Josef Mengele and the Twins

By: Nat Powell

     My topic was Josef Mengele and the Twins. Twins in experimentation during WW2 was very important because the doctors found the heredity traits fasicnating. A lot of doctors wanted to find out the secrets about it and how it worked. One of these doctors was Josef Mengele.

      Josef Mengele was born on March 16, 1911. His parents were Karl and Walburga Mengele. He also had two younger brothers named Karl and Alois. His family members supposedly called him "Beppo". He grew up in a very nice and great family. In 1926 though, he was diagnosed with osteomyetilis. Nothing of his early life would lead you to believe that he would grow up to be such a sick man. In 1930, he graduated from the gymnasium and a year after that, he joined the Steel Helmuts. He spent several years working for themand on Janurary 1, 1937 he was appointed a research assitant at the Third Reich Institute for Heredity, Biology, and Racial Purity at the University of Frankfurt. In the year of 1938, he admitted to the SS. In July 1938, he was given his medical degree by the University of Frankfurt. In October of 1938, he began basic training in Wehrmact and in July of 1939 he married Irere Schoenbein.

      He then went to several of the camps to work and help out, with medical research. He was tired of helping out though. He wanted to create a name for himself. He then thought if he could find out the secrets of heredity, then he would be famous. Some secrets that him and the other doctors wanted to find out were how were some so unique and what difference in genes did that have from other people. He thought if he could figure this out, then he could figure out how to make all the children of the future blonde haired and blue eyed. These children were said to be pure. Some of the people he experimented on were dwarves, giants, and people with unique traits. The types of people he was most interested in though were twins.

     On May 30, 1943, he first arrived at Aushwitz. When the people then arrived to the camp, he pointed to the left or the right determining if they lived a few days or went straight to the gas chambers. He then picked out the people who he wanted to conduct experiments on and took them with him.

     "When we stepped off the trains, we could hear soldiers yelling, "Men on one side, women on the other side!" Some of the German SS gaurds were also shouting, "We want twins- bring us the twins!" Dr. Mengele was making the selections. He stood there, tall, nice-looking, and he was dressed very well, as if he wanted to make a good impression. He had very soft hands, and he made fast decisions. I heard my father cry out to them he had twins. He went over personally to Dr. Mengele and told him, "I have a pair of twin boys." Mengele sent some SS guards over to us. My twin, Tibi and I were ordered to leave our parents and follow them. But we didn't want to be seperated from our mother, and so the Nazis seperated us by force. My father begged Mengele t ogive us some food and water. But Mengele motioned to an SS guard, who beat him up on the spot. As we were led away, I saw my father fall to the ground." ~Children of the Flames, Moshe Offer~

     When Mengele brought the children to a special location in the camp, they were taken to the showers. The twins were often allowed to keep their own clother and hair. Afterward, they were required to fill out a form. If the children were yound enough the mothers were allowed to go with them. The forms asked for basic measurments and details about them such as age, height, and a brief history. After that was completed, the twins were taken to Mengele for a personal inspection. They had to take off all of their clothes so Mengele could indentify any unusual traits. Every day the twins had to get blood drawn. It was estimated that 10 cm^3 of blood was drawn each day. The ones who were young and not big enough had to get blood drawn from their necks. Mengele treated the children just like his own. He was known as the man who gave them sweets and patted on the head. He even sometimes played with the twins. Some of the children even called him Uncle Mengele. They thought of him as a great person and that he took care of them. The twins conditions at the camp were a lot better than the rest of the prisoners. It wasn't till they were sent off in trucks to the labratories they were introduced to Mengele as "The Angel of Death."

     When the twins arrived at the labratories, they were forced to undress and lay down next to each other. Every detail was studied very carefully. These tests often lasted for several hours. Then they were to be experimented on whatever Mengele had in mind. If it was a blood test, usuall blood was taken from one twin and injected into the other. Sometimes the tests were to see if you could change the twins' eye color with chemicals. These chemicals were injected into the eye and were often very painful and could sometimes cause the twins to go blind. The surgeries were performed without using anesthesia. Some of the surgeries were organ removal, castration, and amputations.    

       "One day, my twin brother Tibi, was taken away for some special experiments. Dr. Mengele had always been more interested in Tibi. I am not sure why- perhaps because he was the older twin. Mengele made several operations on Tibi. One surgery on his spine left my brother paralyzed. He could not walk anymore. Then they took out his sexual organs. After the fourth operation, I did not see Tibi anymore. I cannot tell you how I felt. It is impossible to put into words how I felt. They had taken away my father, my mother, my two older brothers- and now my twin." ~Children of the Flames, Moshe Offer~

     If the twins died while getting experimented on or purposly killed to see the after-death, they were sent to the cremetorium. Sometimes the twins were killed by getting a needle stabbed into their heart with chloroform or phenol that immediatly killed them. The eyes, organs, tissues, and blood samples were then sent to Verschuer for further study. After the war, Josef Mengele was never found. He left before the Russians liberated on Feburary 11, 1945. It is believed that he died on Feburary 7, 1979 on the beach at Bertioga in Embu, Brazil while suffering a stroke while swimming in the ocean. Till this day, no one knows if it was good or bad to be a twin. Some mothers were affraid to volunteer their children, so they made them march to the gas chambers with them. Only 160 out of 3,000 twins surrvived.

      "One of the reporters asked me, "Why are you singing?" I told him that I found strangely upbeat. I had never walked through these grounds as a free human being. Forty years before, I had been a skinny kid, half-dead, an orphan. Then we could have died like flies, and it wouldn't have mattered. Now here I was, surrounded by the world press. Since the Holocaust, I had always felt that if only the world knew our story, it would care. At Auschwitz, surrounded by all these reporters, I felt people do care. The whole time I was at Auschwitz, I had this wonderful feeling my mother was there also listening to me, watching over me. If I could, I would go back to Auschwitz every year". ~Children of the Flames, Eva Mozes~

Sources

• about.com
• deathcamps.info
• remember.org

Children of the Flames

Lagnado, Lucette M., and Sheila C. Dekel. Children of the Flames. New York: Penguin Books, 1992