The first concentration camp in Germany was opened in 1933. The last one working was captured Soviet troops in 1945. Between these two dates there are millions of tortured prisoners who died from backbreaking work, strangled in gas chambers, shot by the SS. And those who died from “medical experiments.” No one knows exactly how many of these last ones there were. Hundreds of thousands. Inhumane experiments on people in Nazi concentration camps- this is also History, the history of medicine. Its darkest, but no less interesting page...
Josef Mengele, the most famous Nazi criminal doctors, born in Bavaria in 1911. He studied philosophy at the University of Munich and medicine at the University of Frankfurt. In 1934 he joined the SA and became a member of the National Socialist Party, and in 1937 he joined the SS. He worked at the Institute of Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene. Dissertation topic: "Morphological studies of the structure lower jaw representatives of four races."
After the outbreak of World War II, he served as a military doctor in the SS Viking division in France, Poland and Russia. In 1942, he received the Iron Cross for saving two tank crews from a burning tank. After being wounded, SS-Hauptsturmführer Mengele was declared unfit for combat service and in 1943 was appointed chief physician of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The prisoners soon nicknamed him "the angel of death."
Dr. Mengele had to answer the question: how to increase the ability to reproduce in German people so that it meets the needs of the planned large-scale settlement of the occupied regions of the countries by Germans of Eastern Europe. His focus was on the problem of twins, as well as the physiology and pathology of dwarfism. The experiments were carried out on monozygotic twins, mainly children, dwarfs and persons with congenital disabilities. They were looking for such people among those arriving at the camp.
Tens of thousands of people became victims of Mengele’s monstrous experiments. What is the value of research alone on the effects of physical and mental exhaustion on human body! And the “study” of 3 thousand young twins, of which only 200 survived! The twins received blood transfusions and organ transplants from each other. Sisters were forced to bear children from their brothers. Forced gender reassignment operations were carried out. Before starting the experiments, good doctor Mengele could pat a child on the head, treat him with chocolate...
The twins had blood transfused from one to the other and X-rays were taken of them. The second stage covered comparative analysis internal organs, which was performed during the autopsy. Such an analysis would be difficult to carry out in normal conditions due to the low probability of both twins dying at the same time. In the camp, comparative analysis of twins was carried out hundreds of times. For this purpose, Dr. Mengele killed them with phenol injections. He once led an operation in which two gypsy boys were sewn together to create conjoined twins. The children's hands were severely infected at the sites of resection of blood vessels. Mengele usually cut off part of the liver or other vital parts without any anesthesia. important organs Jewish children and killed them with monstrous blows to the head, if there was a need for the recently deceased “guinea pig.” He injected chloroform into the hearts of many children, and he infected his other subjects with typhus. Mengele injected into the ovaries of many women pathogenic bacteria. Some twins with different colors Eye colorants were injected into the eye sockets and pupils to change eye color and explore the possibility of producing Aryan twins with blue eyes. In the end, the children were left with granular clumps instead of eyes.
The Wehrmacht ordered a topic: to find out everything about the effects of cold on a soldier’s body (hypothermia). The experimental methodology was the most simple: a concentration camp prisoner is taken, covered on all sides with ice, “doctors” in SS uniforms constantly measure body temperature... When a test subject dies, a new one is brought from the barracks. Conclusion: after the body has cooled below 30 degrees, it is most likely impossible to save a person. The best remedy to warm up - a hot bath and "natural heat" female body".
In 1945, Josef Mengele carefully destroyed all the collected “data” and escaped from Auschwitz. Until 1949, Mengele worked quietly in his native Günzburg at his father’s company. Then, using new documents in the name of Helmut Gregor, he emigrated to Argentina. He received his passport quite legally, through... the Red Cross. In those years, this organization provided charity, issued passports and travel documents to tens of thousands of refugees from Germany. Perhaps Mengele's fake ID simply could not be thoroughly checked. Moreover, the art of forging documents in the Third Reich reached unprecedented heights.
One way or another, Mengele ended up in South America. In the early 50s, when Interpol issued a warrant for his arrest (with the right to kill him upon arrest), Iyozef moved to Paraguay. However, all this was rather a sham, a game of catching Nazis. Still with the same passport in the name of Gregor, Joseph Mengele repeatedly visited Europe, where his wife and son remained. The Swiss police watched his every move - and did nothing.
The terrible experiments on people by Josef Mengele, the “Angel of Death of Auschwitz,” did not end after his flight to South America. His dream came true. Published A new book Argentine historian Jorge Camaraza's Mengele: Angel of Death in South America argues that Joseph Mengele's experiences did not end after he fled to South America after his defeat Nazi Germany in World War II. There is evidence that the Auschwitz Angel of Death continued its terrible experiments in Brazil, in a small town that later received the nickname “City of Twins.”
Josef Mengele managed a lot in his life: to live happy childhood, get excellent education at the university, do happy family, raise children, experience the taste of war and front-line life, engage in “scientific research”, many of which were important For modern medicine, since vaccines against various diseases have been developed, and many other useful experiments have been carried out, which in democratic state would not have been possible to carry out (in fact, the crimes of Mengele, like many of his colleagues, made a huge contribution to medicine), finally, being already on the run, Joseph received a relaxing holiday on the sandy shores Latin America. Already on this well-deserved rest, Mengele was more than once forced to remember his past deeds - he more than once read articles in newspapers about his search, about the fee of 50,000 American dollars assigned for providing information about his whereabouts, about his atrocities against prisoners. Reading these articles, Joseph Mengele could not hide his sarcastic, sad smile, for which he was remembered by many of his victims - after all, he was in plain sight, swimming on public beaches, conducting active correspondence, visiting entertainment venues. And he could not understand the accusations of committing atrocities - he always looked at his experimental subjects only as material for experiments. He saw no difference between the experiments he carried out on beetles at school and those he carried out in Auschwitz.
He lived in Brazil until February 7, 1979, when he suffered a stroke while swimming in the sea, causing him to drown.
Now many are wondering whether Josef Mengele was a simple sadist who, in addition to scientific work, it was a pleasure to watch people suffer. Those who worked with him said that Mengele, to the surprise of many of his colleagues, sometimes himself administered lethal injections to test subjects, beat them and threw capsules of lethal gas into the cells, watching as the prisoners died.
On the territory of the Auschwitz concentration camp there is a large pond where the unclaimed ashes of prisoners burned in the crematorium ovens were dumped. The rest of the ashes were transported by wagon to Germany, where they were used as soil fertilizers. The same carriages carried new prisoners for Auschwitz, who were personally greeted upon arrival by a tall, smiling young man who was barely 32 years old. This was the new Auschwitz doctor, Josef Mengele, who, after being wounded, was declared unfit for service in the active army. He appeared with his retinue in front of newly arrived prisoners to select “material” for his monstrous experiments. The prisoners were stripped naked and lined up along which Mengele walked, every now and then pointing at suitable people with its immutable stack. He decided who would be immediately sent to the gas chamber, and who could still work for the benefit of the Third Reich. Death is to the left, life is to the right. Sickly-looking people, old people, women with infants - Mengele, as a rule, sent them to the left with a careless movement of a stack squeezed in his hand.
Former prisoners, when they first arrived at the station to enter the concentration camp, remembered Mengele as a fit, well-groomed man with kind smile, in a well-fitted and ironed dark green tunic and a cap, which he wore slightly on one side; black boots polished to perfect shine. One of the Auschwitz prisoners, Krystyna Zywulska, would later write: “He looked like a film actor - a sleek, pleasant face with regular features. Tall, slender...”. For his smile and pleasant, courteous manners, which in no way correlated with his inhuman experiences, the prisoners nicknamed Mengele the “Angel of Death.” He conducted his experiments on people in block no.
10. “No one ever came out of there alive,” says former prisoner Igor Fedorovich Malitsky, who was sent to Auschwitz at the age of 16.
The young doctor began his activities in Auschwitz by stopping a typhus epidemic, which he discovered in several gypsies. To prevent the disease from spreading to other prisoners, he sent the entire barracks (more than a thousand people) to the gas chamber. Later, typhus was discovered in the women's barracks, and this time the entire barracks - about 600 women - also went to their deaths. Mengele could not figure out how to deal with typhus differently in such conditions.
Before the war, Joseph Mengele studied medicine and even defended his dissertation on “Racial differences in the structure of the lower jaw” in 1935, and a little later received doctorate. Special interest genetics represented him, and in Auschwitz greatest degree he showed interest in the twins. He conducted experiments without resorting to anesthetics and dissected living babies. He tried to sew twins together, change their eye color using chemicals; he pulled out teeth, implanted them and built up new ones. In parallel with this, the development of a substance capable of causing infertility was carried out; he castrated boys and sterilized women. According to some reports, he succeeded with the help x-ray radiation sterilize an entire group of nuns.
Mengele's interest in twins was not accidental. The Third Reich set scientists the task of increasing the birth rate, as a result of which artificially increasing the birth of twins and triplets became the main task of scientists. However, the offspring of the Aryan race had to have blond hair and blue eyes - hence Mengele’s attempts to change the eye color of children through
vom of various chemicals. After the war, he was going to become a professor and was ready to do anything for the sake of science.
The twins were carefully measured by the assistants of the "Angel of Death" to record general signs and differences, and then the doctor’s own experiments came into play. Children's limbs were amputated and transplanted various organs, infected with typhus and given blood transfusions. Mengele wanted to track how the identical organisms of twins would react to the same intervention in them. Then the experimental subjects were killed, after which the doctor carried out a thorough analysis of the corpses, examining internal organs.
He launched quite a vigorous activity and therefore many mistakenly considered him the chief doctor of the concentration camp. In fact, Josef Mengele held the position of senior doctor in the women's barracks, to which he was appointed by Eduard Virts - chief physician Auschwitz, later described by Mengele as a responsible employee who donated personal time, in order to devote him to self-education, exploring the material that the concentration camp had at its disposal.
Mengele and his colleagues believed that hungry children had very pure blood, which meant that it could greatly help the wounded. German soldiers who are in hospitals. Someone else mentioned this former prisoner Auschwitz Ivan Vasilievich Chuprin. The newly arrived very young children, the eldest of whom were 5-6 years old, were herded into block number 19, from which screams and crying could be heard for some time, but soon there was silence. The blood was completely pumped out of the young prisoners. And in the evening, prisoners returning from work saw piles of children's bodies, which were later burned in dug holes, the flames from which were escaping several meters upward.
For Mengele, work in
concentration camp was a kind of scientific mission, and the experiments that he performed on prisoners were, from his point of view, carried out for the benefit of science. There are many tales told about Doctor “Death” and one of them is that his office was “decorated” by the eyes of children. In fact, as one of the doctors who worked with Mengele in Auschwitz recalled, he could stand for hours next to a row of test tubes, examining the obtained materials through a microscope, or spend time at the anatomical table, opening up bodies, in an apron stained with blood. He considered himself a real scientist, whose goal was something more than eyes hung throughout his office.
The doctors who worked with Mengele noted that they hated their work, and in order to somehow relieve stress, they got completely drunk after a working day, which could not be said about Doctor “Death” himself. It seemed that the work did not tire him at all.
Now many are wondering whether Joseph Mengele was a simple sadist who, in addition to his scientific work, enjoyed watching people suffer. Those who worked with him said that Mengele, to the surprise of many of his colleagues, sometimes himself administered lethal injections to test subjects, beat them and threw capsules of lethal gas into the cells, watching as the prisoners died.
After the war, Josef Mengele was declared a war criminal, but he managed to escape. He spent the rest of his life in Brazil, and February 7, 1979 was his last day - while swimming he suffered a stroke and drowned. His grave was found only in 1985, and after the exhumation of the remains in 1992, they were finally convinced that it was Joseph Mengele, who had earned himself a reputation as one of the most terrible and dangerous Nazis, who lay in this grave.
The German doctor Joseph Mengele is known in world history as the most cruel Nazi criminal, exposed non-human experiments tens of thousands of prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
For his crimes against humanity, Mengele forever earned the nickname “Doctor Death.”
Origin
Josef Mengele was born in 1911 in Bavaria, in Günzburg. The ancestors of the future fascist executioner were ordinary German farmers. Father Karl founded the agricultural equipment company Karl Mengele and Sons. The mother was raising three children. When Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power, the wealthy Mengele family began to actively support him. Hitler defended the interests of the very farmers on whom the well-being of this family depended.
Joseph did not intend to continue his father’s work and went to study to become a doctor. Studied at the Viennese and Munich universities. In 1932 he joined the ranks of the Nazi Steel Helmet stormtroopers, but soon left this organization due to health problems. After graduating from university, Mengele received a doctorate. He wrote his dissertation on the topic of racial differences in the structure of the jaw.
Military service and professional activities
In 1938, Mengele joined the ranks of the SS and at the same time Nazi Party. At the beginning of the war he joined the reserve troops tank division SS, rose to the rank of SS Hauptsturmführer and received the Iron Cross for saving 2 soldiers from a burning tank. After being wounded in 1942 he was declared unfit for duty. further service in the active forces and went to “work” in Auschwitz.
In the concentration camp, he decided to realize his long-time dream of becoming an outstanding doctor and research scientist. Mengele calmly justified Hitler's sadistic views with scientific expediency: he believed that if inhuman cruelty is needed for the development of science and the breeding of a “pure race,” then it can be forgiven. This point of view has translated into thousands of crippled lives and more large quantity deaths.
In Auschwitz, Mengele found the most fertile ground for his experiments. The SS not only did not control, but even encouraged the most extreme forms of sadism. In addition, the killing of thousands of Gypsies, Jews and other people of the “wrong” nationality was a priority task concentration camp. Thus, Mengele found himself in the hands of a huge amount of “human material” that was supposed to be used up. "Doctor Death" could do whatever he wanted. And he created.
"Doctor Death" experiments
Josef Mengele conducted thousands of monstrous experiments over the years of his activity. He amputated body parts and internal organs without anesthesia, sewed twins together, and injected toxic chemicals into children's eyes to see if the color of the iris would change after that. Prisoners were deliberately infected with smallpox, tuberculosis and other diseases. All new and untested medications were tested on them, chemical substances, poisons and poisonous gases.
Mengele was most interested in various developmental anomalies. A huge number of experiments were carried out on dwarfs and twins. Of the latter, about 1,500 couples were subjected to his brutal experiments. About 200 people survived.
All operations on fusion of people, removal and transplantation of organs were performed without anesthesia. The Nazis did not consider it advisable to spend expensive medicines on “subhumans.” Even if the patient survived the experience, he was expected to be destroyed. In many cases, the autopsy was performed at a time when the person was still alive and felt everything.
After the war
After Hitler’s defeat, “Doctor Death,” realizing that execution awaited him, tried with all his might to escape persecution. In 1945, he was detained in the uniform of a private near Nuremberg, but then released because they could not establish his identity. After this, Mengele hid for 35 years in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. All this time, the Israeli intelligence service MOSSAD was looking for him and was close to capturing him several times.
It was never possible to arrest the cunning Nazi. His grave was discovered in Brazil in 1985. In 1992, the body was exhumed and proved that it belonged to Josef Mengele. Now the remains of the sadistic doctor are in medical university Sao Paulo.
Auschwitz prisoners were released four months before the end of World War II. By that time there were few of them left. Almost one and a half million people died, most of them Jews. For several years, the investigation continued, which led to terrible discoveries: people not only died in gas chambers, but also became victims of Dr. Mengele, who used them as guinea pigs.
Auschwitz: the story of a city
A small Polish town in which more than a million innocent people were killed is called Auschwitz all over the world. We call it Auschwitz. Concentration camp, experiments on women and children, gas chambers, torture, executions - all these words have been associated with the name of the city for more than 70 years.
It will sound quite strange in Russian Ich lebe in Auschwitz - “I live in Auschwitz.” Is it possible to live in Auschwitz? They learned about the experiments on women in the concentration camp after the end of the war. Over the years, new facts have been discovered. One is scarier than the other. The truth about the camp called shocked the whole world. Research continues today. Many books have been written and many films have been made on this topic. Auschwitz has become our symbol of painful, difficult death.
Where did they take place? massacres children and were carried out scary experiences over women? In Which city do millions of people on earth associate with the phrase “death factory”? Auschwitz.
Experiments on people were carried out in a camp located near the city, which today is home to 40 thousand people. It's calm locality with a good climate. Auschwitz for the first time in historical documents mentioned in the twelfth century. In the 13th century there were already so many Germans here that their language began to prevail over Polish. IN XVII century the city was captured by the Swedes. In 1918 it became Polish again. 20 years later, a camp was organized here, on the territory of which crimes took place, the likes of which humanity had never known.
Gas chamber or experiment
In the early forties, the answer to the question of where the Auschwitz concentration camp was located was known only to those who were doomed to death. Unless, of course, you take the SS men into account. Some prisoners, fortunately, survived. Later they talked about what happened within the walls of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Experiments on women and children, carried out by a man whose name terrified the prisoners, were terrible truth, which not everyone is ready to listen to.
The gas chamber is a terrible invention of the Nazis. But there are worse things. Krystyna Zywulska is one of the few who managed to leave Auschwitz alive. In her book of memoirs, she mentions an incident: a prisoner sentenced to death by Dr. Mengele does not go, but runs into the gas chamber. Because death is from poisonous gas not as terrible as the torment from the experiments of the same Mengele.
Creators of the "death factory"
So what is Auschwitz? This is a camp that was originally intended for political prisoners. The author of the idea is Erich Bach-Zalewski. This man had the rank of SS Gruppenführer, during the Second World War he led punitive operations. With him light hand Dozens were sentenced to death. He took an active part in suppressing the uprising that took place in Warsaw in 1944.
Assistants to the SS Gruppenführer found appropriate place in a small Polish town. There were already military barracks here, and in addition, there was a well-established railway connection. In 1940, a man named He arrived here. He will be hanged near the gas chambers by decision of the Polish court. But this will happen two years after the end of the war. And then, in 1940, Hess liked these places. He took on the new business with great enthusiasm.
Inhabitants of the concentration camp
This camp did not immediately become a “death factory.” At first, mostly Polish prisoners were sent here. Only a year after the organization of the camp, the tradition of drawing a prisoner on the hand appeared. serial number. Every month more and more Jews were brought. By the end of Auschwitz they made up 90% of total number prisoners. The number of SS men here also grew continuously. In total, the concentration camp received about six thousand overseers, punishers and other “specialists.” Many of them were put on trial. Some disappeared without a trace, including Joseph Mengele, whose experiments terrified prisoners for several years.
We will not give the exact number of Auschwitz victims here. Let's just say that more than two hundred children died in the camp. Most of them were sent to gas chambers. Some ended up in the hands of Josef Mengele. But this man was not the only one who conducted experiments on people. Another so-called doctor is Karl Clauberg.
Beginning in 1943, a huge number of prisoners were admitted to the camp. Most should have been destroyed. But the organizers of the concentration camp were practical people, and therefore decided to take advantage of the situation and use a certain part of the prisoners as material for research.
Karl Cauberg
This man supervised the experiments carried out on women. His victims were predominantly Jewish and Gypsy women. The experiments included organ removal, testing new drugs, and radiation. What kind of person is Karl Cauberg? Who is he? What kind of family did you grow up in, how was his life? And most importantly, where did the cruelty that goes beyond human understanding come from?
By the beginning of the war, Karl Cauberg was already 41 years old. In the twenties, he served as chief physician at the clinic at the University of Königsberg. Kaulberg was not a hereditary doctor. He was born into a family of artisans. Why he decided to connect his life with medicine is unknown. But there is evidence that he served as an infantryman in the First World War. Then he graduated from the University of Hamburg. Apparently, he was so fascinated by medicine that he military career he refused. But Kaulberg was not interested in healing, but in research. In the early forties, he began searching for the most practical way to sterilize women who were not of the Aryan race. To conduct experiments he was transferred to Auschwitz.
Kaulberg's experiments
The experiments consisted of introducing a special solution into the uterus, which led to serious disturbances. After the experiment reproductive organs retired and went to Berlin for further research. There is no data on exactly how many women became victims of this “scientist”. After the end of the war, he was captured, but soon, just seven years later, oddly enough, he was released under an agreement on the exchange of prisoners of war. Returning to Germany, Kaulberg did not suffer from remorse. On the contrary, he was proud of his “achievements in science.” As a result, he began to receive complaints from people who suffered from Nazism. He was arrested again in 1955. He spent even less time in prison this time. He died two years after his arrest.
Joseph Mengele
The prisoners nicknamed this man the “angel of death.” Josef Mengele personally met the trains with new prisoners and carried out the selection. Some were sent to gas chambers. Others go to work. He used others in his experiments. One of the Auschwitz prisoners described this man in the following way: "Tall, good-looking, looks like a movie actor." He never raised his voice and spoke politely - and this terrified the prisoners.
From the biography of the Angel of Death
Josef Mengele was the son of a German entrepreneur. After graduating from high school, he studied medicine and anthropology. In the early thirties he joined the Nazi organization, but soon left it for health reasons. In 1932, Mengele joined the SS. During the war he served in the medical troops and even received " iron Cross"for courage, but was wounded and declared unfit for service. Mengele spent several months in the hospital. After recovery, he was sent to Auschwitz, where he began his scientific activities.
Selection
Selecting victims for experiments was Mengele's favorite pastime. The doctor only needed one glance at the prisoner to determine his state of health. He sent most of the prisoners to gas chambers. And only a few prisoners managed to delay death. It was hard with those whom Mengele saw as “guinea pigs.”
Most likely, this person suffered from an extreme form of mental disorder. He even enjoyed the thought that he had a huge amount of human lives. That is why he was always next to the arriving train. Even when this was not required of him. His criminal actions were guided not only by the desire for scientific research, but also a thirst to manage. Just one word from him was enough to send tens or hundreds of people to the gas chambers. Those that were sent to laboratories became material for experiments. But what was the purpose of these experiments?
Invincible faith in the Aryan utopia, explicit psychical deviations- these are the components of Joseph Mengele's personality. All his experiments were aimed at creating a new means that could stop the reproduction of representatives of unwanted peoples. Mengele not only equated himself with God, he placed himself above him.
Joseph Mengele's experiments
The Angel of Death dissected babies and castrated boys and men. He performed the operations without anesthesia. Experiments on women involved high-voltage electric shocks. He conducted these experiments to test endurance. Mengele once sterilized several Polish nuns using X-rays. But the main passion of the “Doctor of Death” was experiments on twins and people with physical defects.
To each his own
On the gates of Auschwitz it was written: Arbeit macht frei, which means “work sets you free.” The words Jedem das Seine were also present here. Translated into Russian - “To each his own.” At the gates of Auschwitz, at the entrance to the camp in which more than a million people died, a saying of the ancient Greek sages appeared. The principle of justice was used by the SS as the motto of the most cruel idea in the entire history of mankind.