Josef Mengele: the Doctor Who Got Away with Murder

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Dr. Josef Mengele was probably the most infamous Nazi doctor of the Holocaust, known as the notorious “Angel of Death”. He is responsible for the death and mutilation of nearly 3,000 inmates at the death camp Auschwitz (Lagnado and Dekel 7). His goal was to create a superior race of perfect Aryans using twins. He believed that if an Aryan woman gave birth to twins, with blond hair and blue eyes, then this goal would be achieved. He used his knowledge of genetics and his power as a Nazi doctor to aid him. After World War II, he disappeared into South America, where he continued his experiments and evaded capture for nearly three decades (Dekel and Lagnado 176-7). Mengele was born on March 16, 1911 in Gunzburg, Germany. He was the eldest son of Karl and Walburga Mengele. His father owned a factory. His two brothers were Karl Jr. and Alois (Dekel and Ladnado 32). As a child, Mengele was often called Beppo by the towns people. (Dekel and Lagnado 29). He was a loud and happy boy, a far cry from the monster he is known as today. Mengele had a great interest in genetics and evolution. These interests may have helped in the development of his theory that some human beings with disorders were unfit to reproduce or even to live. This notion that some lives were unworthy of life may explain why Mengele was able to experiment on concentration camp prisoners with no remorse (Posner and Ware 9). Out of the estimated 3,000 twins Mengele experimented on only about 100 survived. The 100 that survived have many medical problems due to the horrible thing done to them. Many died after liberation because of the experimentations and the problems they caused (Dekel and Lagnado 20). In an attempt to change eye color, Mengele would inject chemicals into his victims eyes. These unknown chemicals would cause extreme pain and temporary or permanent blindness (Dekel and Lagnado 66). He would

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