The carbon monoxide story, continued. Part 1.3

Continued from Part 1.2

“So you showed it in dogs. How are you going to show that it can be done in humans?”

I am attributing this to Ludwik, but Steve Iscoe, who carefully mentored the studies, helped analyze the data and write the paper was also on my case. “Joe, we just need to do humans.” What they were saying was “Joe, you will need to do humans”. I understood. For this to be translated as a treatment for humans, someone will have to study CO poisoning in humans. But does it have to be me?

Well, as it is, our work just sits there with no one in the scientific community taking notice. Most experts are tied in to hyperbaric medicine. That is the work they do. That is how they earn their living. Lets face it, a simple treatment for CO poisoning is a tremendous threat to their careers, and livelihood. One may be skeptical about prominent, smart, dedicated, sincere, humanitarian, well meaning people acting with such self-interest. ( I will return to this topic again in its own section.) So, no: No one else will do this if I don’t.

Still, this was a problem. Yes, one problem was getting our Institutional Ethics Board to approve such a study. And then there was finding humans who will agree to be exposed, and figuring out how to expose them to CO. Note I use the word “expose to CO” rather than “poison with CO”. The latter phrase still to this day gives me great anxiety and a horrible, gnawing ache in the pit of my stomach.

I was were aware that there is considerable documentation of how the Nazis used deliberate poisoning of tens of thousands of people with carbon monoxide. Initially this was part of their eugenics initiative to kill off the “feebleminded”, mentally ill and physical invalids. These people were stuffed into sealed vans with the tailpipes diverted to the interior of the van. They were driven to a pit. When the van arrived the Nazis had prisoners unload the bodies, dump them in the pits that they had dug, and cover them up. Relatives of the institutionalized received a letter of condolences from the institution. The institution doctors fully participated in this.

My mother’s older sister Sarah, husband Chaim, with children Motek 6 and Shoshana 3 years old were selected by the Nazis for a “special action”, or resettlement, or whatever. Rachella, tried to go with them but Sarah pulled out Rachella’s Ken Karte, a type of work permit, and Rachela was taken out of the line. Chaim also had a Ken Karte but he kept it in his pocket. They all knew they were going to be killed, but he wanted to go with his wife and children. Rachella told me little shoshana was blond and an exceptionally delightful and beautiful little girl. A polish neighbor wanted to hide Shoshana with them, but Sara refused. Sarah and Chaim, also had with them twin cousins from another town, Chaya and Rivka, about 8 years old. Rivka had hydrocephalus and was a bit slow. Their parents were murdered in a pogrom before the Nazis arrived and Sarah and Chaim took them into their home to live with them as their children. They were all taken directly to Treblinka.

For the purpose of this blog I will copy some phrases from Wikipedia.

The Holocaust trains were routinely delayed en route; some transports took many days to arrive.[91] Hundreds of prisoners died from exhaustion, suffocation and thirst while in transit to the camp in the overcrowded wagons.[92] In extreme cases such as the Biała Podlaska transport of 6,000 Jews travelling only a 125-kilometre (78 mi) distance, up to 90 per cent of people were already dead when the sealed doors were opened.[91]

The decoupled locomotive went back to the Treblinka station or to the layover yard in Małkinia for the next load,[91] while the victims were pulled from the carriages onto the platform by Kommando Blau, one of the Jewish work details forced to assist the Germans at the camp.[74] They were led through the gate amidst chaos and screaming.[94] They were separated by gender behind the gate; women were pushed into the undressing barracks and barber on the left, and men were sent to the right. All were ordered to tie their shoes together and strip. Some kept their own towels.[5] The Jews who resisted were taken to the "Lazaret", also called the "Red Cross infirmary", and shot behind it. Women had their hair cut off; therefore, it took longer to prepare them for the gas chambers than men.[69] The hair was used in the manufacture of socks for U-boat crews and hair-felt footwear for the Deutsche Reichsbahn.[k][100]

After undressing, the newly arrived Jews were beaten with whips to drive them towards the gas chambers; hesitant men were treated particularly brutally. According to the postwar testimony of some SS officers, men were always gassed first, while women and children waited outside the gas chambers for their turn. During this time, the women and children could hear the sounds of suffering from inside the chambers, and they became aware of what awaited them, which caused panic, distress, and even involuntary defecation.[96]

The victims were gassed to death with the exhaust fumes conducted through pipes from an engine of a Red Army tank.[l][107] SS-Scharführer Erich Fuchs was responsible for installing it.[108][109] The engine was brought in by the SS at the time of the camp's construction and housed in a room with a generator that supplied the camp with electricity.[77] The tank engine exhaust pipe ran just below the ground and opened into all three gas chambers.[77] The fumes could be seen seeping out. After about 20 minutes the bodies were removed by dozens of Sonderkommandos, placed onto carts and wheeled away [to be buried].

I told myself: ‘I was certain that none of the people killed at the extermination camps would ever tolerate the fact that I, a relative of many who choked to death there, have a treatment for CO poisoning and I let it slide into oblivion, condemning countless others to continue to die from this pernicious poison. “Now Joe,” I told myself, “sit yourself down and fill out an Ethics Review Board application to expose humans to CO. No more procrastination.”