TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- German pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG participated in World War II atrocities committed by Nazi doctors who experimented on Jews, according to a suit filed by a Holocaust survivor.
Eva Mozes Kor of Terre Haute filed the lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court here. With her sister, Kor was among the hundreds of sets of twins experimented on by the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele at the Auschwitz concentration camp.Bayer paid Nazi officials for access to those confined in concentration camps and collaborated in Nazi experiments as a form of research and development, plaintiff's lawyer Irwin B. Levin said.
"It's impossible to put on a scale the various horrors of the Holocaust, but this case represents the worst example of individual and corporate evil that the legal system may ever see," he said.
She claims that Bayer monitored and supervised the experiments. Her lawsuit states that prisoners were injected with germs known to cause diseases "to test the effectiveness of various drugs" manufactured by Bayer.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and the recovery of profits it maintains Bayer earned as a result of such research.
For decades, Bayer has denied any involvement in the experiments, refused to offer any compensation and refused to disclose information, according to the lawsuit.
Previously, Bayer had admitted to using slave labor drafted from concentration camps. On Tuesday, Bayer AG was among a dozen German companies that said they would participate in a fund to compensate individuals who had been used for slave labor.