Mengele participated in the Holocaust. After trainloads of victims arrived at the camp, Mengele selected which would be killed instantly and which would be allowed to live as slave laborers.[1] He ordered the deaths of many people - sometimes entire barracks of prisoners at a time.[1]
Mengele also performed many painful and unethical medical experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz. Many of these prisoners died; Mengele had others killed so he could study their bodies.
After the war, he avoided capture and fled to South America. He died in Brazil at age 67.
Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938. During the first years of World War II, he served as a medical officer in the Waffen-SS.
In 1942, he was wounded. He recovered and went to work at the Race and Resettlement Office in Berlin.
At Auschwitz
In 1943, Mengele volunteered to work at Auschwitz concentration camp. According to a 2020 New Yorker article, "This was regarded as a [great] assignment for S.S. troops; you could kill people there without the threat of being killed."[3]
He was fascinated with twins and dwarves, and did many experiments on them. His victims included many children. He killed many twins and dwarves so he could autopsy and compare their bodies.[5][6]
He often infected prisoners, including children, with diseases to study the illnesses' effects. If a prisoner survived, they were killed so Mengele could study their bodies.[6][7]
He used Jewish and Roma prisoners to try out different methods of castrating or sterilizing people.[6] His goal was to find methods that the Nazis could use on millions of people. He also experimented on pregnant women.[6]
Mengele's experiments were often extremely painful. Sometimes he removed prisoners' organs without anesthetic.[8] He amputated healthy arms and legs,[7] and injectedchemicals into prisoners' eyes to try to change their eye color.[8]
For his actions and his cruelty at Auschwitz, Mengele was nicknamed the Angel of Death.[1][9] In 1960 and 1961, after Mengele had fled Germany, his title of physician was revoked.
Escape and death
After the war, Mengele first hid in Germany, then escaped and lived in South America. He drowned in Sao Paolo, Brazil on February 7, 1979.[1] At the time, he was 67 and had never gotten in trouble for the things he did at Auschwitz.
↑ 8.08.1"Medical Experiments". Auschwitz: Not Long Ago, Not Far Away. Created by Musealia in cooperation with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Retrieved 2024-09-25.
↑Levy, Alan (2002). Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File (Revised ed.). London: Robinson. p. 242. ISBN978-1-84119-607-7.