Is the data about Birkenau tests on twins correct ?

[Ira S.]

Do you think Mengele was anti-social?

He seems to have had quite normal relationships within his own circle.

Oh, definitely not - I personally feel that the "anti-social" note in ASPD isn't appropriate for the disorder at all; he was clearly very social and well-liked by (most) of his colleagues. A surprising number of people with ASPD are like that, especially if they are of that charismatic subtype, which Mengele was by many accounts.

Before I give a more detailed reply to the points you raised - shall we move this to a new thread? The conversation has diverged a bit from the original topic.

[Janssen]

I read that dr. Mengele did some testing 1943 onwards with gipsy twins. OTOH the story claimed it is exaggerated by the survivor key eye witness. Any links to dr Mengele actions is the concentration camps to share some light to this ?

I refer to this:

http://inconvenienthistory.com/archive/ ... _twins.php

The above article mentions Dina Gottliebova, a young Jewish artist who worked with Dr. Mengele in Auschwitz from mid 1943 until January 1945. Mengele was studying the facial features of gypsies and he needed an artist to paint their portraits. Every morning a member of the SS would pick Dina up outside her barracks and drive her to the gypsy camp.

Dina Gottliebova gave a 6 hour interview to the Shoah Foundation which can be found on Youtube. The interview is in two parts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRMWD8L1xDg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e85gLhT5c2A

When the Shoah Foundation interviewer asked Dina Gottliebova if she ever saw Mengele perform any medical experiments, she replied that she did not. She even had something positive to say about him - she told the interviewer that Christmas 1944, Mengele gave her two packets of cigarettes and a bag of home made cookies which he had brought from his home.

[4thskorpion]

I wonder why dr. Mengele chose to use an artist to paint portraits rather than use a camp photographer? Would a photograph not have been more useful for "scientific" study of facial features than an artist's impression - no matter how skilled the artist? Also, colour film would have been available.

[Ira S.]

When the Shoah Foundation interviewer asked Dina Gottliebova if she ever saw Mengele perform any medical experiments, she replied that she did not. She even had something positive to say about him - she told the interviewer that Christmas 1944, Mengele gave her two packets of cigarettes and a bag of home made cookies which he had brought from his home.

The thing to take into consideration, though, is that she as an artist would have no reason to. He wanted her to primarily make sketches of Romani individuals with noma, and thus would not have been in the testing rooms as a prisoner doctor - or victim - may have been. Really interesting source, though - thank you for sharing!! I've actually never seen this one before so I now have something to do on my day off tomorrow!

I will say that his act of kindness wasn't much of an aberration from his personality, at least from the accounts of Lingens, Nyiszli, Kor, and a woman who went by the alias of Magda V. when discussing him (amongst others) - for instance, despite his cruelty, Mengele also offered the twins pieces of candy and supposedly gave Nyiszli cigarettes as well.

I wonder why dr. Mengele chose to use an artist to paint portraits rather than use a camp photographer? Would a photograph not have been more useful for "scientific" study of facial features than an artist's impression - no matter how skilled the artist? Also, colour film would have been available.

Huh. I never actually thought about that but now I really want to know the answer. Anyone have any insight?

[4thskorpion]

When the Shoah Foundation interviewer asked Dina Gottliebova if she ever saw Mengele perform any medical experiments, she replied that she did not. She even had something positive to say about him - she told the interviewer that Christmas 1944, Mengele gave her two packets of cigarettes and a bag of home made cookies which he had brought from his home.

The thing to take into consideration, though, is that she as an artist would have no reason to. He wanted her to primarily make sketches of Romani individuals with noma, and thus would not have been in the testing rooms as a prisoner doctor - or victim - may have been. Really interesting source, though - thank you for sharing!! I've actually never seen this one before so I now have something to do on my day off tomorrow!

Although Dina Babbitt (Gottliebova) in "Story of Dina Gottliebova Babbitt. Comics for a Cause." claimed (by the authors') to have been ordered by Mengele to "paint scenes from Mengele's human experiments" and "one occasion, they had brought her a heart that had been cut in half, from a man who had been shot that morning, and ordered her to paint a picture of it"

Historical license in telling the story by the cartoonists? Maybe??

"Story of Dina Gottliebova Babbitt"- Comics for a Cause.

See: Rafael Medoff, Neal Adams, Joe Kubert, Stan Lee (2008-08-08). "Story of Dina Gottliebova Babbitt - Comics for a Cause." http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/200 ... ges1-6.pdf

[Topspeed]

I read that dr. Mengele did some testing 1943 onwards with gipsy twins. OTOH the story claimed it is exaggerated by the survivor key eye witness. Any links to dr Mengele actions is the concentration camps to share some light to this ?

I refer to this:

http://inconvenienthistory.com/archive/ ... _twins.php

I'd highly recommend Five Chimneys by Olga Lengyel and Auschwitz by Miklos Nyiszli. Both were prisoner doctors who knew Mengele fairly well - well enough to witness the experiments - and Nyiszli performed autopsies on the dead bodies of these twins. You can get his account for something like $3 digitally, although it should be taken with a grain of salt, as there is a particular scene in which he seems to project his distress about the camp onto Mengele when the latter comes into the office tired and drenched to the bone, even though his feeling any kind of remorse would be in stark juxtaposition to all of Nyiszli's other descriptions of him and those of the people that knew him.

Mengele also was obsessed with eye color - in Robert Jay Lifton's The Nazi Doctors there are eyewitness accounts of him collecting eyeballs (of particular interest to him was heterochromia iridis) and confirmation that he did the experiments. Here's the quote:

Mengele had an added project: that of actually changing eye color in an Aryan direction. Dr. Abraham C. wondered why Mengele was devoting so much attention to a few seven-year-old boys who seemed unremarkable and then realized that “those children had one odd characteristic: they were blond and had brown eyes, so Mengele was trying to find a way to color their eyes blue.” Mengele actually injected methylene blue into their eyes, causing severe pain and inflammation, but “their, eyes of course did not change.” Dr. C. had the impression these children were gassed, but he may have been wrong: a former block elder told of thirty-six such children who apparently survived. There is a record, however, of a little girl named Dagmar, born in Auschwitz in 1944, who died after Mengele’s eye injections. 40 Of the children subjected to the eye-color experiment, at least one child became almost blind; the eyes of most of the others, after considerable pain and infection, gradually returned to normal.

If you want to read the whole page (which I recommend you do; it's very interesting), here's the link: http://www.holocaust-history.org/lifton ... T362.shtml

Hope this helped!

Yes I think I am all set with this data.

Thank you everyone !