Dr. Mengele is famously known for sending the weak to the left (towards the crematorium) and the healthy to the right, as Wiesel has experienced twice so far. But this heartless massacre did not conclude his madness. Once Dr. Mengele found suitable human subjects in the camp, he would perform various cruel and deadly experiments on them in order to "study" heredity, as he claimed.
Given power over thousands of human patients to dispose of as he wished, Dr. Mengele quickly lost his focus on any scientific purpose and turned into a heartless mad-scientist. In almost every operation, Dr. Mengele would perform surgery on a captive Jew without any anesthesia, and he usually would be seen removing organs from the stomach and after a quick study would replace it back inside the victim. Once he even extracted out the heart of the patient. It is no wonder that only about a dozen Jews survived this man's surgery table. With such limitless power probably not given to any other doctor since the Aztecs, Dr. Mengele turned his operating room into a butcher shop in a wild attempt to display the power that he exercised.
The unbelievable atrocities that this one man has committed forced Wiesel to become speechless, even in his writings. The only allusion Wiesel ever makes to Dr. Mengele was on page 34, when he referred to the deadly flames as "The Angel of Death." This title, "The Angel of Death," was one of Dr. Mengele's most common nicknames.
Sources:
http://isurvived.org/drMengele.html
(scroll down the page for in depth details on Dr. Mengele)
Intrigued by the nickname “The Angel of Death,” I researched and uncovered two articles about two survivors of Mengele’s operating table. Each of the survivors handled their experience with the “Angel of Death” in different, almost opposite manners.
ReplyDeleteOne man, Yitzhak Ganon, had his kidney removed without anesthesia by Dr. Mengele. For 65 years, he honored his declaration to never set foot in a hospital ever again, until a heart attack forced his family to bring him to a hospital in his hometown in Israel. After Mengele operated on his kidney, Ganon was forced to clean bloody medical instruments and work without painkillers. Up until his heart attack, Ganon would always claim that he was not sick, but only fatigued. Ganon’s story portrays the traumatic effects of Mengele’s gruesome “experiments” and subtly portrays Ganon’s resigned determination to never forgive Mengele’s actions in the past. In Ganon’s mind, the hospital and operating table are not only associated with pain and suffering but also hold such strong significance that Ganon cannot change his opinions toward the Nazis.
Another survivor, Eva Kor fought on to save her life as well as her twin sister’s life and in the process survived an injection of lethal bacteria from Mengele. Unlike Ganon, Kor decided to face her past and forgive her oppressors in order to complete her mourning and healing. After meeting Hans Münch, a doctor who worked with Mengele, Kor found a human being who was not a monster. Instead, she found a man who struggled with his involvement in the Holocaust and had constant nightmares. At that moment, Kor decided that she could forgive all Nazis, a decision that upset many Holocaust survivors. However, Kor felt that by forgiving the Nazis a burden was lifted off her back, and she could free herself from her status as a victim.
These two responses to fairly similar experiences under the hand of Dr. Mengele raises the question of whether or not it is possible and right for Holocaust survivors to forgive the Nazis. Is the Nazis’ evil too great to forgive? In many Holocaust survivors’ eyes, forgiveness means exonerating the Nazis, an action that for them is impossible considering their anger and suffering.
Sources: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,389491,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,666327,00.html