Josef Mengele Research Paper

Imagine a Catholic man that listens to classical music; a man that willingly plays with children to calm their fears, a man that has been described as having “loved children (…), a gentle man.” (Harran 111; J.N. 1991; Lifton, Robert J. 1985; Lagnado, Lucette 67). Are you imagining one of the most wanted men in the world for slaughtering over a thousand children, himself, and determining the deaths of about 400,000 others, in an attempt to racially cleanse his country? Although one of the most sought out men after the Holocaust, for his violent experiments on twins, Dr. Josef Mengele has been described as an almost decent human being by friends and even inmates, while many others have found him to be the face of horror and pain every single …show more content…
He later requested to be a physician at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he spent one year and eight months conducting some of the most brutal and horrific experiments in history. Auschwitz allowed Mengele to freely research twins, with no guidelines, while contributing to Hitler’s final solution (Harran 111). Interested in eugenics, or rather, “a science that deals with the improvement (…) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed,” Mengele’s victims were selected by, non-other, than himself as new inmates arrived at Auschwitz (“Eugenics” Merriam-Webster; Harran 458). This process of selection made Mengele a well-known face throughout the camp and was soon dubbed, the “Angel of Death” (Harran 384). According to Lifton, “prisoners were struck by the stark contrast between his calm, playful manner and the horrible things he was doing.” Such prisoners often “commented on his confusing duality of affection and violence” (Lifton). Vera Blau, one of Mengele’s twins, said in an interview with Lucette Lagnado, “I believe Josef Mengele loved children – even though he was a murderer and a killer. Yes! I remember him as a gentle man”