Josef Mengele

Has anyone heard of him?

He was a death camp doctor of Auschwitz, and did tests on twins and such.

"In 1943 Mengele replaced another doctor who had fallen ill at the Nazi extermination camp Birkenau. On May 24 1943, he became medical officer of Auschwitz-Birkenau's "Gypsy camp." In August 1944, this camp was liquidated and all its inmates gassed. Subsequently Mengele became Chief Medical Officer of the main infirmary camp at Birkenau. He was not, though, the Chief Medical Officer of Auschwitz — superior to him was SS-Standortarzt (garrison physician) Eduard Wirths.[5]

It was during his 21-month stay at Auschwitz that Mengele achieved infamy and it is for this period that he gained the moniker "Angel of Death." Mengele took turns with the other SS physicians at Auschwitz in meeting incoming prisoners at the ramp, where it was determined who would be retained for work and who would be sent to the gas chambers immediately.[6] The Angel of Death fed his legend by dramatizing murderous policies, such as his drawing a line on the wall of the children's block between 150 and 156 centimeters (about 5 feet or 5 feet 2 inches) from the floor, and then sending those whose heads could not reach the line to the gas chamber ... (Lifton, p. 346.)[7]

Josef Mengele was the chief provider for the gas chambers and their crematoria. "He had a look that said 'I am the power,'" said one survivor. When it was reported that one block was infected with lice, Mengele solved the problem by gassing all the 750 women assigned to it.[citation needed] Mengele was, at the time, only 32 years old.[8]

I read a book called Children Of The Flames about the twins that survived this man's torture... from what the twins said he made them breed with their sibling twins, injected dye into their eyes to change their eye colors, cut them open alive to study their insides, and all kinds of other horrid things.


He also took two Gypsy children and sewed them together to try to make Siamese twins.


After the death camp he dissapeared for a long time using different names and staying in hiding.

"Mengele was listed on the Allies' list of war criminals as early as 1944. His name was mentioned in the Nuremberg trials several times, but Allied forces were convinced that Mengele was dead, which was also claimed by Irene and the family in Günzburg. In 1959, after suspicions had grown that he was still alive, given his divorce from Irene in 1955 and his marriage to Martha in 1958, a warrant of arrest was issued by the German authorities. Subsequently, German attorneys, such as Fritz Bauer, Israel's Mossad, and private investigators like Simon Wiesenthal and Beate Klarsfeld followed the trail of the "Angel of Death". The last confirmed sightings of Mengele placed him in Paraguay, and it was believed that he was still hiding there, protected by Hans-Ulrich Rudel and possibly even by president Alfredo Stroessner himself. Sightings of Mengele were reported all over the world, but they turned out to be false clues and probably due to the media attention given to his case.

In 1985, the German police raided the house of Hans Sedlmeier in Günzburg and seized address books, letters and papers hinting at the grave in Embu. Mengele was exhumed 6 June 1985 and identified by forensic experts from UNICAMP. Rolf Mengele issued a statement saying that he "had no doubt it was the remains of his father".[27] Everything was kept quiet "to protect those who knew him in South America", Rolf said. In 1992, a DNA test confirmed Mengele's identity. He had evaded capture for 34 years and was the subject of Ira Levin's best-selling novel and later film adaptation, The Boys from Brazil.

After the exhumation, the São Paulo Institute for Forensic Medicine stored his remains and attempted to repatriate them to the remaining Mengele family members. The bones have remained in the custody of Dr. Rubens Maluf owing to the family's refusal to accept them.[1]

On Sept 17, 2007, the US Holocaust Museum released photographs taken from a photo album of Auschwitz staff, which contained eight photographs of Mengele. The eight photos of Mengele are the first authenticated pictures of him at Auschwitz, museum officials said.[28]"


Your thoughts on him?

There's not much to say.... Sounds like a really twisted person who must have felt what Hitler was doing was right, hence why he did what he did at the camp. But that he evaided arrest...I wonder how he managed that....

Ah, The Death Angel. Even though some of his "studies" were abit inhumane...and gruesome, I particularlly like Joseph. Someone to be so interested on the human mind just seems so facinating to me.

PenisFace:

I particularlly like Joseph.

..Like him as a person or like him as in you find him interesting?

.....

I find him interesting?

Gravity Thrill:

I read about him on Wikipedia. Some of the things he did were so so sick. But really the whole nazi régime was one sick, twisted mess.

Blue Demon said "he must have felt what Hitler was doing was right." But thousands upon thousands of people thought what Hitler was doing was right. People were very anti-semetic way before Hitler and people continue to be anti-semetic now. But to blame one race for everything is stupid.

A bit off topic...

But don't use wikipedia because anyone in the world can post on there, someone posted that Hitler and 3 children and was killed by an american soldier... lie much?

So yeah, just be double careful with wikipedia... in senior schooling we're banned from using it in assignments.

But this guy was a bit messed up, Lots of things that happened in those camps were disgusting. Dead twins in test tubes and stuff, lamps and tables made from Human skin.

I have a stuffed bear named Mengele.
He's very interesting, but of course I don't support anything he did.

This dude facinates me...I'm by no means approving anything he did, I'm Jewish myself, but wow! What the heck was going through his mind? I mean, Christ, innocent children...why would he even have the desire to find out those things anyway? People are perfect the way they are and there's absolutely no need to alter them.

I'm thinking about doing my history project on him...it has to be a case study on a figure from the Holocaust...