Josef Mengele German doctor, Nazi, who conducted experiments on prisoners of Auschwitz Date of Birth: 16.03.1911 Country: Brazil

1. Biography of Josef Mengele - The Angel of Death
2. Arrival in Auschwitz
3. Activities in Auschwitz
4. Post-War Life and Death

Biography of Josef Mengele - The Angel of Death

Josef Mengele was a German doctor and Nazi who conducted experiments on prisoners in Auschwitz. Many people wonder if Mengele was simply a sadist who took pleasure in the suffering of others, in addition to his scientific work. Those who worked with him recounted that Mengele, to the surprise of many colleagues, would sometimes administer lethal injections to the subjects himself, beat them, and throw capsules of deadly gas into the chambers, observing the prisoners' deaths.

Arrival in Auschwitz

In the area of the Auschwitz concentration camp, there was a large pond where the unused ashes of prisoners incinerated in the crematorium furnaces were dumped. The remaining ashes were transported by wagon to Germany, where they were used as fertilizer. It was in these same wagons that new prisoners were brought to Auschwitz, personally greeted by a tall, smiling young man who had just turned 32. This man was the new doctor of Auschwitz, Josef Mengele. He would appear with his entourage before the newly arrived prisoners to select "subjects" for his monstrous experiments. The prisoners were stripped naked and lined up, with Mengele walking along the line, occasionally pointing out suitable individuals with his characteristic gesture. He alone decided who would be sent to the gas chamber immediately and who could still work for the benefit of the Third Reich. Death to the left, life to the right. People who appeared sickly, elderly, or women with young children were typically sent to the left with a careless gesture of the hand holding the characteristic gesture.

Activities in Auschwitz

Mengele began his activities in Auschwitz by stopping a typhus epidemic that had been discovered among several Roma prisoners. In order to prevent the disease from spreading to other prisoners, he sent the entire barrack (more than a thousand people) to the gas chamber. Later, typhus was discovered in the women's barrack, and once again the entire barrack - about 600 women - was sent to their deaths. Mengele was unable to find another way to combat typhus in such conditions.

Prior to the war, Josef Mengele studied medicine and even defended his dissertation on "Racial Differences in the Structure of the Lower Jaw" in 1935. Later, he obtained his doctorate. He had a special interest in genetics, and in Auschwitz, his greatest interest was in twins. He conducted experiments without anesthesia, dissecting live infants. He attempted to sew twins together, change their eye color using chemicals, and extracted and implanted teeth. He also conducted research on a substance capable of causing infertility and castrated boys and sterilized women. According to some reports, he managed to sterilize an entire group of nuns using X-ray radiation. Mengele's interest in twins was not accidental. The Third Reich had tasked scientists with increasing birth rates, making artificial increases in the birth of twins and triplets the main goal. However, the offspring of the Aryan race had to have light hair and blue eyes, hence Mengele's attempts to change the eye color of children using various chemicals.

Post-War Life and Death

After the war, Josef Mengele was declared a war criminal, but he managed to escape. He spent the remainder of his life in Brazil and on February 7, 1979, during a swim, he suffered a stroke and drowned. His grave was only discovered in 1985, and after the exhumation of the remains in 1992, it was confirmed that the grave indeed belonged to Josef Mengele, who had earned a reputation as one of the most terrifying and dangerous Nazis.