'Deadly Medicine' exhibits Holocaust experiments
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Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin-DahlemDr. Otmar von Verschuer examines twins at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. As the head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute’s Department for Human Heredity, Verschuer, a physician and geneticist, examined hundreds of pairs of twins to study whether criminality, feeble-mindedness, tuberculosis, and cancer were inheritable. In 1927, he recommended the forced sterilization of the 'mentally and morally subnormal.' Verschuer typified those academics whose interest in Germany’s 'national regeneration' provided motivation for their research. -
National Archives and Records AdministrationNazi officials at the 'The Miracle of Life' exhibition, German Hygiene Museum, Dresden, 1935. The new Nazi museum leadership asserted that societies resembled organisms that followed the lead of their brains. The most logical social structure was one that saw society as a collective unit, literally a body guided by a strong leader. -
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum'You Are Sharing the Load! A Hereditarily Ill Person Costs 50,000 Reichsmarks on Average up to the Age of Sixty,' reproduced in a high school biology textbook by Jakob Graf. The image illustrates Nazi propaganda on the need to prevent births of the 'unfit.'
One of the largest traveling Holocaust exhibitions in the United States, "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race," provides a graphic look at the twisted roles played by Nazi doctors and scientists. The free exhibit will open Friday at the Arizona Health Sciences Library.
The exhibit arrived in pieces Tuesday around 8 a.m. There were 72 cases delivered, said Tessie O'Talley, a library worker who helped set up the exhibit. The near ceiling-high panels encase the majority of the ground floor of the AHSL, located at 1501 N. Campbell Ave., next to the College of Medicine.
"This is one of the largest traveling exhibitions of the Holocaust Memorial Museum," said Bryan Davis, Holocaust education coordinator for the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona. "It specifically focuses on the intersection of medicine and human rights."
The exhibit was curated by Susan Bachrach of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and has been on tour since 2006.
"This exhibit is so incredible for us and I am so thrilled that it's coming to Tucson," said the museum's Southwest regional director, Melissa Gendason.. "Susan Bachrach is brilliant."
The University of Arizona's Program in Medical Humanities initiated bringing the exhibit to Tucson because of its relevance to their work, Davis said. The Humanities partnered with the library as well as the UA College of Medicine and the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona to bring the exhibit to Tucson.
"I think it [the exhibit] is very pertinent to students and faculty and everybody working here in the health sciences environment," said AHSL's deputy director, Jeanette Ryan. The AHSL first started talking about getting the exhibit to Tucson about two years ago, Ryan said.
"It takes a while to get a contract and to get the money together," Ryan said. The planning committee also wanted to make sure the exhibit was on display during the school year when there would be winter visitors in town, she said.
The exhibit includes still photos as well as video of medical practices that occurred during the Holocaust. Some of the content is graphic. "I'm worried about children seeing some of the images," O'Talley said. The public will not be allowed to take photographs of the exhibit.
In addition to photographs and video, there will be experts on the history of the Holocaust stationed around "Deadly Medicine" to provide additional information.
Local Holocaust survivors are also scheduled to make an appearance at the exhibit on Wednesday, Jan. 23 at 4 p.m. to talk about their experiences in places where medical experimentation was done, Davis said.
One guest speaker is flying in all the way from Wisconsin. Medical ethics expert Dr. Norman Fost is scheduled to give a free lecture on Monday, Feb. 11 at noon.
The exhibit is open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday to Thursday. Fridays and Saturdays it is opened from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.. The exhibit will be on display until Sunday, March 31, according to a press release. About two hours are needed to view all of the content in the exhibit, Solorzano said.
"I think even that would be rushing," Solorzano said.
If you go
- Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race
- Arizona Health Sciences Library, 1501 N. Campbell Ave., next to the College of Medicine
- 7 a.m.-9 p.m., Sundays -Thursdays, 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, through March 31
- See the Arizona Health Sciences Center website for more information
