Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Auschwitz, January 27, 1945

Beginning in 1944, twins were selected and placed in special barracks…. Auschwitz offered Mengele unlimited number of specimens where twins could be studied at random. According to Dr. Miklos Nyiszli in Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account, twins provided the perfect experimental specimens. One could serve as a control while the other endured the experiments. It was well known in the camp that when a twin went to the infirmary, (s)he never returned and that the other twin disappeared too (Eva Mozes Kor, Echoes from Auschwitz). Nyiszli describes the shots of phenol which were used to kill the second twin…. Experiments did not end with the death of the twins. Dissection of the corpses for final medical analysis is well documented by Nyiszli and by Lifton.
Being a twin, regardless of age, meant survival in 1944. Some 3,000 children (or about 1,500 sets of twins) were selected for the experiments. They were not terrified of him but rather they were often intimidated by some of what he did. They knew of his temper and his passion for his work. Yet, they were also aware of his role in their survival. "Being on Mengele’s list was better than being on no list," said Eva Mozes Kor. Of the children involved, only about 200 were alive when the camp was liberated by the Soviet Army on January 27, 1945. These are the children shown so often in documentaries walking between the wires of the Auschwitz I camp. Today they reside all over the world and they seek information on what was done to them. Their files have never been located and what was done to them remains a mystery today.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Mengele.html
Sources: C.A.N.D.L.E.S; Kor, Eva Mozes,  Echoes from Auschwitz, C.A.N.D.L.E.S, 1995; Lifton, Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors. The United States: Basic Books. 1986; Nyiszli., Dr. Miklos. Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account. New York: Fawcett Crest. 1960.