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Dr. Josef Mengele: Angel of Death

Josef Mengele was born in 1911 in a small town. He studied philosophy in Munich and got his medical degree in Frankfort. Mengele became part of the Nazi Party in 1937, being known as a "refined, intellegent, popular" person. 2 years later he joined the S.S. (Schutzstaffel - protection squads including the Gestapo), and in 1943 he was brought to Aushwitz. Mengele was named pathologist and while he and his fellow officers had their luxuries, they also had complete control over their prisoners' lives. Mengele in particular sent thousands of people to their demise. Not only did he preform gruesome experiments on his captives, but he also did the entire "selection" process. Described as a "metronome", with his thumb hooked in his belt, Mengele pointed to the left (life but labor), or the right (death), all the while whistling Wagner's operas. Probably what made Mengele so horrible was his experiments. His objective: to 1) make the "pure" Aryan race, 2)double the German population, and 3)find better treatments for German soldiers. Some things Mengele did includes: clinical exams, blood transfusions, x-rays, isolation endurance, sex changes, removal of limbs/organs, eye color changes, and impregnations, all without anestheshia. Most of Mengele's experiments were on twins because they served as controls. Plus, if he studied them he would find out how to increase birth-rate. Of course, the knowledge of some of his more gruesome experiments have been carried to the grave of his test subjects, but there are some that we know of. One of his more common ones was used to create better equipment for the German soldiers. Mengele would place naked people in tubs of ice water and then outside in the snow. He would leave them like that until they were at fatal temperatures. Then sometimes, he would try to warm the person back up to functioning temperatures. This almost never worked. Another one of Mengele's experiments was to lock someone inside a pressure chamber to simulate flying at high temperatures. Breathing patterns would be recorded until the person suffocated, or sometimes, exploded. Some were sewed together in an attempt to create Siamese twins and some had chemicals dripped in their eyes, resulting in blindness and excrutiating pain. Once, Mengele's assistant, a Hungarian prisoner named Miklos Nyiszli, asked him "When will this program of destruction end?". Mengele answered, "It will go on and on and on...". Some prisoners were not subjects of his tests but hurt in other ways. One survivor remembers he once "insisted on delivering a prisoner's baby. He took every precaution, was very careful. Half an hour later both mother and child were sent to the creamatorium." This is the way Mengele was. On one side he was kind and gentle, and on the other he was heartless and uncaring, but when the two overlapped.....that's when he was the worst. At the end of the war in 1945 most of Mengele's deeds were burned to the ground, but Mengele himself was caught and put in a U.S-run prison camp. He escaped though and fled to Argentina. Between 1946 and 1979 he moved around to many different countries in South America. There was a great hunt for him but he was never found. On January 4, 1979 he was persuaded to go for a night swim in Brazil but while swimming he had a stroke and started to drown. The family he was staying with pulled him out of the water but it was too late. Mengele was dead. This was not found out until 1985 and when it was, Mengele's family turned over his diaries and letters to the authorites. So ends the ruthless life of Dr. Josef Mengele.

Bibliography:

Adler, David A. WE REMEMBER THE HOLOCAUST. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1989, pp. 73, 81-5, 123
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Bachrach, Susan D. TELL THEM WE REMEMBER. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1994, pg. 56
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Caikin, Miriam. A NIGHTMARE IN HISTORY. New York: Clarion Books, 1987, pp. 87, 91, 115
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Friedman, Ira R. THE OTHER VICTIMS. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1990, pp. 10, 66
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Friedrich, Otto. THE KINGDOM OF AUSCHWITZ. New York: Harper Collins Pub., 1994, pp. 21, 24, 56-57
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Rogasky, Barbara. SMOKE AND ASHES. New York: Holiday House, 1988, pp. 74, 78, 79, 92, 94, 107, 197
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Auschwitz: med.experimentation-mengele
October 25, 1997
Information about "Dr" Mengele
October 25, 1997
C.A.N.D.L.E.S. homepage
October 25, 1997
http://www.modcult.brown.edu/students/angell/mengele.html
October 25, 1997
Doctors
October 25, 1997

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Linda Daubert

lndaubert@juno.com
State College, PA
United States