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Evil Doctors and Scientists From World War II

Khalid Elhassan January 15, 2021 33 min

Second Battle of Champagne - Second Battle of Ypres — French soldiers wearing gas masks in WWI trenches, waiting for an order to launch an attack. Flickr

2. Dr. Petiot Exploited the French Resistance to Indulge in Serial Killing

Marcel Petiot on the dock during his trial. La Venir

Dr. Petiot claimed to have been a member of the French Resistance. According to him, he developed secret weapons that killed Nazis without leaving a trace, planted booby traps, met Allied commanders, and worked with an anti-fascist cell. It was all bunk. What was not bunk was his evil scheme to profit from the Holocaust by murdering dozens of Jews in order to steal from them. Using the alias “Dr. Eugene”, Petiot claimed to have an escape route to get those wanted by the Nazis or the collaborationist Vichy French government to safety outside of France.

Charging 25,000 francs per person, “Dr. Eugene” promised to get fugitives to Argentina or other South American countries, via an escape route that went through Portugal. There was no escape route. Accomplices led victims desperate to escape the Germans – particularly Jews, but also Resistance members and ordinary criminals – to Petiot’s house. There, he told them that Argentina required that immigrants be vaccinated against diseases. Petiot then injected them, not with a vaccine, but with cyanide. In addition to the payment already received, the ghoulish ring seized whatever other valuables the victims had. They then destroyed their corpses in Petiot’s basement, buried them on his property, or disposed of them elsewhere.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.