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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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355 |
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| Dr. Auschwitz: Josef
Mengele |
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through [his duties on the medical block] in order to have
more time for his twins.” That passion made him “totally blind
to” the general misery of the camp. When he found identical twins in any
transport, this woman went on to say, “Mengele beamed — he was happy,
… in a kind of a trance.” When deprived of possible twins — as
on one occasion when he was not notified about the arrival of a transport
— he was observed to become enraged and threatening.
As he also
did when children, out of fear or fatigue, interrupted the examinations, or, as
another survivor put it, “if something didn’t go right in
experiments” or even if a temperature reading was not recorded on a
twin’s chart. Once when a child screamed that he felt like passing out,
Mengele “became enraged … [and] knocked the whole table down.”
His attitude, according to this observer, seemed to be that if he could not
complete the work immediately, he “might not be able to achieve it”
He also became “furious,” according to another survivor when a girl
twin died at the wrong time — as in the case of one who succumbed to
diphtheria while he was following her syphilis. He was attentive to and
provided special care and medications for the surviving twin, who also
developed diphtheria and whom he was said to like very much — until she
recovered, at which time he had her killed so that her syphilis could be
confirmed at postmortem examination.
This duality — a confusing
combination of affection and violence — was constantly described to me.
The Polish woman survivor, for instance, described him as “impulsive
… [with] a choleric temper,” but “in his attitude to children
[twins] … as gentle as a father … [who] talked to them … [and]
patted them on the head in a loving way.” He could be playful with them as
well and “jumped around” to please them. Twin children frequently
called him “Uncle Pepi” ; and other twins told how Mengele would
bring them sweets and invite them for a ride in his car, which turned out to be
“a little drive with Uncle Pepi, to the gas chamber.” Simon J. put it
most succinctly: “He could be friendly but kill.” And two other twins
described him as “like a dual personality, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I
think.”
Twins felt Mengele’s appeal. One believed that
Mengele liked him: “[He] immediately referred to me as his friend”
and said that he was “very fascinated with something in the Jew” and
was generally pleasant and “very human.” This man believed that
Mengele protected the twins from Heinz Thilo, an SS doctor who wanted them
killed, so that the latter was the “devil of death” (an evil
murderer) while Mengele was the “angel of death” (who still had a
little bit of feeling). But this survivor admitted that Mengele, in the
laboratory, “became a different person entirely, . … a fanatic.…
[and] if he didn’t see blood on his white uniform, he was content.”
Tomas A. remained still more troublingly bound to Mengele: “For twins
Mengele was everything, … just marvelous, … a good doctor, … our
backing [support]. If [it hadn’t been for] him, we wouldn’t be
alive.” For a long time after liberation, A. found it impossible
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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 355 |
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