One evening about twenty years ago, at the height of my shortwave radio zeal, I was sitting at my desk tuning in Deutsche Welle’s (DW) English broadcast. That night, the well-known German public radio service was airing a program on the use of data from the Dachau Hypothermia Experiments, data they said would be used in modern medical research. I was shocked. It felt like a shadowy figure from a damp corner of a Nazi death camp had crept through the airwaves into my safe little radio cubby.
My repulsion was normal — unless you’re a Holocaust denier or had the wiring snipped on your moral compass. After all, we’re talking about data harvested from mass murders and torture.
The Dachau Hypothermia Experiments were carried out by the Nazis at Dachau concentration camp for almost a year from 1942–43. According to the New England Journal of Medicine — when it could still be trusted back in 1990 — “The subjects in the experiment were male civilian prisoners belonging to various religions and nationalities, as well as Russian prisoners of war.” Naked victims immersed in water took 80 minutes to six hours to die, those with their clothes on suffered longer — lasting six to eight hours before death.
In short, these were not willing subjects in an experiment, they were victims of torture and murder.
There are two obvious disqualifiers for using this data:
- It was gleaned from evil perpetrators — so one should assume it’s inherently flawed. How irrational would it be to trust a pathological liar to give you reliable information?
- It was dependent upon the horrific torture and murder of captive participants. In summation, if we embrace data gathered through such means for the sake of the greater good, what prevents us from justifying the sacrifice of additional individuals to advance medical progress in the future?
Civilizations rise or fall on such precedents.
While these points seem patently clear to many of us, they are lost on others. This is best illustrated in a 2004 article by a former editor-in-chief for the Association of Anaesthetists representing the U.K. and Ireland.
In the article, author David Bogod relates how he attended a lecture where the speaker referenced the “data from Dachau” during his “exposition on immersion-related deaths and near-drowning.” Bogod said he was taken aback by the “unexpected and unwelcome intrusion” of this information, but that he was even more surprised that there was absolutely no reaction from the audience. Yet minutes later, while showcasing an experiment carried out to confirm the Dachau data, the speaker showed a photograph of a pig immersed in water. This time, the audience gasped. Furthermore, when the audience was told that the pig was anesthetized prior to complete submersion, they let out a relieved sigh. It seems that a society’s empathy can collectively wane with each passing decade: a pig’s life then was worth more than the poor souls barbarically murdered sixty years before.
Fast forward to 2025 where we find antisemitism and Holocaust denial burning its way through the social media landscape to singe the minds of a new generation. Worse still, too much of this surge comes from those identifying as conservatives — a deeply disheartening twist that only fuels progressive stereotypes and baseless attacks. (Wikipedia now displays an animated GIF of Elon Musk giving what they describe as a “Nazi salute.”)
Take for instance this widely circulated clip of Candace Owens calling Nazi medical experiments “bizarre propaganda.” In her monologue, Owens, a mother herself, can be seen mocking the idea that the Nazis experimented on twins — most of them children. Since she denies the facts, she cannot show compassion regarding the 3,000 twins who became unwilling medical subjects at Auschwitz-Birkenau. One of those twins, Eva Mozes Kor, founded the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute, Indiana. This woman lived to tell the story, founded a museum to educate future generations, and passed away in 2019. But people like Candace Owens say “bizarre propaganda,” and sneer suspiciously.
In her notorious public feud with The Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro, Owens began repeatedly tweeting out “Christ is King,” as an apparent dig at Shapiro, who is Jewish and supports American aid for Israel. (For an excellent breakdown of how Israel became dependent on U.S. military aid, watch Caroline Glick’s video here.) Owens thus cemented “Christ is King” as a dog whistle for anyone harboring antisemitic views — at least in today’s social media world.
Prior to that, however, the biblical reference was used as a catchphrase by fringe political pundit Nick Fuentes, a foul-mouthed young man who seems to have gathered most of his knowledge from white supremacist and antisemitic websites. Like Owens, he’s gained a following by making outlandish statements.
These two folks have forced us into the very unpleasant reality of seeing “Christ is King” on various social media posts, and not knowing if the person is sending out morse code to attract antisemites — or if they’re simply acknowledging the Kingship of Christ with no hidden agenda. My mother used to say, “Never do anything that would give Christ a black eye.” Owens and Fuentes would do well to heed her advice.
All of which brings me to a spot-on opinion piece titled, “Memo to podcasters: Free speech does not justify promoting antisemitism.” The author, Aaron Pomerantz, is a “research fellow at Rice University’s Doerr Institute for New Leaders and a Middle East Peace fellow with Young Voices.”
Pomerantz opens his article by reprimanding top-ranked podcaster Joe Rogan for giving a platform to Darryl Cooper, whom Pomerantz labels a “Holocaust revisionist and pseudo-historian.” Cooper, known for his podcast “Martyr Made,” has been widely condemned by historians, scholars, and organizations like Yad Vashem for being historically false (or as we used to say…lying).
He then goes after Tucker Carlson for openly defending Iran and Qatar — just months after hosting Cooper himself.
Finally, he mentions comedian Theo Von from the popular podcast, “This Past Weekend.” Earlier this month, Von gave Candace Owens a platform to promote antisemitic conspiracy theories alleging a global Jewish pedophile network. (She also expresses how “disappointed” she is with Trump for his Gaza policy, as well as Americans for “not seeing Muslims as human life.”)
Pomerantz says Rogan and Carlson “build their brands by showcasing inflammatory figures who make dangerously absurd statements, justify atrocities or simply shill for hostile foreign governments.” When confronted about promoting these views, he said they “rarely take responsibility, instead claiming they are just “asking questions” or “engaging different views.”
For anyone who thinks Pomerantz is encouraging censorship he adds, “It’s not censorship for private citizens to guard and govern public discourse — it’s responsible citizenship.” He rightly concludes, “[I]ndividuals have a responsibility to oppose harmful ideas and to call for their removal from public discourse.”
It’s true that we’ve lived into an era where — now more than ever — we can’t trust the media. But we must teach new generations of young people how to discern truth from fiction. That starts now — with an ethical duty to deny antisemites and Holocaust deniers a platform to distort and erase history. Because it all happened — experiments on twins, “reproductive” experiments on women, the Dachau Hypothermia Experiments, and so much more. To reject the reality of these atrocities is to both endorse the brutality of history and invite its ruthless return.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT AMERICAN THINKER:
