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Josef Mengele

Question

I am a student at siu in Illinois. I need some primary sources for a research paper on Josef Mengele do you have any suggestions? Do you know if Mengele's writtings were published in the U.S.?

Brian Harmon answers:

Hello, I'm one of the question-answerers for the Holocaust History Project.

My first suggestion is to get hold of Robert Jay Lifton's The Nazi Doctors. This book covers Mengele in some detail and also includes insight into his psychology. (Lifton is a psychologist).

Miklos Nyiszli was a camp inmate who worked under Dr. Mengele, his memoirs were published as Auschwitz; a doctor's eyewitness account. This is a more first-hand account than the previous book.

Yisrael Gutman also wrote a book on Josef Mengele entitled: Angel of Death: The Untold Story of Josef Mengele. I haven't read this book, so I can't offer you much more than the title.

Were his medical experiments published in the U.S.? I don't think so. I searched the University of California Library database and didn't turn up anything authored by Josef Mengele.

There was a search for Josef Mengele in the 1980s. Sometime in the early 90s it was determined that skeletal remains found were his; I've included references to two U.S. Government documents and an article in Science that discuss this matter in more detail.

Regards,

- Brian Harmon

Complete references are reproduced below:

  • Auschwitz : a doctor's eyewitness account by Miklos Nyiszli; translated by Tibere Kremer and Richard Seaver; with a foreword by Bruno Bettelheim. 1st Arcade paperback ed. New York : Arcade Pub. ; [Boston] : Distributed by Little, Brown, and Co., 1993.

  • The Nazi doctors : medical killing and the psychology of genocide Robert Jay Lifton. New York : Basic Books, c1986.

  • In the matter of Josef Mengele : a report to the Attorney General of the United States / prepared by Office of Special Investigations, Criminal Division. [Washington, D.C.] : U.S. Dept. of Justice, Criminal Division, [1992].

  • United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice. Searching for Dr. Josef Mengele : hearings before the Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-ninth Congress, first session, to inquire into Dr.... Washington : U.S. G.P.O., 1986.

  • Holden, C. "Mengele DNA". Science, 1992 FEB 14, V255 N5046:801-801.

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