The man in the middle of the photo above is Josef Mengele, one of the most notorious "doctors" of Auschwitz. He was paid to research genetics, especially those of twins. Click here to learn more about the life of Mengele. The entire belief of the Nazi party was to create the perfect world, and if Mengele could find a way to assure that an Aryan woman would have twins with blonde hair and blue eyes (the Nazi image of perfect), he would be famous. Twins seemed to be better off with Mengele than the rest of the prisoners of Auschwitz, but were their lives truly improved?
Work
The twins' health were very important to Josef Mengele, so they very rarely had difficult, taxing jobs. Instead, they either had no jobs at all or had simple tasks to do daily, such as relaying messages to other soldiers. Due to their lack of hard work, the twins were often much healthier than the other children who were essentially worked to the death.
Food
The twins usually got a little bit more food than everyone else at the camp, in order to maintain a healthy body weight. They were more nutritious overall, because their diets fit their lifestyles, whereas everyone else got little food and lots of hard work. In addition to more food at meals, they also occasionally got small pieces of chocolate or candy from "Uncle Mengele" (their nickname for Josef).
Experiments
Although he appeared to be kind towards the twins, he was actually very cruel; performing disgusting human experiments on them. Large amounts of blood was drawn from the arms, hands, or even necks of these people. Some of his most disturbing experiments include...
Although he appeared to be kind towards the twins, he was actually very cruel; performing disgusting human experiments on them. Large amounts of blood was drawn from the arms, hands, or even necks of these people. Some of his most disturbing experiments include...
- Eye experiments: Trying to replicate blue eyes, many twins had chemicals poured into their eyes.
- Conjoined Twins: Mengele attempted to create his own conjoined twins by sewing two children together.
- Head Injuries: People were strapped to charis and repeatedly hit on the head with a mechanical hammer to see how head trauma affects learning.
- Freezing Water: People were forced into tubs of freezing water to see how long it took for them to freeze to death.
- Sea Water: People were forced to not eat or drink anything besides sea water.
- Organ transplants: In order to figure out how to transplant organs, Mengele removed vital organs from one person (with no anesthetics) and attempted to put them into another person.