SCIENCE DESK

AN EXPERIMENT conducted by students of the Attic Institute, a Holocaust research centre based in Tel Aviv, Israel, has found that the speeches of Adolf Hitler, played in public places, at a very low frequency, which is hardly audible to humans, produced a curious reaction in Germany: many people involuntarily came to attention.

“It was quite extraordinary,” said Paul Sherlock, a PhD candidate who took part in the experiment. “We brought along a crude old tape recorder and played these speeches at such a low frequency that even we could not hear them. At first nothing happened. But then people began to slow down in what they were doing. We did this in railway stations, public areas, shopping districts, parks, even in churches. Yes. So the people would slow, and then stop. And people sitting down would stand up. This was particularly noticeable in churches, where people stood up when they were supposed to sit down. In the end, very subtly, people came to what can only be described as attention.”

The Attic Institute was established in memory of Anne Frank and her family and has been conducting research into little studied aspects of the attempted destruction of European Jewery. It is run on charitable donations and has a Patreon page.

Dr Yitzhak Pale, who lectures in children’s studies at the Institute said: “We saw that younger people came to attention quicker than the older ones. Not everyone did come to attention, I want to make that clear, but the young they were more plentiful and quicker; and smarter at attention. As if they were answering a command. Occasionally, they were beaten to it by a very old man, who we figured was possibly someone who may have served the Third Reich. Or a former prisoner of the Nazis. It’s hard to know individual motivations.”

Paul Sherlock said there was another interesting discovery they made.

“When we examined our footage – because we filmed all this – we realized that people’s movements were synchronized with the patterns of the speeches,” he explained. “Hitler was known to begin slowly, then build his words into a frenzy. We’ve all heard it. I challenge anyone not to have the hairs on the backs of their necks rise. If he was reading out a cake recipe, it would have been the same. Anyway, we saw people move in line with this Fuhrer rhythm. Remarkable.”

The researchers performed the same experiment right across Europe and it had some similar effects on the very young but not on others of a more mature age. “Yes, the very old in Poland and such places appeared almost to cower,” Pale said. “That was noticeable. They did not stand when the speeches were played. And if standing, they went to sit down. Or even walk away. But the very young …”

An did they do the experiment in Israel?

“No comment,” Pale replied. “No, no comment.”