DEKEL, LUCETTE MATALON LAGNADO SHEILA COHN by CHILDREN OF THE FLAMES Page B
Authors: CHILDREN OF THE FLAMES
Ads: Link
with a group of twins. Because of my years as an officer, I tended to stand very straight. Mengele noticed that immediately.
I told Mengele about my background in the Czech military. Because of this, Mengele appointed me to be in charge of the twin boys. My title would be
“Twins’ Father.” I was to supervise about eighty boy twins.
But he warned me that if anything went wrong, I would be killed on the spot.
At the end of 1942, Mengele was wounded-it is unclear ho wand declared unfit for combat. He was sent back to Germany and reunited with his wife and his old mentor, Verschuer. The SS reassigned him to their Race and Resettlement Office, working in the Berlin Division overseeing the concentration camps. It was another desk job, far from the scientific work he loved.
Sometime that year, Verschuer had left Frankfurt to assume the lofty position of director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, possibly the most prestigious scientific job in Germany. As Mengele grew disillusioned with his bureaucratic job, Verschuer and he began exploring other options that would get him back where he wanted to be: inside a laboratory.
Both Mengele and Verschuer were aware of the exciting research being undertaken in some of the concentration camps. Since 1939, medical-research projects of various kinds had been under way, including experiments perfumed on human subjects. All known standards of medical ethics had been swept aside by the Nazis. To find a cure for typhoid fever, the bane of the German Army, Nazi doctors infected prisoners at the Buchenwald camp with the virus, then tried to “treat” them by injecting them with various serums. At Dachau and other camps, Jews and other inmates were exposed to tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria, smallpox, influenza, and yellow fever as the Nazis tried to learn how to control these deadly maladies. Nineteen Fortytwo was also the year when German doctors began their gruesome attempts to discover the most efficient method of mass sterilization.
By far the most intriguing research possibilities were offered at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. It was at Auschwitz that a certain Dr. Horst Schumann had begun exposing men, women, and children to massive doses of radiation-a promising way of achieving the desired sterilization. The largest of all the camps, Auschwitz had more than ten thousand inmates arriving each day-an unimagined number of potential human subjects. They could provide a scientist with a broad cross-section of racial groups. Twins and other interesting genetic specimens were likely to pass through as well.
MAGDA SPIEGEL: I was twenty-nine years old, married, with a son of my own, when my family was deported to Auschwitz from our village in Czechoslovakia.
We had all made the trip in the same cattle car, but we were separated the minute we arrived. My mother, my son, and I were told to go to the left side, toward the crematoriums.
SS guards were yelling,
“Twins, twins, we want twins.” I saw a very good-looking man coming toward me. It was Mengele.
He was with two guards, and my twin brother, Zyl. My brother had told Mengele he was a twin, and that he had a sister.
Twigs’ FATHER: To this day, I am not sure why I admitted I was a twin.
My previous experience in labor camps had taught me never to volunteer for anything.
Magda and I were born in 1915 in Budapest. When we were little, our family had moved to Munkacs, a town in Czechoslovakia renowned throughout Europe for its flourishing Jewish community.
When I was twenty-one, I was drafted into the Czech military, [where] I became an officer. But because I was Jewish, I was ultimately sent to a series of labor camps. When I came back to my hometown, it was only to be placed in the Jewish ghetto.
From there, my entire family-my parents, my twin sister, and her son-were put in a cattle car bound for Auschwitz.
Once I had informed Mengele I had a twin sister, he went looking for her-and plucked her out
I told Mengele about my background in the Czech military. Because of this, Mengele appointed me to be in charge of the twin boys. My title would be
“Twins’ Father.” I was to supervise about eighty boy twins.
But he warned me that if anything went wrong, I would be killed on the spot.
At the end of 1942, Mengele was wounded-it is unclear ho wand declared unfit for combat. He was sent back to Germany and reunited with his wife and his old mentor, Verschuer. The SS reassigned him to their Race and Resettlement Office, working in the Berlin Division overseeing the concentration camps. It was another desk job, far from the scientific work he loved.
Sometime that year, Verschuer had left Frankfurt to assume the lofty position of director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, possibly the most prestigious scientific job in Germany. As Mengele grew disillusioned with his bureaucratic job, Verschuer and he began exploring other options that would get him back where he wanted to be: inside a laboratory.
Both Mengele and Verschuer were aware of the exciting research being undertaken in some of the concentration camps. Since 1939, medical-research projects of various kinds had been under way, including experiments perfumed on human subjects. All known standards of medical ethics had been swept aside by the Nazis. To find a cure for typhoid fever, the bane of the German Army, Nazi doctors infected prisoners at the Buchenwald camp with the virus, then tried to “treat” them by injecting them with various serums. At Dachau and other camps, Jews and other inmates were exposed to tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria, smallpox, influenza, and yellow fever as the Nazis tried to learn how to control these deadly maladies. Nineteen Fortytwo was also the year when German doctors began their gruesome attempts to discover the most efficient method of mass sterilization.
By far the most intriguing research possibilities were offered at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. It was at Auschwitz that a certain Dr. Horst Schumann had begun exposing men, women, and children to massive doses of radiation-a promising way of achieving the desired sterilization. The largest of all the camps, Auschwitz had more than ten thousand inmates arriving each day-an unimagined number of potential human subjects. They could provide a scientist with a broad cross-section of racial groups. Twins and other interesting genetic specimens were likely to pass through as well.
MAGDA SPIEGEL: I was twenty-nine years old, married, with a son of my own, when my family was deported to Auschwitz from our village in Czechoslovakia.
We had all made the trip in the same cattle car, but we were separated the minute we arrived. My mother, my son, and I were told to go to the left side, toward the crematoriums.
SS guards were yelling,
“Twins, twins, we want twins.” I saw a very good-looking man coming toward me. It was Mengele.
He was with two guards, and my twin brother, Zyl. My brother had told Mengele he was a twin, and that he had a sister.
Twigs’ FATHER: To this day, I am not sure why I admitted I was a twin.
My previous experience in labor camps had taught me never to volunteer for anything.
Magda and I were born in 1915 in Budapest. When we were little, our family had moved to Munkacs, a town in Czechoslovakia renowned throughout Europe for its flourishing Jewish community.
When I was twenty-one, I was drafted into the Czech military, [where] I became an officer. But because I was Jewish, I was ultimately sent to a series of labor camps. When I came back to my hometown, it was only to be placed in the Jewish ghetto.
From there, my entire family-my parents, my twin sister, and her son-were put in a cattle car bound for Auschwitz.
Once I had informed Mengele I had a twin sister, he went looking for her-and plucked her out
Similar Books
