Josef Mengele: Devil of Auschwitz

Josef Mengele's name has surfaced again in Brazil. In an area where Mengele was believed to be hiding, an astonishing amount of twins have been born. The first births began in 1963. Did the "Angel of Death"continue his devil's work in the jungle?

Recently, a doctor in the border region of Paraguay and Brazil documented a large and unusual number of twins in the region. The number was unusual enough, but the traits were odder still; all had blond hair and blue eyes. Conceived in the early ’60s, it fits a time line of Josef Mengele’s probable location in South America at the time. Indigent legend recalls a “nomadic medic”, who drifted from village to village, claiming to being a veterinarian. He was remembered by more than one of the folks interviewed, as one who always attended the women during pregnancy and during the post natal period. It is unclear how so many women conceived blond haired blue eyed twins, but Mengele was known to experiment with artificial insemination and twins. It is possible, that under the guise of another procedure, Mengele was able to impregnate unsuspecting women. Josef Mengele, often referred to as the “Angel of Death”, was one of the most sought after war criminals after World War Two ended in 1945. Wanted for his crimes against humanity during his tenure at Auschwitz, he fled as the Red Army was closing in, and like most other Nazi’s, made his way to South America. Josef Mengele was born in Gunzburg, Germany, on 16 March 1911. His was a middle class family with two other brothers, and life was fairly uneventful until after finishing school, when he entered the University system for a degree in anthropology. For one of his theses, he wrote how race can be defined by the jaw structure of a human skull. After obtaining his degree, he went on to medical school. In 1932, Mengele joined the Nazi Party, and in 1938, found himself serving in the military. Wounded on the Russian front, he was deemed unfit for combat and sent back to Germany. He was promoted to Captain in the SS, and was assigned to serve as a medical officer. In 1943, Mengele replaced another doctor who had fallen ill at Birkenau, and in May of that year was moved to the infirmary at the concentration camp housing gypsies. It was during this stint, lasting nearly two years, that Mengele was coined “The Angel of Death”. One of the jobs of a medical officer was to observe arriving inmates and choosing, based on sight, who would go to work, and who would go the gas chamber. Clad in a white lab coat, his outstretched arms pointing left for death and right for work, he looked ironically like an angel. History would show he was anything but. During this time at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Mengele worked on genetics, epidemiology, and a number of other medical fields, on the live “specimens” culled from the condemned. His cruelty and methods on the inmates has been enumerated too many times to rehash in this column, but suffice it to say, Mengele could hold his own against the worst of society throughout history. Fleeing Auschwitz ahead of a vengeful Red Army, Josef Mengele bounced around different units in the SS and finally surrendered to the Allies in 1945. Even Mengele and his “invincible” Third Reich insiders had something to fear; being captured by the Soviets and forced into Stalin’s “Camps of Ultra-Strict Regime”. There was no doubt in any member of the Waffen SS’s mind what the Soviets would do if they fell into their hands. Mengele, though tagged a War Criminal as early as 1944, lived in Germany under an assumed name for five years, until he had to flee for South America in 1949. Mengele’s time in South America has been written about in novels, movies and Nazi Hunter lore. It can be difficult to discern fact from fiction. At first he worked construction in Buenos Aires, the same city where fellow war criminal, Adolph Eichmann, was living. But it wasn’t long before he made his way into the cliques of the rich and influential Germans living in Argentina. He lived quietly there until in 1961, when Israeli agents snatched Adolf Eichmann from his home. Eichmann had been living quietly in Argentina, too, but apparently the Israelis were onto both of them. Eichmann’s and Mengele’s snatch operation as actually planned as one, with Mengele being the bonus. They just missed Mengele by hours, but by then he had fled to Paraguay, where rumor had it had bribed Stroessnner (the German descended President of Paraguay), into letting him stay. Various sightings throughout the years placed Mengele in different places, but there was never any trace of him when the authorities arrived. It was into the wild, jungle of the Brazil-Paraguay border area into which Josef faded. It would appear that this time spent hiding in the jungle was not spent idly. It would seem apropos to assume he carried on his studies of genetics that he started at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Now, according to today’s Telegraph article, a number of twins have been found in a small area, all with the same features, that are not indigent to that area. Did Mengele make a breakthrough in genetics in the jungle? If so, how were his “patients” inseminated? Are they volunteering information? Mengele was tasked by Hitler to create a “Master Race”, did this work actually continue after the Fall of Germany? The average rate for twins is about one set per 80 births, this tiny Brazilian town, Candido Godoi, averaged about one in five. Indeed, the town has Twin Museum, and the crest of the town has two twin profiles on it. Could it be coincidence? Argentine author of Mengele: the Angel of Death in South America, doesn’t think so. The historian has been studying Nazis in South America for over twenty years. “Nobody knows for sure exactly what date Mengele arrived in Candido Godoi, but the first twins were born in 1963, the year in which we first hear reports of his presence,” he said. Josef Mengele died in 1979, reportedly by drowning. One can only hope his genes died with him.