Not all Nazi human experimentations ended with death. Some Australian soldiers may have suffered for years after being guinea pigs for Nazi scientists. Amanda Smith tells their story.

Some of the cruellest, vilest things humans do to each other are done in wartime.

During the Second World War, one of the most shocking things that occurred—in a long list of shocking things—was human medical experimentation in Nazi concentration camps.

Until now, however, it wasn't known that the Nazis also experimented on Australian POWs.

There were hundreds, if not thousands, of other medical experimentations carried out in other venues, and they haven't attracted any attention until now. Konrad Kwiet

Konrad Kwiet is the resident historian at the Sydney Jewish Museum. He's researching the experiments alongside surgeon and academic George Weisz.

'Dr Weisz discovered in the Australian Archives the files of these five Australian POWs who were subjected to medical experimentation,' says Kwiet.

In May of 1941, the Germans invaded the Greek island of Crete. Over 1,000 Australians were taken prisoner.

A small group of them attracted the attention of SS physician Dr Friedrich Meythaler.

'He selected five healthy Australian POWs,' says Kwiet. 'He examined them, took their blood, they were X-rayed, and then he injected them with the blood of hepatitis-infected German soldiers.'

Meythaler was a bacteriologist and was trying to establish how infectious hepatitis was transmitted human-to-human.

'He injected the infected blood into the Australian prisoners of war and then he again examined them, and what he found is that after a few days they responded with an enlargement of the liver, then an increase of temperature and other symptoms.'

The experiments were non-consensual.

'He was engaged in experiments that the Nazi regime offered him, enhancing his career and moving into an area of research that he normally would not have achieved in a more civilised or democratic society,' says Kwiet.

One of the five Australians escaped and made his way to Egypt before being shipped back to Australia, where he reported the incident to the Australian military authorities.

None of the Australian POWs died as a direct result of the experimentation. Four of them were later transferred from Crete to a prisoner of war camp in Silesia.

'One of those was shot while attempting to escape,' says Kwiet. 'So one made it to Australia, one was killed during incarceration, and the others survived the incarceration and came back to Australia.'

None of them is alive now.

'It's a totally forgotten or unknown chapter in the history of Australian military men exposed to German experimentation.'

In 1942, Dr Meythaler published his findings in an academic journal. After the war he became a highly-respected hepatitis expert, the director of medicine at Nuremburg Hospital and a professor at Erlangen University.

There's a strange twist to the story for Kwiet, who was born in Germany in 1941. While researching the career of Meythaler in Germany, he discovered a family connection.

'As it turned out, long, long, long after the war, my mother, who is Jewish, and my sister, both doctors, they met Professor Meythaler and they found a very friendly partner in dialogue,' he says.

'This is a very twisted or very weird result of my studies on this particular German doctor.'

Can what was done to those Australian soldiers be considered a war crime? Kwiet believes so.

'It falls into an area where those who are subjected to those crimes did not die, but we don't know as to whether these experiments have had longer effects on the person.

'There are different levels of this experimentation, and historians have always more or less focused on these barbaric, inhuman crimes in concentration camps, but there were hundreds, if not thousands, of other medical experimentations carried out in other venues, and they haven't attracted any attention until now.'

Kwiet and his research colleague George Weisz plan to publish an article on this episode later in 2016.

Hear the full program Saturday 12 March 2016 Vulnerable people were used for non-consensual medical experiments well into the 20th century. More This [series episode segment] has image, and transcript

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