| Dr. Auschwitz: Josef
Mengele |
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larger plan in which “one day he will have a big
research station … [probably there at Auschwitz], and he will have human
material [there] … prepared, measured … ready [for] further
investigation.”
Toward his research subjects,
Mengele’s detachment could border on the schizoid. Dr. Lottie M. described
him as “the coldest cynic 'I have ever seen,” and his attitude toward
inmates as “the same as [toward] mice and rabbits.” Similarly,
Nyiszli told how, after one of the crematoria had been blown up in the
rebellion of the Sonderkommando, and he suggested a possible transfer of
the dissecting room because “this environment is highly unsuitable for
scientific research,” Mengele answered coldly, “What's wrong? Getting
sentimental?”48
In addition to
Mengele’s frequently mentioned “German mentality,” Eva C., the
artist who worked with him, saw him as an imperialistic researcher concerned
not about people but about their disease: among the Gypsies, “he was like
a white doctor in a jungle situation with natives, unconcerned about the
individual but concerned about eradicating tropical disease, … where
natives mean nothing because … a lion [will] eat … them anyway.”
In addition, he seemed to her “not aware of worldly things” and
“very strange, … a stranger to the world.” The same schizoid
quality may have been responsible for a prisoner doctor's observation that "he
was a very difficult man to trace … [and] would disappear and reappear,
… would be gone and reappear, again.” There was the suggestion that
much of his activity could have been false motion, partly in the service of
creating his aura of omnipotence — the man who could appear from nowhere,
be in control of everything.
Mengele did experience awe, perhaps even
something like love, for “science,” but his way of being a scientist
was to seek absolute control over his research environment. As with those whose
“dedication” was so obsessive, small interferences could unnerve him
— as in the case of his outburst toward Nyiszli for getting some grease on
records of his dissection: “How can you be so careless with these files,
which I have compiled with so much love!"49 Here we
recall Dr. B.’s recollection of Mengele saying that not to utilize the
possibilities Auschwitz offered would be “a sin, a crime” and
“totally irresponsible” toward science. Dr. Marek P. could say to me,
with some sadness, “He seemed to combine so much caring with so much
killing.”
We know of the variation in evaluations
of Mengele as scientist. For Ernst B., Mengele was a gifted, even
prophetic scientist, to be commended for his ability to adapt as a scientist to
the special conditions of Auschwitz. Among inmates, that judgment was
essentially reversed. Even Teresa W., who alone spoke of authentic scientific
work with twins, had her qualifications about Mengele’s interpretation of
it. Most inmates went further: Dr. Jan W. thought Mengele only “pretended
to be a scientist,” flamboyantly collecting and labeling materials while
lacking the intellec- [… tual] |
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