Research, part two

This is my second post on my research topic. As I stated before, my first topic of self-cannibalism proved a dud. There was very little to be found on it, so I've decided to change my topic to that of the Nazi's "Human Experimentation" or their medical research in the death camps.

As of yet I have a few questions/paths I could use with the the idea. I thought of the popular topic of if we can use these documents as legitimate sources of research, considering how they were found. Yet, it seems there are MANY papers that address this issue, so I don't particularly want to do it.

I started my research of this with Wikipedia- rather, I got a broad idea of it though it, and used it to link me to other useful sources. However, my initial interest in this topic is due to my project for National History Day in 6th grade when I studied the holocaust- unfortunately, I never read much on the experiments seeing as I was both young and it was a broad topic to cover.

WHen beginning my investigation into this study, I was fascinated by the man Josef Mengele, and his infamous study on twins during the holocaust. The brutality of these, combined with stories of the survivors of this man's torture- how he killed over 3000 twins in his time at Auschwitz- are truly fascinating, and I think I might want to focus on these.

However, I have also looked into other methods of "human experimentation" during this time. These range from the terrors at Dauchu, both the Low-Temperature Experiments, and the High-Altitude Experiments, both of which were used to further investigation on how to keep the German soldiers alive better on the field.
One of the most interesting topics to me is both the idea of the T-4 program that dealt with killing/sterilizing the mentally ill, and using similar techniques in the concentration camps. The Nazi's used such horrific practices to get these results... but at the same time, they make break throughes in the area of hypothermia.


I also have one more question. If the Nazi's were so bent on exterminating Jews, why didn't they just kill them all? Why did they subject so many to a half-life of work and little food? It's hard to imagine that the work they did truly did much help in the end, considering their state.

ANyway, thats my research topic, and now I have the task of narrowing it down to a specific category, though I'm leaning towards Joseph Mengele's twin studies.