Forgiving

Rochell Battle

ENC 1102

Professor Warren

30 April 2013 

The Jewish Holocaust was a devastatingly reality that showed the world how deep the evil mind can delve; the systematic dehumanizing, enslavement, and ultimate near extermination of an entire ethnic group of people in Europe and parts of Northern Africa opened the eyes of millions of people who couldn’t fathom the idea of annihilating an entire people. The years leading up to and during the Second World War, over six million Jews were killed by the Nazi party, whose base was located and centralized in Germany. Headed by the infamous Adolf Hitler and enforced by the SS, Hitler’s secret police, Jewish people became the scapegoats of a failing German economy. The “Angel of Death”, Josef Mengele, was a Nazi SS doctor who in most noted for the experiments he presided over at the Auschwitz death camp, with a keen focus on children and twins. The few who have survived his encounters have related the horrible experiences they’ve seen or faced directly while under the mercy of the “Angel of Death”.

            The idea of gruesomely experimenting on live humans is dreadful, but Mengele takes even that idea and compounds it exponentially by experimenting on young children. He seemed to enjoy satisfying a devilish curiosity that couldn’t be stopped, but to be indulged by the thousands. Mengele was the final authority at the Auschwitz death camp in terms of who lives and who dies, “It was in 1943, at the age of 32, when he was transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. He initially gained notoriety as an SS physician who eagerly supervised the selection of arriving prisoners. Mengele would determine who would be killed and who would become a forced laborer and worked to death” (Mirror.co.uk).

Mengele had no heart or remorse for killing entire blocks and groups of Jews on a whim, one story of the survivor’s account: “The Angel of Death fed his legend by dramatizing murderous policies, such as his drawing a line on the wall of the children's block between 150 and 156 centimeters (about 5 feet or 5 feet 2 inches) from the floor. Then sending those whose heads could not reach the line to the gas chamber ... (Lifton, p. 346.)” (Angel of Death Josef Mengele). These harsh and sporatic outbursts added more fuel to his wicked legend, but he is said to have sewn to identical twins together in an attempt to create Siamese twins, both twins died in that case. Mengele was crazed with drawing blood from twins as well, “Mengele was almost fanatical about drawing blood from twins, mostly identical twins. He is reported to have bled some to death this way” (Angel of Death Josef Mengele). He is also rumored to have inserted chloroform into the eyes of children in an attempt to change their eye color, needless to say that those children died instantaneously.

With these stories and rumors, later confirmed as facts by the survivors of the Holocaust, how could the “Angel of Death” not be brought to justice? Weirdly enough, some of the twins looked to Mengele as a nice, gentle, kind man who “befriended them and gave them chocolates” (Angel of Death Josef Mengele). He became the father figure to most of the children since they were separated from their families upon entry of the concentration camp. It was known, but not spoken, that any of the children could be killed for any and every reason the Angel of Death so chose. “Mengele performed both physical and psychological experiments, experimental surgeries performed without anesthesia, transfusions of blood from one twin to another, isolation endurance, reaction to various stimuli. He made injections with lethal germs, sex change operations, the removal of organs and limbs, incestuous impregnations” (Angel of Death Josef Mengele). Would Mengele not be a “Most Wanted” suspect when the Allied Forces stormed the gates of Auschwitz?

Come to find out, Mengele was in custody of the Allied Forces twice! Both times the troops within Allied military forces failed to recognize him as a target of interest; perhaps one of the most sought after war criminals throughout World War II, behind the respective heads of states of the Axis powers, and Adolf Eichmann, Hitler’s second in command. “He escaped the Red Army and, incredibly, was released twice from American detention camps when they failed to realize he was a wanted war criminal” (Mirror.co.uk). The organization that is positively glorified in America, as well as worldwide, as one that will help less fortunate people is one of the main culprits in the reason for Mengele’s escape! The International Committee of the Red Cross is said to have unknowingly provided passports to no fewer than ten Nazi’s under various aliases:

“A statement issued by the ICRC, from its Geneva headquarters, said they were among thousands of people found in refugee camps who were given Red Cross travel documents. The ICRC said documents were provided unknowingly and it was committed to dealing openly with the "painful and regrettable experiences" of the past. ICRC spokesman Urs Boegli said: "The travel documents were swindled out of the ICRC." The Nazi deception was uncovered after the ICRC was given a list of aliases used by Nazi war criminals. But it remains unclear exactly how many Nazis used the Red Cross as a means of escaping war crime trials” (BBC News).

            The Angel of Death hid four years at an abandoned farmed in Germany, visited and sustained by his wealthy family, then fled to Geneva, Italy, in order to obtain passports and customs before he fled Europe 1949. It is said that he gave false names to obtain Italian residency. He lived first in Argentina, only fleeing when fellow Nazi Adolf Eichmann was captured by the Israeli security forces and taken for execution. Then he went to Paraguay, where the regime was sympathetic to him, before moving to Brazil. There he lived out the final years of his life as a fugitive in a bungalow in a slum suburb of São Paulo.

            Since the time of his escape, Mengele became a journalist and writer, nothing published of course, for he was a wanted man, but he did keep a journal where he displayed his feelings about his surroundings, or perhaps visiting old memories even prior to his Nazi days. As much as 95% of the auctioned material understood to have been donated by a Mengele family member has not been translated. The records take the form of thirty-one documents describing his time in Paraguay and Brazil from 1960 to 1975. Mengele speaks of himself in the third person throughout the text, or he refers to himself using a pseudonym, “Andreas”. “He complains about the number of unemployed in Germany from 1929 to 1932, the “shameful” peace after the First World War, how his ideology developed and that taxes were too high. He also explains that there couldn’t be any mistrust between himself and his son, since his son has no Jewish blood” (Mirror.co.uk).

Mengele is referred by some as the cruelest, most evil mind of the 20^th century. As many would agree to that notion, why hasn’t his work up for auction been translated? These journals contain information that could undoubtedly give each reader a more keen sense of the times that he lived in after the devastation he left, as well as a glimpse into a cruel, unforgiving past that most readers fear. It is that fear that all readers must conquer, it is a fear that the world must conquer, so says a very true quote, “Wherever there is fear, the righteous soul cannot dwell.”

Works Cited

Angel of Death Josef Mengele. 2012. 26 April 2013. <http://www.auschwitz.dk/mengele.htm>.

BBC News. Red Cross Admits It Helped Mengele And Other Nazis Flee. 17 February 1999. 26 April 2013. <http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/red_cross_nazis.htm>.

Mirror.co.uk. Secret diaries of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele offer glimpse into twisted mind. 30 July 2011. 26 April 2013. <http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/secret-diaries-of-nazi-doctor-josef-144698>.