In people's common perception, doctors are often respectfully called "angels in white". They shoulder the sacred mission of helping the world and saving the wounded and dying. However, in the dark corners of history, there are some people who, although bearing the title of "doctor", have done things that even the demons of hell cannot match.
The Nightmare of Auschwitz: The Experience of Eva and Her Sister
In 1944, Eva and her sister and their family were arrested in a Jewish ghetto in Romania and then sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. At that time, Eva, who was 10 years old, and her sister Miriam fell into endless suffering.
Every morning at 5 o'clock, the sisters were woken up. At 6 o'clock, they were called for roll call. After breakfast, they became the objects of various human experiments. Eva clearly remembers that three times a week, they would be stripped naked and carefully studied by a doctor for eight hours in a room. It is said that the purpose was to explore the differences between twins. Also three times a week, Eva would be forcibly drawn a large amount of blood. The blood loss in her left arm often made her faint. And this is exactly what that doctor wanted to know - how much blood loss can a person survive. The only bath opportunity once a week was once a short happy time for the sisters. But later Eva learned that the soap used was actually made of human fat. The German doctor who left an unforgettable memory for Eva is Josef Mengele.
On May 24, 1985, the United States, Israel, and the Federal Republic of Germany jointly issued a wanted notice, vowing to bring Mengele to justice. Because during World War II, as many as 400,000 people were killed by Mengele's own hands or with his approval. This number is terrifying.
Mengele's Growth and the Path to Nazism: The Intertwining of Academia and Evil
On March 16, 1911, Josef Mengele was born in Günzburg, Germany. His family background foreshadowed his future actions. His father was first an old member of the National People's Party and later became a loyal supporter of the Nazis. As the eldest son of the family, Mengele's choice to study medicine may have been somewhat accidental. Because his younger brother showed business talent, he chose another path.
In 1935, at the age of 24, Mengele obtained his first doctorate degree from the University of Munich. Three years later, he obtained his second doctorate degree. During this period, he had a four-month internship in the pediatrics department of the University Hospital in Leipzig. Some people speculate that this experience made him develop the habit of smiling and his "preference" for children. But this "preference" later became a nightmare for countless children.
In 1938, Mengele joined the Nazi SS. His academic background became an important reason for the SS to absorb him. His first doctoral dissertation was on anthropology, titled "Racial Morphological Studies of the Anterior Mandible of Four Racial Human Groups". The second one was a standard medical doctoral dissertation. At that time, Hitler was racking his brains to prove that "the Aryan race is the most excellent race". Mengele's professional knowledge just met the needs of the Nazis.
At first, Mengele joined the army and participated in the Soviet-German War in 1941. In a battle, he was seriously injured and then was evaluated as a "person unable to participate in combat", thus staying away from the battlefield. For him, this may be lucky. But for hundreds of thousands of other people in the world, it is a disaster. In May 1943, Mengele was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp as one of the chief medical officers.
The Devilish Deeds in Auschwitz: Cruel Selection and Terrifying Experiments
Mengele was substituted into Auschwitz because the doctor of the Auschwitz Gypsy camp retired due to illness. But soon he emerged in the leadership of the medical officers in the concentration camp because he committed heinous crimes in a short time - he eliminated the entire Gypsy camp.
In Auschwitz, the life and death of most prisoners are often decided within seconds. After being selected, they are sent to the gas chamber. However, Mengele is different. He likes to talk to his "prey" and make a decision after asking about their life stories in detail. He always wears a neat and straight Nazi uniform, shiny military boots, white gloves, his hair is meticulous, and he smiles and gently asks prisoners questions. The beautiful music played in the concentration camp makes survivors shudder even when they recall it.
Mengele has his own "standards" and "purposes". His "obsession with cleanliness" is manifested in that as long as prisoners have spots or small scars on their bodies, or their heights are not within the range he delineates, they will be sent to the gas chamber. In a beautiful name, he selects "people who are not suitable for labor". Behind this, more is to satisfy his cruel scientific experiments. In order to test the pressure-bearing capacity of pilots at high altitudes, he locked concentration camp prisoners in a vacuum negative pressure chamber and continuously increased the air pressure until their lungs burst. Or he watched them scratch their faces with their fingers and hit their heads against the wall to relieve the pressure. In order to study the cold-resistant flight suits for pilots at high altitudes, he soaked naked prisoners in ice water for a long time. Many prisoners were frozen to death because of this. This inhumane behavior is exactly the same as that of Unit 731 of Japan.
The Cruelty to Children: The Abyss of Evil of the "Angel of Death"
Mengele has a terrifying nickname - "the Angel of Death". He has no mercy for children. His theory is extremely absurd: "Just like dogs, humans also have lineages. Some people have cultivated good breeds of dogs in the laboratory. I can also cultivate excellent human races in it."
In order to achieve his so-called "scientific research goals", batches of children were used as experimental subjects by him. Without anesthesia, he performed organ removal surgeries on children or injected various viruses and bacteria. Among them, the most heinous is the "eye experiment". He directly injected pigments into the eyeballs of unanesthetized children. The children endured unimaginable pain and most of them became blind as a result. According to another concentration camp doctor's recollection: "In September 1943, when I came to the Gypsy camp, I saw a wooden table filled with eyeballs. All these eyeballs were labeled and numbered. The colors of the eyeballs are light yellow, light blue, green, and violet." He lured children with bread and candy and let them call him "good uncle". The purpose was just to make the children obediently cooperate with his cruel experiments.
Mengele is particularly keen on twin studies. In Auschwitz, a large number of twins were sent to him for experiments. After the experiments, the children were either killed or dissected. He once sewed two Gypsy children together to form conjoined twins. According to statistics, about 1,500 pairs of twins were sent to him. In the end, fewer than 100 pairs survived. A survivor recalled his twin brother and said: "Dr. Mengele was very interested in Oliski. He performed several surgeries on Oliski. One of the spinal surgeries paralyzed Oliski and he never stood up again. Later, the doctor removed his sexual organs. After the fourth surgery, I never saw Oliski again..." In comparison, Eva and her sister are lucky. But this kind of luck seems so pale against the dark background of Auschwitz.
Escape and Pursuit: Mengele's Escape Route and Final Outcome
In January 1945, the Soviet Red Army liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp. At that time, there were only more than 7,600 "prisoners" left in the camp. But as many as 1.1 million lives had disappeared here. Eva was rescued, but Mengele disappeared without a trace.
Later evidence shows that Mengele successfully evaded the search of the Soviet Union and the United States. He even returned to his hometown of Günzburg and then smuggled to South America with a fake passport. After the three countries jointly strengthened the wanted notice in 1985, a series of clues gradually emerged. From his letters, it can be seen that he traveled to many places in South America, including Argentina, Paraguay, and he is also suspected of having lived in the small town of Candido in Brazil. This town is now a world-famous "twin town". 80 households have 38 pairs of twins. The twin birth rate is 10 times higher than the world average. And most of them are blond and blue-eyed Aryans (there are a large number of German immigrants in Brazil. The population of this town is mainly of German descent). Some people speculate that since the 1960s, the veterinarian in the town who claimed to be able to make cows give birth to more calves and solve fertility problems for women is Mengele. It seems that he realized his crazy dream of "creating the Aryan race" in his later years. However, many people think that this speculation lacks sufficient evidence. After all, as early as the 1920s, twins began to appear in the town.
In 1979, at the age of 68, Mengele's life came to an end. He died of a heart attack while swimming in a famous resort in Brazil. This way of death is similar to an assassination by an agent. But except for confirming that the deceased is Mengele through DNA comparison, there is no evidence to prove that he was killed. Israeli agents have hunted down this executioner whose hands are stained with Jewish blood all over the world.
Remembering History: Sculpture and Warning
On March 8, 2005, in a primary school campus in Josef Mengele's hometown, a sculpture was completed. This sculpture is not to commemorate Mengele but to remember the hundreds of thousands of unjust souls who died in his hands. The inscription on the sculpture reads: "No one can cut himself off from the history of his own nation. A person should not and cannot let history sleep. Otherwise, history will repeat itself and become a part of reality." Around the inscription are many pairs of crying and frightened eyes. They always remind people not to forget that painful history.
Warning
In today's society, there are some thought-provoking phenomena. Some people extremely admire Germany's military tactics during World War II. From a purely military business perspective, Germany's performance on the battlefield does have something worthy of study. But if one then becomes infatuated with Nazi things and even thoughts and respectfully calls Hitler "the Führer" (not in a joking way), it is completely wrong.