Nazi Experiments on Jewish Skeletons Bared for First Time in Documentary
A Norwegian broadcaster for the first time aired footage of the room where Nazi scientists displayed the skeletons of Jews as teaching aids for race theories.
NRK 1, a public broadcaster, earlier this month aired a documentary about the 86 people whom the scientists selected to be killed and serve as display specimens at the University of Strasbourg, France, during World War II. The footage shows the display room and the boxes in which the preserved skeletons were encased. The actual skeletons were buried a few decades ago. The film-makers said it was the first time a television crew had gained access to the former display room.
Professor August Hirt, an SS captain who served as chairman of the Reich University in Strasbourg until his suicide in 1945, tasked two researchers in 1943 to select 109 prisoners for the collection at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland. The prisoners were to be transported alive and murdered at the university.
He wrote to SS commander Heinrich Himmler that the university’s existing collection included specimens of many races, but no Jews.
“The war in the East now offers us the opportunity to remedy this deficiency,” reads the letter, appearing in the Oct. 1 the documentary. “We are able to provide a document that illustrates that the Jewish-Bolshevik commissioners represent a disgusting but characteristic type of sub-human.”
Of the 109 prisoners selected at Auschwitz, only 86 survived the journey to Strasbourg, 29 women and 57 men. In the documentary, NRK traced the story of one of the victims, a 17 year-old boy from Norway named Frank Sachnowitz, whose brother survived Auschwitz.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
