A soldier, who died as a German prisoner of war in 1941, was buried without his brain, a fact his family only discovered nearly 80 years later. Donnie MacRae, a private in the Seaforth Highlanders, was captured during the Battle of St Valery in France in 1940 and died a year later in a prisoner-of-war hospital.
MacRae, 33 at the time, died due to Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological condition. Following his death, an autopsy was performed, during which his brain and part of his spinal cord were removed for research.
These samples were sent to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry in Munich, now the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry, the BBC reported.
While his body was buried by the Germans and later reinterred by the Allies at a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in Berlin, his family was unaware that his brain had been removed.
In 2020, Professor Paul Weindling of Oxford Brookes University contacted MacRae's niece, Libby MacRae, revealing that 160 small slices of his brain and spinal cord had been preserved in the institute's archives. Prof Weindling leads a research project to identify victims whose brain samples were taken during World War II and to ensure their proper commemoration.
"One overlooked group is certainly prisoners of war whose brains were taken for neuropathological research by the Germans," Weindling said.
Donnie MacRae's death in 1941 was linked to a rapidly deteriorating condition, which included paralysis, difficulty speaking, and immobility. His case attracted scientific interest, leading to the dissection of his brain.
Dr Sabine Hildebrandt, a Harvard Medical School lecturer specialising in medical ethics, said that such practices were routine at the time, although ethically questionable. "It's an excruciating fact, but this was the norm for scientific research then," she explained.
During the war, German institutes, including those in Munich and Berlin, harvested human tissues from a variety of victims, including prisoners of war, Holocaust victims, and political prisoners.
After the war, many of these practices were scrutinised during the Nuremberg Trials. However, institutes like the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute continued their research, citing the scientific value of the material.
Efforts are now underway to reunite Donnie's brain with his body. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has agreed to accept the samples from the Max Planck Institute.
"We are hoping this will mean we are in the position to re-inter the remains later this year," the commission said.
Libby MacRae said, "I'm so glad to hear that the specimens will finally be buried, and all of Donnie will be together in a peaceful place."
