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THE ANGEL OF DEATH: JOSEF MENGELE

Josef Mengele is by far the most recognized Nazi Doctor of all time. Revered as the Auschwitz Angel of Death, he caused much pain to the prisoners of Auschwitz. He became part of the SS (Shtuz Staffel) in 1937, after receiving his medical degree. He was injured on the front lines, and was promoted to Captain in the SS. He was sent first to the camp of Birkenau which was later completely liquidated (all prisoners killed) and then was sent to Auschwitz. He worked on block ten (the medical experimentation block) to discorver the secrets of genetics.

Josef was also part of deciding who was instantly gassed or who was sent to the labor camps. He actually wrote a research paper on identifying the racial aspects to people based solely on their jaw structure. He claimed that he could tell if a person was Jewish just by glancing at them. As such he was fit for the job. It was said that when families and the POWs of war would approach the area he was standing he would motion his hand to the left if he wanted people gassed, and to the right if it was for labor. He rarely chose labor for prisoners. Mengele did however look for abnormalities. Dwarfs, twins, and others of the sort were specifically looked for so that he might study them. He wished to find the secrets of twins and genetics to create the perfect Aryans for the new world order that was to come. There were even orders for the other SS officers who also directed people to labor or death to search and find out these unique persons.

Mengele was noted for his immense cruelty, as he would often preform his surgeries without anthistetic, causing often death from shock. Children that survived the twin treatments have been known to say that Mengele was often kind at first, and would offer comfort and candy them before and after surgery. However, he was also known for rampant cruelty. When a bad case of lice occurred in one of Auschwitz blocks he ordered all 750 women gassed to death to prevent anymore lice infestations. One day he was said to have moved over 1000 prisoners to the gas chambers to open up space, and because a extra transport had arrived at Auschwitz earlier.

As for his actual "treatments" Mengele did the majority of his work on the abnormalities of the prisoners, which he called his "children". He would perform live vivisections on his patients to see how reacted and felt as he was opening them up. There was one recorded case where he attempted to create conjoined twins, from regular twins. The result, a success at first, failed later when the vein that was connected between the twins became so badly infected that they died from it."One day Mengele brought chocolate and special clothes.The next day SS men came and took two children away. They were two of my pets, Tito, and Nino. One of them was a hunchback. Two or three days later, an SS man brought them back in a terrible condition. They had been cut, the hunchback had been sewn back to back with the other child, their wrists were back to back too.There was a terrible smell of gangrene. The cuts were dirty and the children cried every night." (Vera Alexander, Interview)

Outside of his military career, Mengele seemed a decent man with a wife and children, with a passion for driving fast and being a daredevil.These factors are however not shown at his workplace. He was described as cynical, heartless, and eager to send people to the gas chambers by many other doctors and "patients". His view of the prisoners were simply as an endless supply of human test subjects that could easliy be replaced if one was damaged or destroyed. A quote from the West Germany Indictment describes him perfectly "The accused Josef Mengele, is charged with having carried out medical experiments on living prisoners for scientific publication out of ambition and personal career progression. He fully intended the victim to die according to the manner of the experiment and valued their lives very cheaply. They often died merely to further his medical knowledge and academic education" (The West Germany Indictment, arrest warrant).

After the war Mengele escaped being captured and fled to Brazil. There he lived out the next fifteen years of his life being hunted as a Nazi war criminal until his death 15 years later when he drowned while swimming.

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Rory Dunn