learned much of their eugenics initially from the U.S. 03:36.160 --> 03:40.860 Some of these eugenic health care policies were developed in the United States in the 03:40.860 --> 03:43.100 late 19th and early 20th centuries. 03:43.880 --> 03:44.520 These U.S. 03:44.620 --> 03:49.240 policies were emulated by Germany and incorporated into the governing philosophy 03:49.240 --> 03:50.700 of applied biology. 03:52.280 --> 03:55.700 There were laws on the book in Virginia that said that you could sterilize people. 03:56.560 --> 04:00.600 And the Nazis took their 1933 sterilization law and mimicked it after 04:00.600 --> 04:01.100 the U.S. 04:01.140 --> 04:01.400 law. 04:01.780 --> 04:04.980 Yeah, in fact, there was a time in which there were letters in the U.S. 04:05.080 --> 04:07.360 journals saying, look at the Nazis have gotten ahead of us. 04:07.960 --> 04:08.820 We've got to catch up. 04:09.280 --> 04:14.960 And so, of course, when Hitler came along with his racial theories, he realized that 04:14.960 --> 04:19.780 this eugenics was a really good idea and he manipulated it to fit his racial 04:19.780 --> 04:25.420 theories, all mixed in with the Jews, the Gypsies, everybody else who was 04:25.420 --> 04:27.920 considered racially inferior. 04:29.100 --> 04:33.900 All of this would lead to an appalling era in world history called the Holocaust, 04:34.560 --> 04:37.040 a period of persecution and mass murder. 04:38.060 --> 04:43.960 The Holocaust has been defined as the 12-year period from Hitler's rise to power 04:43.960 --> 04:49.320 in 1933 until the end of the war in 1945. 04:50.620 --> 05:00.680 It was a government-planned, government-supported mass extermination or 05:00.680 --> 05:01.940 mass killing. 05:02.860 --> 05:09.100 And while it was targeted towards Jewish people, there were many other groups of 05:09.100 --> 05:11.940 individuals that suffered during the Holocaust. 05:16.120 --> 05:21.040 Hitler convinced the German people that the Jews were their enemy and the cause of 05:21.040 --> 05:21.720 their problems. 05:22.380 --> 05:27.280 He then created an atmosphere of racial intolerance and hatred of people deemed to 05:27.280 --> 05:28.560 be racially inferior. 05:30.020 --> 05:42.380 So every genocide, whether it's Rwanda, the Holocaust, begins with we versus them. 05:44.160 --> 05:54.100 So Hitler used the Jews and later other people as scapegoats for all that was 05:54.100 --> 05:59.260 wrong in Germany, particularly the economic woes. 06:01.100 --> 06:04.520 So he set up the we versus them. 06:05.280 --> 06:07.240 He institutionalized them. 06:15.650 --> 06:21.710 In 1933, the Nazi government passed the Nuremberg Laws for the protection of 06:21.710 --> 06:22.730 hereditary health. 06:22.910 --> 06:25.930 This legalized involuntary sterilization. 06:26.190 --> 06:32.530 So Hitler found a perfect meshing of his Nazi ideology with the eugenic Nazi 06:32.530 --> 06:34.750 medicine or racial hygiene movement. 06:35.190 --> 06:40.130 Germany's sterilization laws led to the involuntary sterilization by doctors of 06:40.130 --> 06:42.070 about 400,000 Germans. 06:43.290 --> 06:49.210 Nazi doctors sterilized citizens against their will, euthanized 200,000 disabled 06:49.210 --> 06:54.530 German children and adults, and created the gas chambers and crematoria that were 06:54.530 --> 06:59.110 used for the mass murder of 6 million Jews, Poles, and Gypsies. 06:59.770 --> 07:03.690 Without the full support of physicians, scientists, and nurses, the Holocaust, 07:04.150 --> 07:06.490 as it unfolded, could never have happened. 07:06.990 --> 07:14.110 In the U.S., there were laws that could require that people be sterilized against 07:14.110 --> 07:15.130 their will. 07:15.830 --> 07:20.930 Sterilization laws were widespread in the U.S., most notably in Indiana and North 07:20.930 --> 07:21.450 Carolina. 07:22.030 --> 07:27.470 But other states, including California and Virginia, allowed sterilization even into 07:27.470 --> 07:28.810 the 1970s. 07:29.430 --> 07:32.510 In fact, in the early 20th century, the U.S. 07:32.650 --> 07:35.230 led the world in compulsory sterilizations. 07:35.630 --> 07:39.450 A very famous law was passed in Virginia that said it was okay to sterilize the 07:39.450 --> 07:39.810 retarded. 07:40.330 --> 07:43.470 And it was brought before the Supreme Court, and Oliver Wendell Holmes said 07:43.470 --> 07:48.090 three generations of imbeciles is enough, saying that it was okay to sterilize. 07:49.150 --> 07:51.870 But it didn't go further. 07:52.110 --> 07:57.150 While in Germany, it became the leading ideology, then it was implemented into 07:57.150 --> 07:57.530 action. 07:57.990 --> 08:01.710 Hitler promised the German people they were creating the master race. 08:02.810 --> 08:11.650 I think the master race would have been the Nazis' view of a strong, blonde, 08:11.750 --> 08:19.010 blue-eyed, healthy person who had no genetic defects and who was pure Aryan. 08:32.820 --> 08:37.620 In the 1920s and 30s, Germany's medical community was considered the best in the 08:37.620 --> 08:37.920 world. 08:39.900 --> 08:41.640 You weren't a real doctor in the U.S. 08:41.640 --> 08:44.560 unless you went to Germany to study, and then you came back and said, 08:44.620 --> 08:45.760 you know, I studied in Germany. 08:46.140 --> 08:53.400 I think with that came some arrogance and some feeling that we are so superior to 08:53.400 --> 08:54.320 everybody else. 08:55.140 --> 08:57.320 I studied medicine in Germany. 08:57.540 --> 09:07.420 I know some of the best teaching of anatomy, physiology, and medicine came 09:07.420 --> 09:08.340 from Germany. 09:08.760 --> 09:14.640 Germany was very advanced, not only in the medical field, but Germany was the best 09:14.640 --> 09:17.680 civilization among the European countries. 09:19.180 --> 09:22.660 It was the height of technology, the height of science. 09:23.360 --> 09:26.440 How was it possible that these people became murderers? 09:32.020 --> 09:35.680 The majority of nurses were not members of the Nazi party. 09:36.120 --> 09:40.440 However, to have a job in Germany, a nurse had to belong to one of several 09:40.440 --> 09:41.540 nursing organizations. 09:42.620 --> 09:44.960 There were five organizations for nurses. 09:45.440 --> 09:50.780 Among these, the National Socialist Nurses and the Red Cross Nurses swore an oath of 09:50.780 --> 09:51.780 allegiance to Hitler. 09:52.420 --> 09:56.720 Additionally, the Protestant Nurses Organization said that it greets National 09:56.720 --> 09:58.520 Socialism with an open heart. 10:00.180 --> 10:06.120 Surprisingly, more physicians, percentage-wise, joined the Nazi party 10:06.120 --> 10:07.920 than the population in general. 10:08.820 --> 10:15.360 And I think physicians were very taken with the fact that we can use our science 10:15.360 --> 10:19.160 to improve the human race. 10:19.820 --> 10:24.220 Many physicians and nurses enthusiastically supported the Nazi regime 10:24.220 --> 10:27.140 and were involved in all aspects of the Holocaust. 10:27.600 --> 10:32.900 About 40 percent of German physicians were in the Nazi party, while the lawyers and 10:32.900 --> 10:39.260 teachers and the other white-collar professions joined in much lesser numbers. 10:41.220 --> 10:46.080 If you didn't join the Nazi party, there was no retribution. 10:47.800 --> 10:52.520 Using inflammatory propaganda, Hitler and the Nazis began a campaign 10:52.520 --> 10:53.580 against the Jews. 10:54.600 --> 11:00.620 And I know that my father used to say that bad things are happening to Jewish people 11:00.620 --> 11:01.340 in Germany. 11:02.160 --> 11:04.220 They're being discriminated against. 11:05.480 --> 11:08.760 Jewish children can no longer go to their regular school. 11:09.560 --> 11:15.400 People cannot keep their jobs at the university or other professions. 11:16.720 --> 11:24.740 Hitler said, follow me, never mind God, never mind religion, just follow me, 11:24.860 --> 11:26.780 do what I am asking you to do. 11:27.840 --> 11:33.720 And since the regime was totalitarian, and they were very good at public 11:33.720 --> 11:39.340 campaigns and propaganda, and they had enough scientists and physicians that were 11:39.340 --> 11:42.520 already marching to the drum. 11:44.160 --> 11:51.920 Propaganda is an extremely powerful way to convince people to their way of thinking. 11:53.280 --> 11:58.280 Germany's medical establishment began to support the Nazi party, except for Jewish 11:58.280 --> 12:00.080 doctors who were ostracized. 12:06.090 --> 12:14.290 The official journal of the German Medical Association started to have a swastika on 12:14.290 --> 12:22.350 their journal, and they got rid of all the Jewish physicians, authors, people in 12:22.350 --> 12:26.370 office of all the different associations and societies very quickly. 12:26.990 --> 12:32.810 And in five or six years, they got them out of all the academic and professional 12:32.810 --> 12:33.970 establishment. 12:35.150 --> 12:40.290 After years of strong Nazi propaganda, Germany's doctors and nurses began to 12:40.290 --> 12:43.890 accept the belief that racial hygiene would be good for the nation. 12:45.550 --> 12:52.090 Social Darwinism said we need to eliminate these inferior people that were 12:52.090 --> 12:56.630 handicapped, that were maybe mentally disturbed. 12:57.590 --> 13:01.470 We want a healthy thriving society. 13:02.870 --> 13:08.110 In Germany, the proponents of the eugenic movement were the most prominent, 13:08.730 --> 13:09.730 the most powerful. 13:10.670 --> 13:15.530 The establishment, the legal system became Nazified immediately. 13:16.170 --> 13:20.090 Well, of course, it required lawyers, it required doctors, it required 13:20.930 --> 13:24.190 bureaucrats, it required administrators, but many of the nurses were the ones who 13:24.190 --> 13:25.750 actually carried out the injections. 13:26.510 --> 13:31.210 But for a long time, nurses were the agents of the physicians, and the 13:31.210 --> 13:33.690 physicians in the Nazi period were agents of the state. 13:34.290 --> 13:37.930 So that's very important, because physicians were no longer asked to care 13:37.930 --> 13:43.290 for patients, but to care for the state, the Volk, the German Volk. 13:43.790 --> 13:48.590 And so what was good for the state was what was important, not what was good for 13:48.590 --> 13:49.470 an individual patient. 13:50.090 --> 13:55.770 Obedience was still very much a part of the way nurses were taught and the way we 13:55.770 --> 13:56.170 thought. 13:56.850 --> 14:04.410 So it's not surprising that the nurses in the Nazi era got caught up in all this. 14:05.190 --> 14:09.830 Euthanasia programs were established in Nazi Germany in which children and adults 14:09.830 --> 14:14.550 were killed if they were considered unfit for life and were a burden on the state. 14:15.590 --> 14:20.630 The true meaning of euthanasia would be the mercy killing of a person with their 14:20.630 --> 14:22.330 permission or their request. 14:22.830 --> 14:25.470 However, this was not the case in Nazi Germany. 14:25.990 --> 14:27.810 These killings were without consent. 14:28.430 --> 14:29.270 They were murders. 14:31.050 --> 14:36.110 In the 1920s, German lawyer Karl Binding and German psychiatrist Alfred Hoche 14:36.110 --> 14:40.270 co-authored the book The Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life. 14:40.710 --> 14:44.150 This book greatly influenced Hitler's thinking about euthanasia. 14:44.710 --> 14:47.030 Everybody had that propaganda thrown at them. 14:47.330 --> 14:48.610 It was common. 14:48.830 --> 14:49.870 It was everywhere. 14:50.570 --> 14:55.830 And it espoused the idea that people who were in some way deficient should be 14:55.830 --> 15:01.910 killed so that they didn't carry on the defective genes and so that they weren't a 15:01.910 --> 15:02.910 burden on the state. 15:03.990 --> 15:08.490 So the nurses, just as everybody else in society, were susceptible to this. 15:09.330 --> 15:14.930 The nurses were working in hospitals where children with disabilities, people with 15:14.930 --> 15:18.070 mental illnesses, a whole range of conditions were cared for. 15:18.430 --> 15:22.090 They weren't coerced into becoming part of these programs. 15:22.950 --> 15:30.970 Once you accept humans can be humanized, eventually you can engage in exterminating 15:30.970 --> 15:31.210 them. 15:32.010 --> 15:38.070 And this was a gradual and very powerful and unfortunately very effective process 15:38.070 --> 15:39.430 that took place in Germany. 15:40.320 --> 15:46.170 The Nazi euthanasia program first started in 1939 as a means to eliminate 15:46.170 --> 15:47.310 handicapped children. 15:48.330 --> 15:58.410 You have families who, because of all the propaganda, are believing that to have a 15:58.410 --> 16:05.110 child with negative traits is a bad thing. 16:05.270 --> 16:07.830 It's bad for the health of Germany. 16:08.510 --> 16:12.810 They were killing children with disabilities, children with down syndrome, 16:13.170 --> 16:18.430 children with cardiac anomalies, children with cerebral palsy, children who 16:18.430 --> 16:23.390 didn't develop normally, who were considered to be useless feeders. 16:23.470 --> 16:24.690 That was the term used. 16:24.890 --> 16:32.490 Public health nurses would go to the families, promise them, if you will give 16:32.490 --> 16:37.530 your child to us, your child will get the best care. 16:38.610 --> 16:45.050 And so people were falsely led to believe that and relinquish their children. 16:46.170 --> 16:52.690 The nurses were involved in the killing of children by giving them overdoses, 16:53.310 --> 16:59.550 by taking them outside knowing that it was going to contribute to their death. 17:00.450 --> 17:06.750 I got very interested in this when I found out that nurses actively killed their 17:06.750 --> 17:07.270 patients. 17:08.090 --> 17:12.850 And I became intrigued into how they could come to believe that killing was a 17:12.850 --> 17:15.590 legitimate part of their caring role, which they did. 17:16.230 --> 17:30.090 The propaganda around the whole idea of killing people for the exercises in their 17:30.090 --> 17:36.150 school books on how much it costs to keep people with a disability, for example. 17:37.590 --> 17:42.630 Midwives and physicians were mandated by German law to report any infant born with 17:42.630 --> 17:46.090 a birth defect, and the infant would be placed in an institution. 17:46.830 --> 17:49.430 Midwives were paid for each birth that they reported. 17:50.610 --> 17:51.930 Midwives were licensed. 17:52.510 --> 17:58.130 They had to go through a similar training period as nursing, and many of them were 17:58.130 --> 17:59.310 independent practitioners. 18:00.090 --> 18:05.550 So not long after the child was put into a home, he or she would then be moved to 18:05.550 --> 18:07.650 another institution further away. 18:08.250 --> 18:10.910 Of course, there was no consent, no nothing. 18:11.050 --> 18:15.470 These killings were done without the parents' approval, more in the main. 18:15.930 --> 18:20.590 The nurses and the midwives who were involved in the carrying out, maybe not 18:20.590 --> 18:25.490 even the ideology, but were actually the doers of the euthanasia program. 18:25.830 --> 18:29.550 Euthanasia is really a euphemism for murder because these were not terminally 18:29.550 --> 18:30.050 ill patients. 18:30.210 --> 18:34.750 These were children that were taken and murdered, mostly children who had handicap 18:34.750 --> 18:36.470 or mental retardation. 18:37.450 --> 18:47.730 I think one deciding point is in Germany, the notion that the health of the public 18:47.730 --> 18:51.850 is more important than the health of the individual. 18:52.710 --> 18:59.950 So consequently, to remove an unhealthy element was seen as good. 19:06.980 --> 19:13.660 In September 1939, a decision was made to develop an adult euthanasia program for 19:13.660 --> 19:15.700 patients in psychiatric facilities. 19:16.380 --> 19:19.900 Hitler picked the date to coincide with Germany's invasion of Poland. 19:20.300 --> 19:25.460 To expand it to include adults, the only way we're going to make this 19:25.460 --> 19:32.840 acceptable is to say, we need these hospital beds for the war wounded. 19:34.560 --> 19:44.980 Why should the state pay to keep totally disabled people alive when our young guys 19:44.980 --> 19:49.080 are sent to the front, need to come back home and have care? 19:50.020 --> 19:53.660 The name of this killing organization was T4. 19:54.300 --> 19:57.100 Eventually, six killing centers were established. 19:57.640 --> 20:02.040 Medical staffs were ordered to fill out questionnaires to evaluate whether their 20:02.040 --> 20:03.840 patients should live or die. 20:04.520 --> 20:07.440 Patients were placed in gas chambers that looked like showers. 20:09.460 --> 20:14.220 Then lethal carbon monoxide was pumped into the chambers, killing the patients. 20:15.200 --> 20:19.340 You have to justify and rationalize what you're doing because you're doing it. 20:19.740 --> 20:21.200 But they actually believed it. 20:21.860 --> 20:26.780 And they actually believed that what they were doing was saving the folk from its 20:26.780 --> 20:30.680 contamination, from the infection, that there was a disease. 20:31.320 --> 20:35.960 And the disease was the handicapped and the infirmed, and that they needed to be 20:35.960 --> 20:39.580 cured through killing, healing through killing. 20:41.560 --> 20:44.360 They were told they were being transferred. 20:45.780 --> 20:53.400 The nurses packed their clothes, their lunch, rode with them on the buses. 20:55.100 --> 21:04.680 The hospitals, these six, had specially constructed kind of breezeways that the 21:04.680 --> 21:11.180 buses would go through so the patients could be unloaded into the hospital 21:11.180 --> 21:14.920 without being viewed by the community. 21:17.040 --> 21:21.700 However, it didn't take long for the communities near these hospitals to 21:21.700 --> 21:23.240 realize what was going on. 21:23.400 --> 21:24.860 People would see the buses. 21:25.040 --> 21:28.560 The buses were very unique, painted gray. 21:28.680 --> 21:31.560 The windows were painted over and so forth. 21:33.000 --> 21:41.300 Buses would arrive, and within a very short period of time, this acrid smoke 21:41.300 --> 21:43.840 would be billowing out of the chimneys. 21:44.760 --> 21:51.940 Each hospital had a department to write condolence letters to the families. 21:54.080 --> 21:55.660 And there were mix-ups. 21:55.840 --> 22:04.440 They would write and say, we're sorry to tell you your uncle Hans died of 22:04.440 --> 22:09.320 appendicitis, and maybe he'd already had his appendix removed. 22:09.860 --> 22:15.780 People were becoming quite knowledgeable about what was going on. 22:16.700 --> 22:22.700 Even children would taunt other children saying, they're going to put you on the 22:22.700 --> 22:23.600 gray bus. 22:24.220 --> 22:25.800 You're going to go up the chimney. 22:27.500 --> 22:32.240 As knowledge of the gassing of patients became widespread, the decision was made 22:32.240 --> 22:36.180 to end the T4 euthanasia program in August 1941. 22:36.980 --> 22:39.600 This, however, did not end the killing of patients. 22:40.660 --> 22:45.400 The children's euthanasia program continued unabated until the end of the 22:45.400 --> 22:45.700 war. 22:53.800 --> 22:58.240 After the end of the T4 program, physicians were granted permission to 22:58.240 --> 23:01.880 provide a merciful death to any person they deemed to be suffering. 23:02.540 --> 23:06.340 These killings, which took place at many hospitals throughout the Third Reich, 23:06.580 --> 23:11.220 were known as wild euthanasia, or decentralized euthanasia, and were 23:11.220 --> 23:14.580 carried out on an individual basis rather than by gassing. 23:17.140 --> 23:22.180 Patients, usually selected by physicians but killed by nurses, were administered 23:22.180 --> 23:23.800 overdoses of sedatives. 23:24.560 --> 23:27.880 More people died in wild euthanasia than in T4. 23:29.840 --> 23:32.280 Why did the nurses follow orders to kill? 23:33.940 --> 23:39.020 We do know that the doctors were the ones who signed the certificates that said 23:39.020 --> 23:40.830 whether the child was to live or die. 23:41.090 --> 23:44.950 It was the nurses who carried out the killings. 23:45.770 --> 23:49.170 The doctors didn't necessarily carry out the killings themselves. 23:49.370 --> 23:53.190 They may have dictated who was to die, but it was the nurses who carried out the 23:53.190 --> 23:53.610 killings. 23:54.170 --> 24:00.370 There are episodes where the nurses decided themselves to take things into 24:00.370 --> 24:04.710 their own hands and kill the patients because they knew they were going to die 24:04.710 --> 24:09.330 anyway, so he was suffering, so I'll do it now. 24:09.790 --> 24:11.970 He's going to die anyway, so I might as well do it quicker. 24:15.210 --> 24:23.450 There's the most mesmerizing quote from one of the nurses who talks about how 24:23.450 --> 24:30.350 lovingly we held them in our arms while we got them to drink this medication. 24:31.050 --> 24:36.910 We didn't want them to suffer more than necessary while they were killing. 24:39.150 --> 24:44.290 More than 70 years later, the question of how Germany's nurses became involved in 24:44.290 --> 24:46.870 these killings still intrigues historians. 24:47.850 --> 24:54.250 Well, it is of course a multi-faceted phenomenon, I think, what happened there, 24:54.670 --> 25:01.450 but it is a very good example of you start one thing and then it leads to something a 25:01.450 --> 25:02.590 little worse and a little worse. 25:03.290 --> 25:10.230 So at first if they were asked to hold a patient while somebody else did something, 25:10.330 --> 25:16.710 an injection or whatever, they could do that and they could say to themselves, 25:16.910 --> 25:19.610 I'm not the one taking any action here. 25:20.450 --> 25:25.970 And then from there it's a shorter step to, well, you give the injection. 25:26.690 --> 25:32.050 For some nurses, I can see that this could, they could easily fall into the 25:32.050 --> 25:34.950 trap of thinking that this was the right thing to do. 25:35.750 --> 25:43.710 To me though, the whole issue is interesting because there's a line that as 25:43.710 --> 25:44.870 a nurse that you cross. 25:45.430 --> 25:51.750 And I think also in that era, nurses were very subservient and very obedient and 25:51.750 --> 25:59.610 whatever the doctor said they should do, they felt they had to obey and do that or 25:59.610 --> 26:00.990 fear the consequences. 26:02.130 --> 26:06.770 And similar to their obedience to physicians, nurses were also educated to 26:06.770 --> 26:11.090 be obedient to senior nurses, who at times also ordered killings. 26:11.630 --> 26:17.970 Nurses were involved in actually the killings themselves, either through active 26:17.970 --> 26:23.030 means or through passive means, letting patients starve or exposing them 26:23.030 --> 26:26.970 to hazards where they would get pneumonia and other things and die. 26:32.070 --> 26:37.510 In 1939, World War II began when the Germans attacked and invaded neighboring 26:37.510 --> 26:37.950 Poland. 26:38.190 --> 26:40.470 Our building was actually also hit. 26:40.790 --> 26:43.950 Polish survivor Anna Steinberger recalls the bombing. 26:44.570 --> 26:48.190 And I could see the flames on the roof of the building. 26:48.590 --> 26:51.190 I asked my mom, what is going on? 26:51.270 --> 26:52.330 Do I go to school? 26:52.470 --> 26:54.070 And she says, no school today. 26:54.430 --> 26:56.950 Just go hide in the cellar. 26:58.950 --> 27:03.790 Polish Jews were rounded up into ghettos and later moved to other institutions for 27:03.790 --> 27:04.890 medical experiments. 27:08.600 --> 27:14.440 A decision was made by the Nazis in January of 1942 at the Wannsee Conference 27:14.440 --> 27:19.100 to go further with the final solution and move the Jews into death camps. 27:19.440 --> 27:26.380 So there were four camps that were specifically created as death camps. 27:27.540 --> 27:35.360 Belzec, Kalmo, Treblinka, and Sobibor. 27:36.780 --> 27:45.660 There were two additional concentration camps that developed a killing portion. 27:46.860 --> 27:51.220 That would be Madonek and Auschwitz. 27:53.470 --> 27:56.840 Some skilled workers were kept alive to work in the camps. 27:57.640 --> 28:05.380 And the infrastructure, and the know-how, and the personnel of the 64 centers was 28:05.380 --> 28:10.820 actually transferred to Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. 28:11.360 --> 28:14.040 And they have built the first gas chambers. 28:14.340 --> 28:17.640 And then some of the same doctors and nurses who were involved in the euthanasia 28:17.640 --> 28:23.780 program took the gas chambers down and reassembled them east in Poland at the 28:23.780 --> 28:28.440 concentration camps, were doctors selected at the ramps, and were involved in 28:28.440 --> 28:30.160 supervising the gassings and killings. 28:31.000 --> 28:33.020 So physicians were involved in all aspects. 28:41.890 --> 28:44.990 Ravensbruck, located in Germany, was a camp for women. 28:47.190 --> 28:49.050 Most of the women were Polish. 28:49.910 --> 28:56.250 There were some Jews there, but most of the women were dissenters or women who'd 28:56.250 --> 28:59.250 caused trouble to the Nazis when the Nazis occupied Poland. 29:00.130 --> 29:04.590 Ravensbruck was located close to one of the largest and most important hospitals 29:04.590 --> 29:08.070 in Germany, where a lot of research was going on. 29:09.210 --> 29:16.810 Reinhard Heydrich was the Nazi protector of Czechoslovakia, who in 1942 was killed 29:16.810 --> 29:17.930 by a bomb. 29:18.910 --> 29:21.850 He died from infection of the wounds that he got. 29:21.930 --> 29:23.310 He died several days later. 29:24.370 --> 29:28.590 Hitler demanded that doctors should find a cure for these deadly infections. 29:29.250 --> 29:35.350 And so Ravensbruck, which was close by, had all these women there that they used 29:35.350 --> 29:37.830 as lab rats, basically. 29:38.410 --> 29:44.870 The women were operated on by the surgeons from this hospital. 29:45.290 --> 29:49.830 They had things like wounds created in their legs that were filled up with 29:49.830 --> 29:58.090 sawdust, dirt, ground glass, to see what would happen to the wound, how wounds 29:58.090 --> 30:00.750 developed, how bone became infected. 30:01.230 --> 30:03.710 Some of these women were sent to the gas chambers afterwards. 30:04.130 --> 30:04.690 They were killed. 30:05.350 --> 30:08.170 Some of the women died, of course, from the experiments. 30:08.610 --> 30:11.950 And some of the women survived to give testimony in the trials. 30:12.310 --> 30:15.670 But nurses were definitely involved in those experiments. 30:16.270 --> 30:20.570 Many German physicians and nurses participated in medical experiments 30:20.570 --> 30:24.450 related to racial hygiene in the concentration camps and hospitals. 30:26.130 --> 30:30.610 One of the worst was Dr. Josef Mengele, a member of the SS. 30:31.370 --> 30:37.370 Then the cattle car doors opened and we stepped down onto a little strip of land 30:37.370 --> 30:40.190 called the selection platform. 30:40.990 --> 30:42.610 We had no idea where we were. 30:42.730 --> 30:49.210 All we really knew that we did not arrive in Hungary, but we were taken to Germany, 30:49.450 --> 30:52.590 which meant to us that the end was near. 30:52.690 --> 30:59.390 Because there were a lot of rumors for four years under Hungarian occupation that 30:59.390 --> 31:01.730 Jews were being taken to Germany and murdered. 31:02.130 --> 31:07.050 Eva Moses Kor is a survivor of the notorious Auschwitz, where she and her 31:07.050 --> 31:11.870 twin sister Miriam suffered under Dr. Josef Mengele and his experiments on 31:11.870 --> 31:12.250 twins. 31:12.250 --> 31:17.150 There were four of us in the family, children and parents. 31:17.350 --> 31:22.690 My mother grabbed my twin sister and me by the hand because we were her youngest 31:22.690 --> 31:29.030 children and she was hoping that as long as she could hold on to us, that she could 31:29.030 --> 31:29.810 protect us. 31:29.890 --> 31:32.110 Everything was moving very fast. 31:32.850 --> 31:38.830 I was on that little strip of land called the selection platform not longer than 10 31:38.830 --> 31:39.370 minutes. 31:39.990 --> 31:45.390 And in my childish curiosity, I looked around trying to figure out what that 31:45.390 --> 31:51.710 place was when I realized that my father and two older sisters disappeared in the 31:51.710 --> 31:54.690 crowd and I never saw them again. 31:55.170 --> 32:01.390 So as we were holding on to mother, a Nazi was running, yelling in German, 32:02.390 --> 32:04.490 Zwillinge, Zwillinge, twins, twins. 32:05.390 --> 32:10.350 We did not volunteer any information because we really had no idea what worked 32:10.350 --> 32:10.950 in that place. 32:11.030 --> 32:15.030 We were extremely troubled, confused and exhausted. 32:16.370 --> 32:24.250 And he noticed us, approached us because we were dressed alike and we looked alike 32:24.250 --> 32:27.450 and he demanded to know from my mother if we were twins. 32:28.050 --> 32:30.250 And my mother didn't know what to say. 32:30.390 --> 32:35.430 She asked if that was good and the Nazi nodded yes and my mother said yes. 32:36.350 --> 32:40.550 Then another Nazi came, pulled my mother in one direction. 32:40.850 --> 32:42.890 We were pulled in the opposite direction. 32:44.090 --> 32:49.330 As I look back, I remember my mother's arms stretched out in despair as she was 32:49.330 --> 32:49.910 pulled away. 32:50.110 --> 32:55.350 I never got to say goodbye to her, but of course I didn't really realize that 32:55.350 --> 32:57.470 this would be the last time we would see her. 32:58.050 --> 33:01.910 And all that took no longer than about 30 minutes. 33:02.650 --> 33:04.130 Miriam and I were alone. 33:04.530 --> 33:09.630 We had no idea what would happen to us and all that was done to us for no other 33:09.630 --> 33:15.450 reason except that we were Jewish and we really didn't understand why that was a 33:15.450 --> 33:15.730 crime. 33:16.250 --> 33:21.330 Then they lined us up for registration and tattooing and when my turn came, 33:21.450 --> 33:25.990 I decided to give them as much trouble as a 10-year-old could. 33:26.930 --> 33:31.770 Four people, two women prisoners and two Nazis restrained me. 33:32.410 --> 33:38.110 They pinned me on a bench while they heated a gadget that it looked like a 33:38.110 --> 33:41.270 writing pen with a needle at the end. 33:41.830 --> 33:48.390 And then when the needle got really hot, they dipped it into ink and they burned 33:48.390 --> 33:54.330 into my left arm the capital letter A-7063. 33:56.090 --> 33:59.430 The twins were housed in barracks according to age and sex. 34:00.230 --> 34:04.010 We became part of a group of little girls, all twins. 34:04.250 --> 34:11.110 In our transport there were certain sets of little girls age 2 to age 16. 34:11.970 --> 34:17.750 That is the way they housed us in our barrack according to age and sex. 34:18.590 --> 34:22.390 After roll call we would go back to the barrack for Dr. Mengele's daily 34:22.390 --> 34:23.090 inspection. 34:23.770 --> 34:29.630 He would always come in dressed in his shiny uniforms, gleaming black boots, 34:29.810 --> 34:34.570 white gloves and a baton in his hand and he would count us. 34:34.710 --> 34:37.890 He wanted to know... After breakfast, the twins would be readied for 34:37.890 --> 34:38.550 experiments. 34:38.550 --> 34:45.630 We would walk to Auschwitz I and placed naked in a barrack, maybe 20, 30 sets of 34:45.630 --> 34:48.970 twins for six to eight hours. 34:49.810 --> 34:55.570 Every part of my body was measured compared to charts, compared to my twin 34:55.570 --> 34:56.170 sister. 34:57.150 --> 35:03.110 Those experiments were not dangerous, but they were unbelievably demeaning. 35:03.890 --> 35:09.930 And even in Auschwitz I couldn't cope, to cope with it for six to eight hours. 35:10.050 --> 35:14.510 The only way that I could is by blocking it out of my mind. 35:15.170 --> 35:21.310 So even today I have very limited information on those long hours. 35:21.950 --> 35:25.350 Three days a week the children would be taken to a blood lab. 35:25.550 --> 35:32.690 There they would tie both of my arms to restrict the blood flow, take a lot of 35:32.690 --> 35:34.230 blood from my left arm. 35:34.370 --> 35:39.970 At the same time, they would give me a minimum of five injections into my right 35:39.970 --> 35:40.250 arm. 35:41.110 --> 35:46.690 The content of those injections we didn't know then, nor do I know today. 35:48.150 --> 35:55.790 To the best of my knowledge, they were germs, diseases and drugs, because the 35:55.790 --> 36:02.690 German pharmaceutical company was very heavily involved in the experiments in 36:02.690 --> 36:03.290 Auschwitz. 36:03.970 --> 36:09.970 After one of those injections, I became very ill with a very high fever, 36:10.210 --> 36:13.490 a fact I desperately tried to hide. 36:14.470 --> 36:20.890 The rumor in the camp was that anyone taken to the hospital never came back. 36:21.030 --> 36:23.810 So I did not want to be taken to the hospital. 36:25.330 --> 36:32.870 My fever was high, both of my legs and arms were swollen and very, very painful. 36:33.110 --> 36:40.550 And I had huge red patches throughout my body, the size of a small apple or an egg. 36:40.870 --> 36:46.110 According to the Auschwitz Museum, at least 1,500 sets of twins were used by 36:46.110 --> 36:47.510 Mengele in his experiments. 36:48.310 --> 36:49.970 Less than 200 survived. 36:50.690 --> 36:55.190 Some died as a result of the conditions in the camp, but the majority died as a 36:55.190 --> 36:56.590 result of the experiments. 36:57.090 --> 36:58.530 Oh no, they were truly monsters. 36:58.870 --> 37:01.030 The stuff that happened was horrendous. 37:01.130 --> 37:07.050 There's no ethical justification for most of what they did under the name of medical 37:07.050 --> 37:07.670 science. 37:08.410 --> 37:11.810 It was done totally without informed consent. 37:12.210 --> 37:16.410 The people used as lab rats had no choice. 37:16.930 --> 37:18.850 They were often killed immediately afterwards. 37:19.330 --> 37:21.550 They had the most horrendous things done to them. 37:21.790 --> 37:26.570 In the sterilization experiments performed at Auschwitz, it was often the nurses who 37:26.570 --> 37:29.270 would select and prepare the patients for the experiments. 37:29.810 --> 37:36.610 Then they assisted whatever the physician needed the nurse assistant to do and kept 37:36.610 --> 37:41.490 it secret from the patients as to what was going to happen, giving false reassurance 37:41.490 --> 37:43.670 that everything is going to be all right. 37:43.750 --> 37:45.210 We're taking good care of you. 37:46.530 --> 37:51.610 At Dachau, a variety of unethical medical experiments were made using the prisoners 37:51.610 --> 37:52.610 as guinea pigs. 37:53.250 --> 37:55.810 Some of the cruelties are almost unbelievable. 37:56.650 --> 38:04.790 They had a purpose for each one of these, usually to benefit downed German pilots in 38:04.790 --> 38:09.510 freezing water or some other battlefield result. 38:09.990 --> 38:14.150 Author Vivian Spitz was an eyewitness court reporter for the Nuremberg war 38:14.150 --> 38:15.910 crimes trials of Nazi doctors. 38:16.450 --> 38:21.270 She refers to her book, Doctors from Hell, as she recalls the trial testimony she 38:21.270 --> 38:21.750 reported. 38:22.350 --> 38:29.410 The victims were German, Czech and Polish gypsies who were deprived of food and 38:29.410 --> 38:36.670 given only brackish yellow seawater for days, resulting in, of course, 38:36.810 --> 38:41.930 excruciating pain and foaming at the mouth and in most cases madness. 38:42.510 --> 38:44.050 Many of these patients died. 38:44.230 --> 38:45.390 Many of these patients died. 38:45.510 --> 38:51.210 They did experimentations where they would keep people in freezing temperatures until 38:51.210 --> 38:55.110 they were almost dead, revive them and then expose them again. 38:55.350 --> 38:59.250 Lower the temperature, raise the temperature until they froze and died. 38:59.610 --> 39:04.010 And then they took them directly to the autopsy table in what they call terminal 39:04.010 --> 39:04.550 experiments. 39:04.990 --> 39:10.650 And so they did low pressure studies where they took concentration camp prisoners and 39:10.650 --> 39:15.430 put them into specially designed rooms where they sucked out the oxygen, 39:15.830 --> 39:19.610 let in the oxygen until their lungs exploded and they died in terminal 39:19.610 --> 39:20.090 experiments. 39:20.490 --> 39:23.830 There were studies of bone and muscle and infectious diseases. 39:23.970 --> 39:25.210 They were trying out new antibiotics. 39:25.810 --> 39:29.830 So they took concentration camp prisoners and cut open and filleted and infected 39:29.830 --> 39:33.330 their legs and wounds to create simulated wounds. 39:33.670 --> 39:43.590 We know that the sterilization program, the mercy killing program and the unlawful 39:43.590 --> 39:51.270 human experimentation program were masterminded, planned, suggested, 39:53.650 --> 39:56.090 implemented by physicians. 39:56.590 --> 40:01.570 Dr. Joseph Mengele was able to escape from Germany after the war and avoided 40:01.570 --> 40:03.090 apprehension by authorities. 40:03.910 --> 40:07.890 Joseph Mengele was the worst that we never got. 40:09.670 --> 40:19.790 Mengele's family was very wealthy manufacturers in Bavaria and they managed 40:19.790 --> 40:24.590 to hide him until they could get him out of Germany. 40:25.930 --> 40:31.930 Dr. Mengele lived in South America until 1979 when he reportedly drowned while 40:31.930 --> 40:33.610 swimming at a resort in Brazil. 40:36.870 --> 40:43.350 Finally, in May 1945, the war in Europe ended when the Germans surrendered to the 40:43.350 --> 40:45.630 Allies and the guns were silent. 40:46.310 --> 40:50.990 After the war, the Allies conducted the famous Nuremberg Trials and the world 40:50.990 --> 40:54.770 became aware of the atrocities of the Nazi doctors and nurses. 40:55.390 --> 41:00.810 We don't know the figures of the nurses who were involved because they were the 41:00.810 --> 41:02.550 workforce in these hospitals. 41:02.990 --> 41:06.650 Although nurses were not named as defendants in the medical trials at 41:06.650 --> 41:10.790 Nuremberg, the results of some of their actions during the war were brought to 41:10.790 --> 41:11.050 light. 41:11.510 --> 41:16.670 For example, the horrific experiments done on young Polish women at Ravensbruck and 41:16.670 --> 41:21.290 the killing of the disabled persons in the so-called euthanasia programs were made 41:21.290 --> 41:21.690 public. 41:22.350 --> 41:25.190 Nurses, however, were not exonerated for their crimes. 41:25.730 --> 41:30.750 Many stood trial later on and several were hanged for their actions, including two 41:30.750 --> 41:33.330 male nurses from the Hadamar euthanasia site. 41:34.090 --> 41:37.650 Numerous subsequent trials of nurses resulted in prison sentences. 41:38.210 --> 41:41.850 At other trials, nurses were acquitted despite admitting their guilt. 41:42.610 --> 41:48.150 There was a trial for the nurses and I think over 14 in all and none of them were 41:48.150 --> 41:48.690 convicted. 41:49.630 --> 41:58.170 The first trial of the first nurse and the first physician was in 1946 and it was the 41:58.170 --> 42:01.330 nurse and physician at Meseretz. 42:02.990 --> 42:09.330 And interestingly, both of them received the death sentence and were hanged. 42:09.890 --> 42:16.690 The nurses who were tried in 1965, there were 15 nurses from Meseretz to be 42:16.690 --> 42:17.150 tried. 42:17.310 --> 42:19.830 One killed herself the for the trial. 42:20.350 --> 42:22.690 So 14 nurses were tried. 42:23.750 --> 42:29.990 And the reasons they gave were, I thought I was relieving people from 42:29.990 --> 42:31.050 their suffering. 42:32.450 --> 42:35.750 These people had no life at all. 42:37.950 --> 42:40.390 I needed to keep my job. 42:40.890 --> 42:47.110 I think probably loss of memory and other things that had changed during that time, 42:47.310 --> 42:49.670 the nurses were not held accountable. 42:50.830 --> 42:54.210 And they used the defense too that I was only following orders. 42:54.690 --> 42:58.210 Just following orders was not going to be an acceptable defense to murder, 42:58.410 --> 42:58.930 to genocide. 42:59.510 --> 43:03.110 And one of the things that came out of Nuremberg was the notion that everybody is 43:03.110 --> 43:04.470 responsible for their own actions. 43:05.310 --> 43:16.490 But the baffling thing to me is still the trial in 1965 of the 14 Meseretz nurses. 43:17.530 --> 43:23.390 They had had 20 years to think about what they had done. 43:24.250 --> 43:27.730 Those nurses did not deny what they did. 43:28.310 --> 43:32.330 One of them said, yes, I probably killed 210 people. 43:33.750 --> 43:38.750 Now the nurses from Spiegel-Gruen were tried after the war. 43:39.070 --> 43:40.990 Anna Kachinka is one of them. 43:41.790 --> 43:44.430 And received several years in prison. 43:51.770 --> 43:55.750 Not all of the nurses under the Third Reich were compliant with the Nazi 43:55.750 --> 43:56.430 ideology. 43:57.090 --> 44:02.370 One Austrian SS nurse, Maria Stromberger, showed great compassion toward prisoners 44:02.370 --> 44:03.210 at Auschwitz. 44:03.430 --> 44:08.430 She had heard some of the things that were going on at Auschwitz and just could not 44:08.430 --> 44:09.270 believe it. 44:09.270 --> 44:13.030 Because she said, we're a good and moral people. 44:13.270 --> 44:14.290 We wouldn't do this. 44:14.950 --> 44:18.810 So she went and said, transfer me to Auschwitz. 44:18.830 --> 44:19.930 I want to work there. 44:20.550 --> 44:26.730 So her goal was to work caring for the inmates. 44:26.730 --> 44:37.210 Eventually she gained their trust and would smuggle out letters, documents, 44:37.790 --> 44:38.350 photographs. 44:39.450 --> 44:42.370 She smuggled in ammunition. 44:44.350 --> 44:48.110 She saved the lives of many of them. 44:48.670 --> 44:53.270 Perhaps the most famous of the trials held at Nuremberg before an international 44:53.270 --> 44:58.190 military tribunal was the so-called medical case, or the doctor's trial. 44:59.110 --> 45:05.550 Karl Brandt, who was the chief physician of Hitler, said, I did what needed to be 45:05.550 --> 45:05.750 done. 45:05.850 --> 45:07.290 This was good what we did. 45:07.870 --> 45:11.190 We made German people healthier. 45:11.950 --> 45:16.350 So people were convinced that they are doing something positive in all these 45:16.350 --> 45:17.690 atrocities. 45:18.570 --> 45:22.650 Twenty-three physicians and scientists were tried for crimes against humanity. 45:23.330 --> 45:27.470 Crimes against humanity was a new concept, which was whether it be wartime, 45:27.590 --> 45:28.290 not wartime. 45:28.570 --> 45:30.910 There were certain things beyond the pale that we were going to hold people 45:30.910 --> 45:31.330 accountable. 45:31.970 --> 45:36.770 So genocide was a classic example of a crime against humanity. 45:37.310 --> 45:38.990 And so the doctors went on trial. 45:40.930 --> 45:44.750 Today, many of these killing centers are memorials open to the public. 45:46.730 --> 45:51.350 But in spite of the bucolic setting, they were centers of inhumane experiments, 45:51.350 --> 45:53.450 mass murder, and extermination. 45:56.210 --> 46:00.530 Many of these institutions remain working psychiatric hospitals even today. 46:01.330 --> 46:03.690 It looked like a college campus. 46:04.830 --> 46:05.930 It was beautiful. 46:06.910 --> 46:13.430 I've been to prisons, death camps, in both Germany and Austria. 46:14.110 --> 46:21.910 It's not quite the same because the place is more or less clean and, of course, 46:21.970 --> 46:22.470 empty. 46:23.070 --> 46:30.370 And so you have to stand there and be there to kind of think how would it have 46:30.370 --> 46:35.090 been when it was so crowded and it was so dirty and they didn't have water to drink. 46:35.530 --> 46:43.150 One of the patients I'm familiar with drank water from the floor and died from 46:43.150 --> 46:43.810 an infection. 46:44.170 --> 46:49.530 And it's just hard to be in those places and realize the conditions that were 46:49.530 --> 46:49.910 there. 46:55.290 --> 46:58.350 Spiegelgrund is still a large active hospital in Vienna. 46:58.970 --> 47:03.550 During the Holocaust, it consisted of a children's ward and became infamous for 47:03.550 --> 47:05.370 the euthanasia of the children there. 47:07.190 --> 47:14.430 The brains of many of these children were saved for years in the basement of 47:14.430 --> 47:15.110 Spiegelgrund. 47:15.970 --> 47:19.890 I think it is good that they're open to the public because you can read about it 47:19.890 --> 47:20.870 and you can see pictures. 47:21.150 --> 47:26.730 But until you are actually there and standing there, you don't get the emotions 47:26.730 --> 47:31.030 and the feeling that you would otherwise. 47:31.770 --> 47:34.150 All right, it looks like he might have a rhythm back on the monitor. 47:34.310 --> 47:35.610 It's sinus, but slow. 47:36.050 --> 47:37.830 Although current health care in the U.S. 47:37.870 --> 47:41.810 is regarded as among the best in the world, there are elements that should 47:41.810 --> 47:46.550 cause us to reflect upon the similarities to German medicine in the 1930s. 47:46.810 --> 47:54.690 So it's important that for us, both as nurses who are looking at history 47:54.690 --> 47:58.410 and nurses working today, that we know about this history. 47:58.770 --> 48:03.670 Because unless we know, we can't stop it happening again. 48:03.990 --> 48:05.270 And it will happen again. 48:06.390 --> 48:10.490 Today, nurses are involved in the legal euthanasia of patients in Belgium, 48:10.850 --> 48:11.930 Holland and Switzerland. 48:12.570 --> 48:16.870 Nurses are also involved in executions in the countries where the death penalty is 48:16.870 --> 48:17.230 legal. 48:17.770 --> 48:24.830 My take on it is that the nurses working in those areas should know the history so 48:24.830 --> 48:29.930 that they themselves can determine whether it's relevant to what they're doing and 48:29.930 --> 48:34.910 ask themselves the question, is this an ethical area in which I want to work? 48:35.650 --> 48:42.810 We physicians, nurses, have a power that if we are not careful, can be abused. 48:43.690 --> 48:49.090 So by learning about how this power was abused in the worst way, we hope that 48:49.090 --> 48:54.230 you'll inoculate yourself and be conscious and aware and reflective. 48:58.980 --> 49:03.200 Or how does any person know what is right from wrong? 49:04.400 --> 49:11.160 And I think that I have to have a conscience and a moral compass. 49:12.900 --> 49:19.600 That if somebody has no morality, then it's very difficult for them to 49:19.600 --> 49:25.900 really understand or judge for their own knowledge what is wrong and what is right. 49:26.240 --> 49:34.100 But if it hurts another human being, I think that it's morally wrong. 49:36.580 --> 49:42.460 I'm just amazed, even today, to ask someone who's a freshman in high school 49:42.460 --> 49:46.420 what they knew about the Nuremberg trials and they don't know what you're talking 49:46.420 --> 49:46.820 about. 49:47.780 --> 49:52.640 Many young people today are not aware of the Holocaust and its place in history. 49:54.160 --> 49:59.180 They know that it was something happened, what they think is a long time ago, 49:59.380 --> 50:03.700 and it's over and it's never going to happen again, so why should we keep 50:03.700 --> 50:04.620 bringing it up? 50:05.420 --> 50:10.640 Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. 50:12.100 --> 50:14.660 And that is exactly what is happening. 50:15.940 --> 50:19.660 I think it's important for all healthcare professionals to study what we've done in 50:19.660 --> 50:25.660 the past and to learn how those particular doctors and nurses and dentists and other 50:25.660 --> 50:29.820 health professionals got involved in the acts that they got involved in because 50:29.820 --> 50:33.100 we're dealing with the same issues today and we always need to be alert. 50:36.000 --> 50:40.320 Regulatory procedures in the nursing profession today are more stringent than 50:40.320 --> 50:42.080 in the 1920s and 30s. 50:42.280 --> 50:44.700 There is an American Nurses Association. 50:45.120 --> 50:49.940 They have a code of ethics for nursing that guides the ethical conduct of 50:49.940 --> 50:54.340 nursing, but there is no regulatory backup for that code. 50:54.480 --> 50:55.780 It is simply a guidance. 50:56.280 --> 51:02.760 I think what is happening today is medical errors where sometimes nurses and others 51:02.760 --> 51:08.740 don't speak up when they see an error that's possible and that's likely to occur 51:08.740 --> 51:14.240 and they don't speak up for fear of, well, the doctor must know what he or she 51:14.240 --> 51:19.720 is doing and I don't want to embarrass myself by saying something and then it 51:19.720 --> 51:21.160 turns out not to be true. 51:24.860 --> 51:29.300 Today, medical experts are facing new technological and social issues. 51:30.000 --> 51:34.800 So, I'm quite concerned about the physician-assisted suicide movement in the 51:34.800 --> 51:35.140 U.S. 51:35.820 --> 51:39.520 I think it's easier to get yourself killed than it is to get health care. 51:40.160 --> 51:43.060 I'm concerned when you have 40 million people who have access to no health care 51:43.060 --> 51:46.700 that you offer them euthanasia, you offer them persisted suicide. 51:47.580 --> 51:51.940 With these new developments, could the world see another era of unethical medical 51:51.940 --> 51:53.580 practices and experiments? 51:54.000 --> 51:58.280 You know, after the Holocaust, the motto was never again, never again 51:58.280 --> 51:59.500 should a Holocaust happen. 52:00.040 --> 52:09.560 I think the lesson we have learned from the Nazi era and the Holocaust is that we 52:09.560 --> 52:19.780 are all vulnerable to outside pressures, influences, and that things can happen 52:19.780 --> 52:25.000 that we may not see at the time, that things are going awry. 52:25.740 --> 52:30.120 And that's why we have to all be on our guard and we have to monitor ourselves, 52:30.260 --> 52:35.220 we have to monitor each other because the health care environment is very 52:35.220 --> 52:35.800 challenging. 52:36.340 --> 52:39.480 A couple of takeaways from what we learned about the nurses in the Holocaust, 52:39.840 --> 52:45.060 I think the first one is how easy it is to become involved, especially in the 52:45.060 --> 52:45.420 beginning. 52:46.160 --> 52:50.400 How easy was it for those nurses just to take a patient to a special room? 52:50.940 --> 52:54.160 They didn't know what the room was for, they were simply taking a patient to a 52:54.160 --> 52:54.700 special room. 52:55.040 --> 52:59.240 How long did it take them to actually find out that every patient who went to that 52:59.240 --> 53:00.600 room did not come out alive? 53:00.860 --> 53:03.000 That could take quite a long period of time. 53:03.560 --> 53:06.760 Once you've started doing that, then maybe you're asked to help give a 53:06.760 --> 53:07.560 patient medication. 53:08.320 --> 53:12.200 So slowly the nurses could have gotten involved and not even known what they were 53:12.200 --> 53:12.500 doing. 53:13.240 --> 53:19.280 Learning about the Holocaust is a very powerful way to learn empathy and 53:19.280 --> 53:19.740 compassion. 53:20.280 --> 53:28.320 Only by educating people that we must learn to live in peace and harmony with 53:28.320 --> 53:36.460 each other, regardless of color of the skin or background or economic situation 53:36.460 --> 53:37.220 and so on. 53:37.620 --> 53:41.060 But the question of course is how did one of the most advanced societies, 53:41.880 --> 53:47.980 advanced in art, music, theater, writing, medicine, you weren't a real 53:47.980 --> 53:48.800 doctor in the U.S. 53:48.800 --> 53:50.200 unless you went to Germany to study. 53:50.640 --> 53:52.920 And then you came back and said, you know, I studied in Germany. 53:53.800 --> 53:59.680 And so it was the height of technology, the height of science, how was it possible 53:59.680 --> 54:01.880 that these people became murderers? 54:02.680 --> 54:05.620 It's easy to believe the Holocaust could never be repeated. 54:06.180 --> 54:09.020 The factors leading up to it are not unique to Germany. 54:09.640 --> 54:14.660 They are human factors that are present in every country, every culture, and every 54:14.660 --> 54:15.260 generation. 54:17.620 --> 54:21.980 If it could happen in one of the most advanced societies in human history, 54:22.420 --> 54:24.120 it can happen again anywhere. 54:25.440 --> 54:30.300 If it happened in Germany, then it can happen anywhere else. 54:30.380 --> 54:32.140 So we must be very, very vigilant. 54:33.300 --> 54:38.220 It's up to each of us to learn from the past and be ready to interrupt the forces 54:38.220 --> 54:42.400 that may try to exploit the few for the benefit of the majority.