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A researcher from the University of Haifa: Many of the Nazi doctors believed that they were doing the right thing

Many of the Nazi doctors who committed the crimes of the holocaust were competent and talented doctors who believed that everything they did was right," said Dr. Tessa Shlouch, who heads the Department of Health, Ethics and the Holocaust that was opened at the University of Haifa

Haifa University

"Medicine in Germany and its affiliates during the Nazi period was allegedly perceived as forced, insane or worthless medicine. However, if we focus on the core of the matter, we will find that these are actually false thoughts and a distortion of the truth. "Many of the Nazi doctors who committed the crimes of the Holocaust were competent and talented doctors who believed that everything they did was right," said Dr. Tessa Shelus, who heads the Department of Health, Ethics and the Holocaust that was opened at the University of Haifa. The purpose of the new department at the International Center for Health, Law and Ethics is to promote research and teaching on medicine during the Holocaust.

"In the Nuremberg trials and in other trials, the doctors and scientists gave very detailed explanations for their behavior - they did not apologize for what they did, but tried to explain in moral terms and concepts why they did what they did," said Dr. Shloush. According to her, moral and ethical dilemmas also faced the Jewish doctors during the Holocaust: "In order to save a life, the Jewish doctors had to, in some cases, take a life. For example, in the camps, most of the women who were pregnant at the time, were sent to the gas chambers only because of their pregnancy, and therefore, Jewish doctors performed abortions under unconditional conditions," she said and emphasized that the doctors had to fight with everything at their disposal in order to save lives: they hid patients with contagious diseases, they They entered false diagnoses in the medical records and they lied. "In the blocks where medical experiments were carried out, the Jewish doctors had to treat people after the experiments and in some cases even help the Nazi doctors. There were also Jewish doctors who worked alongside or may have even collaborated with the Nazi doctors," she noted.

The steering team of the department, which includes medicine, nursing, history and law, is currently engaged in the establishment of a multidisciplinary international body that will participate in various projects, including the writing of a textbook that will direct and guide the teaching of the subject in academic institutions.

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