The Ovitz Family

It’s true that American scientists and moralists were tough on the freak show, but their approach to oppression largely consisted of passing legislation. The Nazis, on the other hand, took it a step further. Get ready for some really disturbing history regarding the freak show in Germany.

• “On July 14, 1933, the new government issued its ‘Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases.’ People with so-called hereditary illnesses had to be sterilized, even if they objected.” (Georgetown University)
• “In 1937, Germany passed a law outlawing freak shows, decrying them as exploitation (this however made it legal for the Nazis to arrest freakshow acts and experiment on them).” (CircusGuide)
• On May 7, 1944, the Transylvanian Jewish Ovitz family was sent to Auschwitz. The family members had pseudoachondroplasia dwarfism, and previously traveled as a musical troupe. Nazi Doctor Mengele abused this family in the name of experimental science. According to The Human Marvels:
  

  Not content to keep his prized subject hidden within the confines of his laboratory, Mengele displayed the Ovitz family, striped nude, to groups of senior Nazis while lecturing on their inferior genetics. He also created a film for Adolf Hitler’s amusement staring the Ovitz family. The Ovitz family sang German songs when ordered to do so out of terror. Shortly before the request they had witnessed two newcomer dwarfs being killed and boiled so their bones could be exhibited in a Nazi museum.

The horrors of the Nazi medical community are now widely acknowledged, but few recognize the hideous torture focused on the freak show community during this depraved era of mankind.

Tags: anatomical oddity, med, racism