Josef Mengele
Dr. Josef Mengele (March 16, 1911 – February 7, 1979), also known as the Angel of Death (German: Todesengel) was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and physician during World War II. He is mainly remembered for his actions at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he performed deadly experiments on prisoners, and was a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers and was one of the doctors who administered the gas. With Red Army troops sweeping through Poland, Mengele was transferred 280 kilometres (170 mi) from Auschwitz to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 January 1945, just 10 days before the arrival of the Soviet forces at Auschwitz.
Quotes
- There can't be two smart peoples in the world. We're going to win the war, so only the Aryan race will stand.
- As quoted in Defy the darkness: A Tale of Courage in the Shadow of Mengele (2000) by Joe Rosenblum and David Kohn, p. 193
- Even the Russians are fighting us. They've brought in Jewish pilots, nurses, and doctors. Everybody's ganging up on us. We didn't think it would happen this way.
- As quoted in Defy the darkness: A Tale of Courage in the Shadow of Mengele (2000) by Joe Rosenblum and David Kohn, p. 192
- The Jewish people, no matter where they are, they become the best in the world.
- As quoted in Defy the darkness: A Tale of Courage in the Shadow of Mengele (2000) by Joe Rosenblum and David Kohn, p. 192
- The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.
- As quoted in Surfing the Tao : A Revolution of Free Will (2004) by Angela V. Michaels
- Away with this shit!
- To people who were about to be sent to gas chambers, as quoted in People in Auschwitz (2004) by Hermann Langbein and Henry Friedlander, p. 119
Quotes about Mengele
- Mengele was known as a manic collector of things human, including dwarf corpses, gallstones, and eyes. His fascination with eyes led to the infamous experiments in which he injected various substances into the eyes of brown-eyed Jewish children in an attempt to make them Nordic (blue).
- Bettina Beech, as quoted in Race & Research : Perspectives on Minority Participation in Health Studies (2004) by Bettina M. Beech and Maurine Goodman, p. 41
- I have never accepted that Mengele believed he was doing serious medical work … He was exercising power. Major surgery was performed without anaesthetic. Once I witnessed a stomach operation — Mengele was removing pieces from the stomach, but without any anaesthesia. It was horrifying.
- Alex Dekel, a camp survivor, as quoted in Weimar and Nazi Germany (1996) by Fiona Reynoldson, Stephen J. Lee, David Taylor and Rosemary Rees
- I was given five injections. That evening I developed extremely high fever. I was trembling. My arms and my legs were swollen, huge size. Mengele and Dr. Konig and three other doctors came in the next morning. They looked at my fever chart, and Dr. Mengele said, laughingly, "Too bad, she is so young. She has only two weeks to live..."
- Eva Mozes Kor, quoted in Auschwitz: the Nazis & The 'Final Solution' (2005), by Laurence Rees, p. 89; also at "Eva and Miriam Mozes" at AnneFrank.dk
