Mengele And His Twins At Auschwitz example essay topic

Bad Science On Monday, November 15th, 1982 the New York Times published an article entitled "Out of Death, a Zest for Life". The title caught my eye because it seemed to be the only one that didn't have to do with politics, the economy, or terrorism. The author, Nadine Brozan, wrote this article based on an interview with a woman named Dr. Giselle Perl. Dr. Perl was a Hungarian gynecologist and a survivor of the Holocaust from one of its most famous death camps; Auschwitz. As a prisoner, she was allowed to work as a doctor who was forced to aid Dr. Josef Mengele. Dr. Mengele was a man who practiced very bizarre, unethical medical experiments on the prisoners of Auschwitz and he eventually became known as "the doctor of death" or "the angel of death".

Dr, Perl said, "One of the greatest crimes in Auschwitz was to be pregnant". (Brozan C: 20) Not only did Dr. Mengele perform horrible experiments on pregnant women, but he also preformed tests on handicapped prisoners and twins (which he is most famous for). Dr. Mengele tricked Dr. Perl into sending the pregnant woman to him. "He said that they would go to another camp for better nutrition... I learned that they were all taken to the research block to be used as guinea pigs, and then the two lives would be thrown in the crematorium". (Brozan C: 20) As far as sanitation was concerned at Auschwitz, there really wasn't any.

It is a fact that Dr. Mengele's hospital had no beds, no operating tools, not even bandages. (Brozan C: 20) When compared to the hospitals in the United States, I feel that a hospital in Auschwitz does not deserve the title, "hospital". Apparently, Dr. Perl felt the same way. She took it upon herself to find the women held prisoner in the camp, and some how made them deliver their babies prematurely (Brozan C: 20). "Hundreds of times I had premature deliveries. No one will ever know what it meant to me to destroy those babies, but if I had not done it, both mother and child would have been cruelly murdered".

(Brozan C: 20) It really makes me think how horrible it must have been for Dr. Perl. A very powerful quote taken from the article has her saying, "God, you owe me a life, a living baby". For her to say this every time she enters the delivery rooms makes it difficult to imagine the massive amounts of babies she delivered that did not possess a life; that had even gotten the opportunity to take a breath of air. Dr. Perl had good intentions for her actions. At least she got to spare one of the two lives from the evil hands of Mengele.

"Dr. Mengele was particularly cold and cynical" (Posner & Ware 27). However, what about the rest of the "guinea pigs" he used for experiments? In order to understand what happened to the less fortunate (those that did not have the help of Dr. Perl), it would help to understand the way Dr. Mengele operated his sick bay. Mengele had several prison doctors working underneath him (one being Dr. Perl). The doctors were rarely informed as to why they were ordered to do most of the procedures they did (27) For example, Mengele made the staff working under him write a report for each woman brought into the "hospital" (Posner & Ware 28) Then, they would have to estimate how long they thought the patient would have to stay under the care of a doctor (Posner & Ware 28). If it was shorter than four weeks, Mengele would reprimand them, asking them how they called themselves a doctor, and made the patient stay longer (Posner & Ware 29).

While one would think of this as an act of kindness, Mengele had an ulterior motive. Any patient who stayed in his sick bay for longer than four weeks was ordered to the crematorium immediately to free up space for his experiments (29). The wickedness of Dr. Mengele did not stop there. He was obsessed with performing medical experiments on prisoners, especially twins, although he claims to have never harmed anybody during his "play time" (Posner & Ware 25). Mengele was so interested in twins because through their DNA, he was trying to create a way to increase the birth rate of the Aryan race. In a sense, he was "playing God" because he was genetically engineering humans to fit the Aryan profile (fair skin, blue eyes, blond hair and tall).

There was one occasion when Dr. Mengele actually stopped an SS truck carrying prisoners to the crematorium and made a twin by the name of Ren'e Slot kin get off the truck. "He stopped the truck because they were going to kill his twins". (Posner & Ware 29) The doctor was so fixated on obtaining twins for his studies that "he attended railhead selections even when it wasn't his turn; he could be seen bargaining with the SS doctors on duty to set the twins aside for him". (Posner & Ware, 31) Mengele's experiments went further than just trying to genetically engineer humans, and do "odd" things to a mother and her unborn child.

In fact, the tests covered a very broad scale of medical study which went from bacteriology to bone marrow transplants. However, he is most noted for his work with the twins (Posner & Ware 33). One of his first experiments was trying to change the color of eye pigments. The doctor injected the actual eye ball with a dye to change the original color to blue (33). These experiments usually did not have the desired results and the "patient" frequently ended up with extreme eye infection or blindness (33). When the tests were complete the twin served no other purpose to Dr. Mengele, so they were sent to be gassed, but some died without their eyes.

(Posner & Ware 33) Vera K riegel, a witness to the practices of Dr. Mengele claims to have seen a wall in one of his laboratories covered with eyes. "They were pinned up like butterflies. I thought I was dead and already living in hell". (Posner & Ware, 34) Unfortunately, some twins had the impression that even though Mengele put them through Hell, they had a certain connection with him.

"This bizarre and mysterious bond forged between Mengele and 'his' twins' at Auschwitz remained long after they had parted company" (Dekel & Lognado 9). However, some twins spoke against the doctor after the Holocaust, and made their stories known to all. An article titled "The Twins of Auschwitz Today" was written by an author of Children of the Flames. The article sparked numerous readers to respond to it, and they wanted the hunt for Dr. Mengele to go into effect once again. It did, but a body turned up in the 1980's somewhere in South America that was said by authorities to be that of Josef Mengele. After that was said, the search was called off.

Dr. Perl helped pregnant women at Auschwitz the best way she knew how to, and sadly it was a horrible thing she had to do for them. For her to continue being a gynecologist after having worked at Auschwitz must take a lot of strength. I was intrigued to see the different points of view people had when speaking of Dr. Mengele. She described him as an evil, bizarre, and twisted man (Brozan C: 20) On the flip side, various twins used in his experiments had a very strong bond with him (Dekel & Lognado 9) Regardless of how anybody chooses to see him, Dr. Mengele is said to be one of the leading murderers in the Holocaust. In my opinion, he rightfully earned the titles of "The Angel (or Doctor) of Death".

Bibliography

Brozan, Nadine. "Out of Death, a Zest for Life". New York Times 15 Nov. 1982, vol.
C II, sec. C: 20. Dekel, Sheila, and Lunette Langnado. Children of the Flames. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1991.
Posner, Gerald, and John Ware. Mengele; the Complete Story. London: Queen Anne Press, 1986.