Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America

by Annie Jacobsen

of her shinbones removed. Dr. Gebhardt then ordered that Iwanska’s surgical wounds be deliberately infected with bacteria to cause gangrene, so he could treat them with sulfa drugs to see if the drugs worked. It was nothing short of a miracle that Janina Iwanska survived. Now, nine years later, she continued to suffer great physical pain. She walked with a limp because of the decimation of her shinbones. The purpose of the trip to the United States was to allow Iwanska to undergo surgery, at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, to help alleviate this pain. Dr. Gebhardt had been Major General Dr. Schreiber’s direct subordinate at Ravensbrück. Gebhardt had been one of the twenty-three defendants tried at the doctors’ trial. He was convicted, sentenced to death, and hanged in the courtyard at Landsberg Prison in June, 1948. Dr. Schreiber was working for the U.S. Air Force in Texas.