Gruesome Experiment in The Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Out of 3,000 children, only 200 came out alive. The other 2,800 died horrible deaths while being used in horrible experiments in the Auschwitz Concentration camp. These experiments were called the Twin Experiments and were conducted during the Holocaust in 1943-1945 until the camp’s liberation in 1945. By the end of the Holocaust, only a few of the children were able to survive the brutal twin experiments conducted by Josef Mengele at the Auschwitz Concentration Camps.
Josef Mengele, also known as the Angel of Death, was born on March 16, 1911.
He was the first son of his family, who lived in Günzburg, Germany. His father was a very successful farm implement manufacturer, but Josef had no interest in following his father’s footsteps. Instead, in 1935, Josef earned a Ph.D. in physical anthropology and a doctoral degree in genetic medicine from Munich University. After his schooling, in 1937, he became an assistant for Otmar von Verschuer. Otmar von Verschuer was a very well-known researcher; he was specifically known for being very interested in the biology of twins.
Later in the year, Josef joined the Nazis. In 1938, he obtained a medical degree, and afterward joined the S.S. He was eventually drafted into the army, but instead of fighting, he volunteered to help the Waffen-SS.
During the summer, he did medical work and research for the Race and Settlement office at the Central Immigration Office NE in Posen. There he was a medical officer in division SS Wiking. While working there, in 1943, he became wounded and was sent to work at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Genetics, and Eugenics in Germany.
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The Institute just happened to be run by his old boss, Otmar von Verschuer. Josef was working very well, and he ended up moving up in the ranks. In April, he was promoted to SS Caption, but then in May, he transferred to Auschwitz. At Auschwitz, he was the medical officer in charge of Birkenau’s Gypsy camp. Eventually, the Gypsy camp was mass murdered in the gas chambers, so then Josef became the Chief Camp Physician of Auschwitz II (“Josef Mengele”). Here Mengele began doing what he ended up becoming known for, conducting the twin experiments.
Josef Mengele earned his nickname, the angel of death, from his work at the Auschwitz camp. There he performed routine rounds which consisted of him going to where the new prisoners were dropped off and deciding what would happen to them. They were sorted in three different ways; they could be sent to the gas chambers, sentenced to hard unbearable labor, or be used unwillingly in experiments. Josef had the most interest in the last option. The ideal type of “guinea pig” in the experiments was twins. So Josef would search the crowds for twins, and once he found them they would immediately be sent to a lab. There he performed different tests on them.
He continued his cruel routine for two years until the Soviet army liberated the camp. To avoid capture he fled to the west, but he was eventually captured by the United States. Josef could have been sentenced to what he deserved by the US, but because they did not realize he was an extremely wanted war criminal, he was released immediately. After his release, under false papers, he moved to Bavaria. There he worked as a stableman for four years. Eventually, he immigrated to Argentina. While he was living in Argentina, the German police were able to obtain a warrant for his arrest (“Josef Mengele”). He soon was married in Uruguay in 1949. After getting married he moved to Brazil, which is where he spent the rest of his life. He died in 1979 after suffering from a stroke while swimming. Josef was buried under a fake name so no attention would be drawn to him. Even though precautions were taken, in 1985, the German police were able to find Josefs grave.
Once they found the grave, they dug up the body to see if it was Josef. Sadly, DNA testing was not available until 1992. When they were finally able to test the body’s DNA to see if it matched Josef’s DNA, they found a match. Josef Mengele was able to escape from punishment until his death, which occurred 34 years after the liberation of Auschwitz. Even though the Twin experiments may seem as if they were only done with the purpose of torture, Josef did have an end goal for his studies. He conducted the Auschwitz twin experiments with the intent of finding a way to build the new “Aryan” race (Broder). Twins were perfect for their experiments, but identical twins were even better. Identical twins were perfect test subjects because they share a genome. While scientists thought because of this they will share only physical traits, eugenicists, AKA Nazis, thought genetics could determine personality traits.
Nazis also believed genes could determine someone’s wealth, behavior, and whether or not someone would become a criminal. They took twins, which were mostly children, and made them unwilling test subjects in these dangerous experiments. The Nazis completely disregarded the value of human life and the benefits of diversity so they could create their idea of the perfect person. When the Jews and other minorities arrived at the camp the Nazis would search the crowds for twins. If they found twins they would bring them back to the lab and begin experimenting. According to Erin Blakemore, ‘…the program turned twins…into unwilling medical subjects in experiments that exposed about 3,000 children at Auschwitz-Birkenau to disease, disfigurement, and torture under the guise of medical “research” into illness, human endurance and more,’ (Blakemore). The twins had slightly better living conditions than those who were not being used in the experiments, but still horrible conditions.
They also had many unknown substances injected into them and had lots of blood drawn. The injections caused reactions ranging from a fever or aching pain to death. We still do not know what was in the injections because the Nazis destroyed many of the records. So we really rely on survivors’ stories. The stories of what survivors saw and experienced are extremely gruesome and inhumane. Vera Alexander recalled Mengele being so obsessed with twins and their benefits to his experiments, that he took sperm from one twin and impregnated a girl with it. While she was pregnant he took great care of her and made sure she was in the best condition she could be in. When the time for the birth came Mengele came to watch.
He hoped the birth would result in a set of twins, but when it did not happen, according to Vera Alexander, ‘…when he saw that there was only one baby and not twins, he tore the baby right out of the mother’s uterus, threw it into an oven and walked away..’ Another survivor, Ruth Elias, told her experience in experiments. Ruth was pregnant when she arrived at the camp. She was sent to the labs because Mengele wanted her babies if she ended up giving birth to twins. Eventually, Ruth gave birth to a single baby, and even though the baby was not a twin, Mengele had a plan. He ordered a nurse to bandage Ruth’s breasts so she could not nurse her baby. Mengele decided the baby could help him find the answer to the question, “How long can a new baby survive with no food?”
Vera Kriegel was able to share her story as a twin in an experiment, which showed a different perspective. Kriegel recalled watching nazi soldiers smash in baby skulls with the butt of their rifle. She also said she and her sister were kept in a small cage while at Auschwitz. There, Mengele would come in every day and inject her and her sister with an unknown liquid which caused violent pain. During her time there she said there were two forces that kept her alive, her hatred for Mengele and his need for her in the experiments. She claimed to have her own private war with Mengele, saying, ‘I fought him by being unruly. He would say do one thing, and I would do another…,’ (Broder). Though these stories share different perspectives and experiences they all share a similarity, inhumane violence. They were all subjected to actions no one should ever have to experience.
Identical to the previous stories, Eva and Miriam Kor experienced sights and actions they should never have experienced. Eva and Miriam Kor were those survivors. Eva and Miriam were born into a Jewish farming family in Transylvania, on January 21, 1934. They had a normal childhood up until 1944 when they arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp. When Eva arrived she remembers everything being loud. She heard screaming, crying, and shouting. Once she and her family stepped out of the cattle car she recalls being very confused. She had never seen a place such as the one she had just arrived at. Eva looked around to try to grasp the situation and her surroundings, but when she looked back at her family, her two older sisters and father were gone. She never saw them again. Amongst all the chaos, Eva and Miriam clung tightly to their mother.
A guard began to shout “Twins! Twins!” Eventually, the guard noticed Eva and Miriam and came over to them and asked if they were twins. Their mother, only wanting her children to be safe, asked, “Is that good?” When the guard replied yes, so did Eva’s mother. As soon as the guard knew they were twins Eva and Miriam were being pulled apart from their mother. The twins and their mother screamed and sobbed as they were dragged away from each other. They never saw their mother again. Eva said they had only been at the camp for a few minutes and she had already lost her whole family besides her sister. They were soon taken to a lab which is where the experiment patients stayed.
From there they were experimented on by force. ‘Miriam and I were part of a group of children who were alive for one reason only — to be used as human guinea pigs,” Eva Kor explained. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays she and her sister would be placed in a room, completely naked, with several other sets of twins. They stayed there for up to eight hours. Eva recalls the Nazi doctors measuring every part of her body, then comparing it to her sister’s body, and lastly to their charts. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays they were taken to the blood lab. There, Nazi doctors would take blood from Eva’s left arm and then inject unknown solutions into her right arm. After one specific injection, she fell very ill. She had a high fever, swollen limbs, and random red spots all over her body.
The next time Eva had to go to the blood lab, instead of taking blood they took her temperature. Afterward, she was taken to the camp hospital to receive treatment. Once she was there, Josef Mengele, the man behind the experiments, came to see her condition. Eva remembers him looking at her and saying, “Too bad, she is so young. She only has two weeks to live,” after he left the room. Miraculously, after two weeks of being in the hospital, Eva was able to break the fever. One week later, Eva’s fever chat had returned to normal. She was soon able to return to her sister. While Eva was away, Miriam was under 24-hour supervision and was injected with many unknown solutions which made her feel very sick. Luckily the two twins were able to survive to see the day the camp was liberated in 1945.
Eva and Miriam stayed strong all the way until the end. After the liberation, both twins went on to start families of their own. Eva eventually started a campaign for fellow survivors called CANDLES and was very involved in the media while sharing her story. Miriam lived a quieter life with her family but eventually began to face health problems with her Kidney. No matter what medicine she took, nothing improved her condition. They ended up finding out Miriam’s kidneys had never grown larger than a ten-year-old’s, which they assume is a result of an injection from the experiments. When Miriam’s kidney failed Eva gladly donated her own to help her sister. Eventually, Miriam passed away in 1993 due to health complications. Even after her sister’s death, Eva continued to speak out and travel the world in order to share their story in the Holocaust Twin Experiments (I Survived The Holocaust Twin Experiments). Eva passed away on July 4, 2019, while touring for her speeches. Their story is only one out of the hundreds of stories belonging to the children involved in these experiments.
The pain does not stop even after the liberation, it continues on long after and continues to affect the rest of their lives. At the end of it all, The Holocaust Twin experiments conducted by Josef Mengele resulted in thousands of innocent lives lost. Josef Mengele was so obsessed with his idea of perfect, that he completely disregarded the value of thousands of human lives. His brutal experiments harmed and ended many lives. Those who survived the terrifying experiments were still affected daily even after the war had ended. Whether it be physically or emotionally, they experienced pain and hardship. Luckily the survivors were able to stay strong, and they told their stories. They were able to help researchers and historians figure out exactly what happened in The Twin Experiments. Though their pain followed them out Auschwitz, so did their strength and courage.
Gruesome Experiment in The Auschwitz Concentration Camp. (2021, Dec 14). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/gruesome-experiment-in-the-auschwitz-concentration-camp/
