NOVA Online | Holocaust on Trial | Should They Be Used? No (7)

A Dachau prisoner during a high-altitude experiment.

Might not using the data lend a belated dignity to the victims, so that their lives were not lost for nothing?

"Of course, nobody in their right mind condones the experiment. The question is, Given that this fiendish thing was done, what do you do with the information that exists. ... I suspect that the prisoners would have wanted to have the information used to help somebody."

—Todd Thorslund, vice president of ICF-Clement, an environmental consulting company that wrote a risk-assessment report for the Environmental Protection Agency that cited Nazi phosgene experiments [54]

"The suffering is done—let someone benefit from all the pain."

—Lucien A. Ballin, member of a military intelligence assault force that helped unearth Nazi medical-experiments data in 1945 [55]

This is your final chance to make a decision. If you like, you may review all 14 counterarguments before committing.

Based on what you now know, do you think doctors and scientists should be able to use data from Nazi death-camp experiments?

Based on what you now know, do you think doctors and scientists should be able to use data from Nazi death-camp experiments?

Yes | No | Undecided

References
54. Shabecoff, Philip. "Head of E.P.A. Bars Nazi Data in Study on Gas." The New York Times, 3/23/88, p. 1.
55. Siegel, p. 1.

Photo: KZ Gedenkstaette Dachau, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives

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