User:Bizdata/Major Benjamin Hurewitz

'Major Benjamin Hurewitz, MD' By Steven Hurewitz. At the end of World War Two, the Nazi High Command was transported to the military prison at Nuremberg, Germany, preparatory to standing trial for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity at the International Military Tribunal. There my father, Major Benjamin Hurewitz, MD, US Army, was instrumental in bringing home to Reichsmarschal Goering that he was not to be treated as a statesman or colleague by his captors. My father was the US Army physician in whose charge were placed the surviving leaders of Hitler's Germany.

Goering, who arrived at Nuremberg lugging a suitcase full of paracodeine, a potent narcotic, was subjected to a rectal examination, performed to ensure that he had not secreted poison in any orifice of his body. It bas been written that after this experience, he was a changed man. Not that Goering was broken by the experience. On the contrary, Goering remained a loquacious, manipulative politician to the very end. His "relationship" with his Jewish American doctor was of some importance to him. My father, an allied soldier, had the most intimate knowledge, the most immediate control, and the most authority over the physical well-being of all the members of the Nazi High Command, of anyone associated with these captives. Not their wardens, not their lawyers, not the prosecutors, but Major Benjamin Hurewitz, MD, saw to the care and feeding of the most notorious criminals the world had ever known.

And who was my father to have been chosen for this plum of an assignment? For Nuremberg was the most sought--after post in Europe. Officers from all over the European Theatre of Operations vied to be rotated into that destroyed city, and were soon rotated out again, to make room for thousands who clammered to finish their tour of duty at the site of the final destruction of Nazi Germany. He tells me he never knew why he was chosen. In fact, he received orders his at war's end, completely out of the blue. He had been kicking around London, puzzled at having received no orders to do anything at all, or to be attached to any company. He had been wondering at which service's mess hall he might manage to cadge a meal. When he finally presented himself and demanded to be given at least some orders, instead of remaining in bureacratic limbo, he was ordered to the Nuremberg Jail.

Initially, he wasn't sure what was happening in Nuremberg. Ultimately, he decided that the Army wanted to make sure they could stick it in the Nazi's eyes in the most invasive way imaginable by making sure that their doctor, who was to examine them daily, who was their only hope of medical care and physical comfort, and who was the only authority figure they had the faintest chance of manipulating, was a Jew. Of course, he was a very good doctor. But my father never made much of that. ...