Sydney Jewish Museum’s latest special exhibition - “Nazi Medicine 1933-1945” 

30 March to 15 June 2008

Dr George Weisz, a Sydney based orthopaedic surgeon, personally and professionally outraged at Nazi doctors’ abuse of their professional status, is to be credited for aiming to publicise this horrific component of Holocaust history, especially amongst medical students.

Nazi Medicine deals with the central role that Nazi doctors played in designing and implementing Nazi policies in the form of a four step “E” program: eugenics, euthanasia, extermination and experimentation.

Eugenics: German scholars propagated ideas which supported and legitimised Nazi racial doctrines, paving the way for the enforcement of ‘racial hygiene’, sterilisation and castration. “It is the will of Hitler that racial hygiene should be put into practice”. By 1945, some 400,000 Germans had been forcibly sterilised.

Euthanasia: The Nazi Euthanasia program provided for the murder of mentally and physically disabled children and adults alike. “Those suffering from incurable illnesses may be granted a mercy death – Those with a life not worth living”.

Experimentation: 80 different kinds of experiments were carried out in Camps, performed by approximately 400 doctors on 7,000 victims.

Extermination: Whereas sterilisation and euthanasia were exclusively aimed at enhancing the ‘racial purity’ of the German people, exclusion and extermination of the Jews was more than a racial purification process.  The anti-Jewish paranoia led eventually to the Final Solution, or Holocaust – the murder of six million European Jews during World War II.

This significant exhibition clearly displays the dire consequences when medical and legal ethics are ignored. Injustice, bigotry and hatred are unacceptable, wherever and whenever they appear in the world.

Public Programs:

Exhibition Walkabouts with Dr George Weisz will take place on Thu 15 & 29 May at 1pm &

       Sun 15 June at 11am.

Three important public programs have been arranged at the Sydney Jewish Museum:

Wed 2 April, 1pm        Lecture by Dr George Weisz

Jewish Medical Research in Response to Nazi Repression – Hunger and Typhus Diseases & The Underground Medical School in Ghetto Warsaw.

Sun 18 May, 4.30pm   Panel Discussion: The Great Betrayal – Nazi Medical and Legal Ethics

                                    With guest speakers: Professor Ian Kerridge, Dr Ian Kern, Professor Bernard Tuch, Professor Konrad Kwiet and moderator Gina Cass-Gottlieb.

Thu 5 Jun, 6pm           Panel Discussion: Euthanasia

            With guest speakers: Professor Robert Kaplan, Cameron Murphy, Dr George Foster, Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins and moderator Dr Elizabeth Hovey.

On Board – Behind Wire

The Story of the Dunera Boys in the Museum Cafe, 1^st Floor showcase.

Shortly after the outbreak of World War II, about 2,000 Jewish German men, classified as Enemy Aliens, were brought from England to Australia on board the HMT Dunera (Hired Military Transport). Arriving in Sydney on the 6th of September 1940, the Dunera Boys were interned in camps throughout NSW and Victoria. After their release, some of them stayed in the country and became Australian citizens. This small exhibit highlights the memories of the voyage which left an indelible impression in all Dunera Boys. It focuses on personal experiences during their confinement, and on their contribution to Australian society and culture.