{"id":19993,"date":"2024-04-06T13:52:11","date_gmt":"2024-04-06T13:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/06\/prestigious-medical-journal-ignored-nazi-atrocities-historians-find\/"},"modified":"2024-04-06T13:52:11","modified_gmt":"2024-04-06T13:52:11","slug":"prestigious-medical-journal-ignored-nazi-atrocities-historians-find","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/06\/prestigious-medical-journal-ignored-nazi-atrocities-historians-find\/","title":{"rendered":"Prestigious Medical Journal Ignored Nazi Atrocities, Historians Find"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"549\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/07\/science\/07nazi-medicine-02\/07nazi-medicine-02-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,549&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Prestigious Medical Journal Ignored Nazi Atrocities, Historians Find\" title=\"Prestigious Medical Journal Ignored Nazi Atrocities, Historians Find\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/NEJMp2307319\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">new article<\/a> in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the oldest and most esteemed publications for medical research, criticizes the journal for paying only \u201csuperficial and idiosyncratic attention\u201d to the atrocities perpetrated in the name of medical science by the Nazis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The journal was \u201can outlier in its sporadic coverage of the rise of Nazi Germany,\u201d wrote the article\u2019s authors, Allan Brandt and Joelle Abi-Rached, both medical historians at Harvard. Often, the journal simply ignored the Nazis\u2019 medical depredations, such as the horrific experiments conducted on twins at Auschwitz, which were based largely on Adolf Hitler\u2019s spurious \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/item\/webcast-8978\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">racial science<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In contrast, two other leading science journals \u2014 Science and the Journal of the American Medical Association \u2014 covered the Nazis\u2019 discriminatory policies throughout Hitler\u2019s tenure, the historians noted. The New England journal did not publish an article \u201cexplicitly damning\u201d the Nazis\u2019 medical atrocities <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/NEJM194907142410201\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">until 1949<\/a>, four years after World War II ended.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The new article, published in this week\u2019s issue of the journal, is part of a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nejm.org\/recognizing-historical-injustices\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">series<\/a> started last year to address racism and other forms of prejudice in the medical establishment. Another <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/NEJMp2307346\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">recent article<\/a> described the journal\u2019s enthusiastic coverage of eugenics throughout the 1930s and \u201940s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cLearning from our past mistakes can help us going forward,\u201d said the journal\u2019s editor, Dr. Eric Rubin, an infectious disease expert at Harvard. \u201cWhat can we do to ensure that we don\u2019t fall into the same sorts of objectionable ideas in the future?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the publication\u2019s archives, Dr. Abi-Rached discovered a paper endorsing Nazi medical practices: \u201cRecent changes in German health insurance under the Hitler government,\u201d a 1935 treatise written by <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1971\/08\/27\/archives\/michael-davis-a-health-expert-advocate-of-nationwide-insurance-plan.html\" title=\"\">Michael Davis<\/a>, an influential figure in health care, and Gertrud Kroeger, a nurse from Germany. The article praised the Nazis\u2019 <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/perspectives.ushmm.org\/collection\/public-health-under-the-third-reich\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">emphasis on public health<\/a>, which was infused with dubious ideas about Germans\u2019 innate superiority.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThere is no reference to the slew of persecutory and antisemitic laws that had been passed,\u201d Dr. Abi-Rached and Dr. Brandt wrote. In one passage, Dr. Davis and Ms. Kroeger described how doctors were made to work in Nazi labor camps. Duty there, the authors blithely wrote, was an \u201copportunity to mingle with all sorts of people in everyday life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cApparently, they considered the discrimination against Jews irrelevant to what they saw as reasonable and progressive change,\u201d Dr. Abi-Rached and Dr. Brandt wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For the most part, however, the two historians were surprised at how little the journal had to say about the Nazis, who murdered some <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/01\/08\/opinion\/disability-nazi-eugenics.html\" title=\"\">70,000 disabled people<\/a> before turning to the slaughter of Europe\u2019s Jews, as well as other groups.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhen we opened the file drawer, there was almost nothing there,\u201d Dr. Brandt said. Instead of discovering articles either condemning or justifying the Nazis\u2019 perversions of medicine, there was instead something more puzzling: an evident indifference that lasted until well after the end of World War II.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The journal acknowledged Hitler in 1933, the year he began implementing his antisemitic policies. Seven months after the advent of the Third Reich, the journal published \u201cThe Abuse of the Jewish Physicians,\u201d an article that today would most likely face criticism for lacking moral clarity. It appeared to be largely based on reporting by The New York Times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWithout providing any details, the notice reported that there was some indication of \u2018a bitter and relentless opposition to the Jewish people,\u2019\u201d the new article said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Other journals saw the threat of Nazism more clearly. Science <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.77.2003.492\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">expressed alarm<\/a> about the \u201ccrass repression\u201d of Jews, which took place not only in medicine but also in law, the arts and other professions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe journal, and America, had tunnel vision,\u201d said <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bc.edu\/bc-web\/schools\/morrissey\/departments\/art\/people\/faculty-directory\/john-michalczyk.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">John Michalczyk<\/a>, co-director of Jewish Studies at Boston College. American corporations avidly did business with Hitler\u2019s regime. The Nazi dictator, in turn, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2018\/04\/30\/how-american-racism-influenced-hitler\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">looked favorably<\/a> at the slaughter and displacement of Native Americans, and sought to adopt the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/06\/08\/magazine\/eugenics-movement-america.html\" title=\"\">eugenics<\/a> efforts that had taken place across the United States throughout the early 20th century.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cOur hands are not clean,\u201d Dr. Michalczyk said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dr. Abi-Rached said she and Dr. Brandt wanted to avoid being \u201canachronistic\u201d and viewing the journal\u2019s silence on Nazism through a contemporary lens. But once she saw that other medical publications had taken a different tack, the journal\u2019s silence took on a fraught new meaning. What was said was dwarfed by what was never spoken.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe were looking for strategies to understand how racism works,\u201d Dr. Brandt said. It seemed to work, in part, through apathy. Later, many institutions would claim that they would have acted to save more of the Holocaust\u2019s victims had they known the extent of the Nazis\u2019 atrocities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That excuse rings hollow to experts who point out that there were enough eyewitness reports to merit action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cSometimes, silence contributes to these kinds of radical, immoral, catastrophic shifts,\u201d Dr. Brandt said. \u201cThat\u2019s implicit in our paper.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/06\/science\/nazi-science-new-england-journal-medicine.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new article in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the oldest and most esteemed publications for medical research, criticizes the journal for paying only \u201csuperficial and idiosyncratic attention\u201d to the atrocities perpetrated in the name of medical science by the Nazis. The journal was \u201can outlier in its sporadic coverage of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/07\/science\/07nazi-medicine-02\/07nazi-medicine-02-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[25538,3402,20562,25537,1267,11331,25536],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19993"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19995,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19993\/revisions\/19995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}