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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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351 |
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| Dr. Auschwitz: Josef
Mengele |
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injected 10 cc. of chloroform. After one little
twitch the child was dead, whereupon Dr. Mengele had it taken into the morgue.
In this manner, all fourteen twins were killed during the night.31 |
The dissection of corpses, then, could be the final step
in Mengele’s twin research. While this was by no means the fate of all
twins (most had a much better chance to live because they were twins),
it nonetheless epitomizes Mengele’s combination of relatively ordinary
scientific procedure with literally murderous scientific fanaticism.
But Auschwitz was unique not only in the numbers of twins it could
provide, but in what it enabled one to do with the twins: each one of a pair of
twins could be observed under the same diet and living conditions and could be
made to “die together. . . and in good health” — ideal for
post-mortem comparisons.32
Sometimes
Mengele killed twins simply to resolve a dispute over diagnosis. Dr. Abraham
C., a radiologist who did work for Mengele; described to me one such situation:
a pair of Gypsy twins, “two splendid boys of seven or eight, whom we were
studying from all aspects — from the sixteen or eighteen different
specialties we represented.” The boys had certain joint symptoms which,
according to a belief at that time, could be linked to tuberculosis. Mengele
was convinced that the boys were tubercular, but the various prisoner doctors,
after careful clinical study, found no trace of that disease. Still
unconvinced, Mengele shouted at the prisoner doctors, especially at Dr. C.,
telling him, “All the others could make a mistake, not the radiologist.
… It must be there.” Mengele then left, ordering C. to remain there,
and returned about an, hour later, now speaking calmly: “You are right.
There was nothing.” After some silence, Mengele added, “Yes, I
dissected them.” Later C. heard from Nyiszli that Mengele had shot the two
boys in the neck and that “while they were still warm, began to examine
them: lungs first, and then each organ … [doing] some of the work
himself.” The two boys had been favorites with all the doctors, including
Mengele: “[They] were treated very well, spoiled in all respects. …
These two especially, … they fascinated him considerably.”
Other research was done on twins, some of it difficult to evaluate from
their reports. For instance, a survivor twin told me how shocked he and others
were to discover a fully equipped laboratory right next to their block, as well
as “dark rooms … [with] all kinds of lights, … different lights
… [which] literally blinded us.” He spoke of Mengele’s
supervising “a lot of research with chemicals,” sometimes applied to
the skin to see what color or reaction they would cause. He stated that
Mengele’s assistants “started with … the cervical area, then
drew blood from behind the ear,” and of how they “might stick a
needle” in various places from behind, including the performing of spinal
taps — all this done to young children and sometimes resulting in
deafness, collapse, and, among the smaller ones, death. He and his twin sister,
twelve years old, would be |
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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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