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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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368 |
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| AUSCHWITZ: THE RACIAL CURE |
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[inellec… ] tual coherence to do anything more with
them. Similarly, Dr. Abraham C. thought Mengele had some ability but that what
he did was “not real science” because he held certain ideas that he
“considered absolute” and then “he … would simply look for
proofs to support them.”
That attitude was reflected in
Mengele’s colloquia, which “came out of the questions he asked, the
instructions he gave, and the whole body of research he had us do.” After
prisoner doctors answered Mengele’s questions, “he would comment,
criticize, but not discuss [them] with us.” Dr. C. had the impression that
Nyiszli and Professor Epstein were exceptional in that Mengele would
occasionally discuss ideas with them, and that Epstein was the only one
“who dared contradict him and discuss with [Mengele … various]
ideas.” But Epstein, too, avoided going beyond a certain point.
Mengele’s essential pattern was to create intellectual interest and a
demand for scientific opinion while remaining impermeable to that opinion if it
contradicted his views (sometimes he would be quiet in order to wait for the X
rays and post-mortem — and if proven wrong, he would be quieter still),
all the while maintaining total control over the lives and deaths of prisoner
scientific participants. Eva C., the artist, told how Mengele would strain to
find “proof” of his views. In his search for Aryan versus non-Aryan
qualities, he would attempt to observe whether Gypsies “had a darker area
around the waist” (although “a two-piece bathing suit could get the
same result”
) and, with some agitation, would insist upon
demonstrating that blue eyes found in Gypsies “had little brown freckles
… so … they are not pure Aryan blue eyes.” Yet she thought him
“earnest and sincere in going about these pursuits.”
Dr.
Frédéric E. was more blunt. Referring to an experiment in which
Mengele tried to determine whether one twin was more susceptible to poison than
another, this doctor called it “a crazy idea of a man who understood
nothing about real scientific problems but … had the possibility … to
experiment … without any control or restrictions.” Another prisoner
doctor called Mengele “a megalomaniac who wanted to become a great
scientist and to reach this aim it was best to experiment with human
beings.” And still another thought Mengele’s scientific work to be
“garbage,” and Mengele a man who “never applied judgment.”
Dr. Alexander O. characterized Mengele as “a fanatic … possessed by
his pseudoscience.” “Possessed” is an apt term here, suggesting
Mengele’s combination of fierce energy along with his mystification in
what he did.
There might well have been a third component to that
“possession” — the specter of inner doubt. Mengele required of
himself the belief that what he did in Auschwitz was warranted by its claim to
science. Among the more knowledgeable and intellectually superior prisoner
doctors he surrounded himself with, we may suspect that he experienced some
inner question about those scientific claims. Part of his desperate motion in
Auschwitz might well have come from a struggle to cover over those doubts, to
hide them from others capable of making scientific judgments, and above all
from himself. Mengele’s combination of science and pseudo |
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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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Page 368 |
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