Medicine is one of those professions that can create at least two opinions: "Medicine is our only hope; medicine saves us," or, "Medicine is a great fraud." Either way, medicine has always played a big role in society, and doctors are highly respected in the scientific community nowadays. Of curse, doctors who work in the scientific research field use hairy white animals known as laboratory rats; but during World War II there was a man who instead of using these small mammals, decided to use other hairy, white-skinned (or dark-skinned) animals known as human beings for his experiments. His name was Josef Mengele, also known as the Angel of death.
He was born on March 15, 1911, in Germany. His parents were part of a deeply respected catholic family, and he had two younger brothers: Karl and Alois. Mengele's father, Karl, fought in the Great War, and when it ended, he returned to take care of the family business, spending long hours in a laboratory, experimenting and trying to invent machines that would improve some agricultural tasks.
On the other hand, Mengele was a really promising student - he had excellent grades and a really huge intellect. These were enough reasons for him to leave his hometown and go to Munich to study philosophy. It is important to highlight this event, because it was in that great city were Mengele listened to one of Adolf Hitler's speeches, catching his attention so much that he joined the Nazi Party in 1934.
Years passed and Mengele went from national hero to probably the most terrifying doctor in world history. Around a decade later after joining the Party, the doctor arrived to Auschwitz, where the real magic of his scientific research would begin (details of these experiments will be given later on in this post).
Then, the war ended, Germany lost against the Allies and Mengele had to find a way to get away from there. Disguised as a regular soldier, worked in another camp, left it before it was destroyed; then he was taken as a prisoner of war and ironically was set free by the Allies.
He then started to plan his escape from Europe. By creating a false Italian identity for himself, he obtained a passport and left to Argentina. That was almost in 1950, and from that moment until his death (in 1979, almost confirmed in a 100%), Mengele spent his days running from any possible danger and any possibility of his detention. He lived in Paraguay for a time and in Brazil (where he is suspected to have created a twin town).
About Mengele's experiments
(This is when the terrible part of the post begins.)
Though Dr. Mengele is enormously famous because of his experiments, he was obviously not the only one who attempted in such a savage way against people. General experiments (this is, experiments that took place in different concentration camps) included:
- High-altitude experiments: their purpose was to investigate how much a human being could resist high altitudes without the use of oxygen.
- Incendiary-bomb experiments: human guinea pigs had inflicted wounds with matter used for bombs, and the aim of the experiments was to know the effects of different pharmaceutical preparations on that kind of burns.
- Freezing experiments: they were done to know about human resistance on too-cold weather conditions (which was actually a valuable information for the German troops in the East), and they were performed either by putting someone [naked] inside a vat full of icy water or by leaving the person [naked, once more] outside of the laboratory, in the natural freezing weather of the camp. Doctors also tried a series of ways to "warm" the unconscious men, which including leaving them under a burning sun lamp; irrigating hot water into the man's stomach, bladder and intestines; and hot baths. They even tried to do a warming by body heat experiment, making a woman try to have sexual intercourse with a frozen man (one of the sickest things I've ever heard, in my opinion).
- Malaria experiments: doctors infected people with malaria by mosquito bites, trying to know about immunization for the disease, as well as to search a treatment. Obviously, most of the people died (it is believed that around 90%).
Dr. Mengele had a specific type of scientific sample - twins (he believed that if he found a way to make women give birth to twins, the Aryan race would populate the world more quickly), dwarves (from whom he studied physiology and pathology), and any human with interesting physical traits. Mengele had such an importance in Auschwitz that he was one of the few people who could decide who went directly to the gas chambers, who was going to be working and who would be part of the experiments. Even the SS guards felt somewhat afraid when he arrived to do so.
Mengele treated his "patients" (before the experiments) in a good way: he let them play, no one cut their hair... Some kids even called him Uncle Mengele. The kids had a non-violent life, and the only painful thing was the blood drawn from legs, arms, and even neck. Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever, and the humane treatment this people (mostly kids) received ended once they were taken to the laboratories. The following were some of the experiments performed by Josef Mengele:
- Measurements: twins were brought to the lab, and every single physical aspect of them was measured (hair, height, eyes, even underarm hair). This took several hours, even days at times.
- Twin blood: Mengele and his doctors performed massive blood transfusions from one twin to the other.
- Eye color: Mengele believed that there was a way to change the color of the iris, so a series of chemical substances were injected (or dropped) into the people's eyes.
- Diseases: one twin was injected a disease (such as tuberculosis or typhus) and the other one wasn't. When the infected twin died, the doctors killed the other twin. Both were sent to the pathologist (Dr.Miklos Nyiszli) to compare the effects of the disease.
- Surgeries: many surgeries were performed, none of them with anesthesia. These included castration, organ removal and amputations. Mengele even tried to sew twins together as siameses.
In order to kill the people when they were no longer useful, they were stabbed with a needle that pierced their heart; the needle contained either chloroform or phenol, killing them in a matter of seconds.
This experiments definitely took the idea of "He died for the science sakes" to a totally new level - a truly sadistic one. Being able to perform these series of tests (especially on children) without feeling any pain or even a slight remorse cannot be proper of a human being. Those doctors who once swore to help people not only betrayed the Hippocratic Oath, but they also betrayed humanity.
Science is meant to help people, to explain the mysteries of the nature, but when it is left in the hands of hundreds of psychopaths, things such as these are likely to happen.
--> Sources:
- http://www.auschwitz.dk/mengele/id17.htm
- http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/blmengele.htm
- http://sgm.casposidad.com/prensa/angelmuerte.htm
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/brazil/4307262/Nazi-angel-of-death-Josef-Mengele-created-twin-town-in-Brazil.html
- http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/aumed.html
- http://www.mengele.dk/children/experiments.htm
- http://www.remember.org/educate/medexp.html
- http://history1900s.about.com/od/auschwitz/a/mengeletwins_2.htm
