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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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356 |
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| AUSCHWITZ: THE RACIAL CURE |
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to believe the evil things he heard about Mengele, and he
still struggles with the. contradiction. He can now sum up the situation:
“For us, for the twins, [he was] like a papa, like a mama. For us. On the
other hand, he was a murderer.”
While several of the twins came to
the conclusion that Mengele had been nice to them only to maximize their,
participation in his research, others had difficulty ridding themselves of the
sense that his affection for them had been genuine.
Apart from his
research, the relationship Mengele sought with the twins, and with all of the
environment, was one of absolute control. That form of omnipotent quest
again combined Auschwitz realities with Mengele’s individual-psychological
inclinations. Simon J. captured the tendency when he said that “Mengele
was judgment day,” and had the further association of an image of an
inmate, among a group walking slowing toward the crematorium, shouting out a
verse chanted on Kol Nidre night (the beginning of Yom Kippur, the Day of
Atonement). Mengele sought control not only over life and death but over all
behavior and all criteria of value, scientific and moral.
Hence J.
could add, “As far as we knew, there was Mengele — then one half a
light-year, … and then the rest of them [other doctors and SS officers and
personnel).” That same aura of omnipotence led to impressions on the part
of various twins that Mengele was “the mainshow,” an
“on-the-floor presence,” and “always in charge.”
Unlike others in Auschwitz, Mengele continued his research with twins
until the very end. A few months before his hurried departure, he insisted upon
inviting Dr. Lottie M. into his inner sanctum to look at “the results of
[his] anthropology research work.” She could make little of them from
superficial glances at charts and statistics, but remembered him saying with
some feeling, “Isn’t it a pity that … this falls into the hands
of the Bolsheviks. Isn’t it a pity?” While he apparently took most of
the records with him, Dr. M.’s impression was that he recognized the
imminence of the German defeat and was mainly preoccupied with what would
happen to that material.*
One survivor contended that Mengele had to
“get a lot done quickly” because of his conflict with Thilo and
others who wanted the project shut down. A survivor, who claimed to have
intelligence connections and special knowledge, went further in describing
Mengele’s research as having been in bad repute with Nazi officials, so
that his entire Auschwitz standing was in jeopardy “if he did not submit
results.” While those claims find little support elsewhere, Mengele’s
“race against time” could have been generated from within himself as
part of a need to see himself — and be recognized — as a great
biological and racial scientist. Certainly his research with twins was central
to that aspiration. |
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* It is possible that a significant amount
of this material did fall into Soviet hands, as they are believed to retain
— or at least to have retained originally — large numbers of
Auschwitz documents that they have not made available to others or even
publicly acknowledged. |
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THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical Killing and the
Psychology of
Genocide
Robert J. Lifton
ISBN 0-465-09094
©
1986 |
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