Josef Mengele, known as the “Angel of Death”, is a horrific figure remembered for his atrocities at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. He got this name for conducting deadly experiments on prisoners at the Nazi concentration camp.
He was born on March 16, 1911 in Günzburg, Germany. He studied medicine and anthropology at the University of Munich and received his doctorate in 1935.
Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and in 1938 joined the Schutzstaffel, a key paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler.
He arrived at Auschwitz in May 1943 and was given the role of camp physician. His main job was to decide the fate of the prisoners. He chose who would work in harsh conditions and who would go straight to the gas chambers and be killed.
His medical experiments were infamous for their extreme cruelty and lack of scientific value. He focused particularly on twins, believing that studying them could reveal genetic information useful to Nazi beliefs. Victims, including children and adults, endured surgeries, injections, and other painful procedures without any pain relief, often leading to excruciating deaths. He also attempted to change eye color through injections. These experiments were performed without the consent of the victims.
“Perverting the role of the physician, the so-called angel of death at Auschwitz used his knowledge of the workings of life to destroy it. He determined who would die immediately in Auschwitz’s gas chambers and who would be exploited for labor or Nazi “science” before being killed,” the U.S. Justice Department said in a report.
It further states, “When prisoners arrived at Auschwitz, Mengele and his ‘doctor’ colleagues selected for slave labor those who were medically fit (thus sending them to work in inhumane and often deadly conditions) or who could be used by the Third Reich in some other way. All other prisoners, most of whom were gassed, were killed immediately in specially designed asphyxiation chambers.”
For his experiments, he reportedly removed organs from prisoners without anesthesia and deliberately infected his subjects with diseases.
Because of his highly visible and crucial role in the Hitler regime’s reign of genocidal terror, Mengele effectively became a symbol of genocide; in particular, his name became synonymous with the evil of Auschwitz.
As soon as World War II ended, Mengele left Auschwitz and avoided capture for several years. Despite the efforts of those seeking Nazi criminals and international authorities, he managed to avoid prosecution by using different aliases in several countries.
In 1979, enough evidence was found to confirm Mengele’s death in Brazil, where he had been living under a false name. In 1985 forensic investigations conclusively identified his remains, confirming that he had drowned in a swimming accident.
Mengele is known as the embodiment of evil at Auschwitz, where more than a million people, mostly Jews, were killed. His actions were seen as a horrific misuse of medical knowledge that showed how low people could stoop under oppressive governments.
