Twin Experiment terms

Noma

- A disease that causes an infection on the face. It occurs with young children, specifically of the age under six. It occurs with malnutrition or poor oral hygiene. - An outbreak of Noma occurred in a concentration camp, so Mengele decided to gas anyone who showed symptoms. - About 1,000 gypsies were sent to the gas chambers

Eva and Mariam Mozes

- A set of twin survivors who were apart of the experiments. They have been very involved in the continuous education of the Holocaust specifically the experiences of the Twins

Auschwitz

- Biggest death camp in the Holocaust - Purpose was to kill as many Jews (or others that disagreed with Nazi beliefs) as quickly and effortless as possible - Mengel was a main doctor, but was al;so well known for picking who lived and who burned right away - About 1.1 million people died at Auschwitz

Mengele's early life

- Born March 16, 1911 - Grew up as a strong Catholic with Catholic beliefs - Grew up in a very wealthy family which helped him escape from Germany to Argentina

Mengele's Achievements

- Earned an Iron Cross first class for dragging people out of burning tanks - Achieved his Doctorate when he was 24 - Earned Iron Cross second class for his bravery in Ukraine - Had a degree in Anthropology, and another in Medicine

Embryology

- Embryology-the study of growth in living organisms. - Was used by Mengele to understand how bodies worked in order to do his tests successfully.

Experiments Used

- Eye injections: Drops or injections of chemicals would be put in the eyes leading to severe pain, infections, temporary or permanent blindness - Blood: Blood transfusion would be done where blood is drawn from one twin and injected into the others. Twins would get blood drawn fingers, arms, and sometimes their neck. Many twins died from loss of blood -Stitching: Mengele once tried to sew two twins together, trying to create conjoined twins. Both twins quickly died of Gangrene infection

Mengele's Death

- February 7, 1979 - Was on a holiday resort in Brazil when he had a stroke -Burried in Sao Púalo, Argentina under the name Wolfgang Gerhard

Dr.Von Verschuer

- German human biologist and geneticist during this time period - Mengele sent Verschuer the data from his experiments, and then he later sent two truck loads and destroyed the evidence - Encouraged Mengele to transfer from an institute to a concentration camp

Mengele after the War

- Mengele escaped trial and inprisonment by the United States because he did not have a SS tattoo. -He moved to South America were he lived until his death in 1979 from a stroke in a resort pool. -He was buried in Argentina under the name Wolfgang Gerhard.

Professor Otmar

- Mengele worked under his control - Biologist who believed that twins held the secrets - The real inspiration of all of Mengele's experiments

Mengele´s Personality

- Mengle's son, Rolf Mengele, said that he did not show any remorse for what he did -Known to be one of the vilest men in history - Around the twins he put on a fake face, and turned into someone completely different - He was thought to be really nice and to have candy in his pockets (not true)

Josef Mengele

- Nicknamed "angel of death" or "Doctor of Death" - Nazi soldier that worked as a doctor in Auschwitz - Performed many surgeries and experiments on twins - One of the worst men in history - Said, "The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it"

Gypsy Twins

- One night, Mengele killed 14 pairs of Gypsy twins by putting them to sleep, just to dissect them -Focused on testing Gypsies and Jews because they were going to die in the concentration camp.

The ramp/selection

- The selection process at Auschwitz where a soldier would pick if someone was strong enough to work or if they burned immediately - Most soldiers came to this job drunk, but Mengele loved it so much he would show up sober and for extra hours - Twins would be picked out of these lines to be tested on - Some mothers would volunteer their kids, but some would try to keep it quiet - Best place to find twins because there were so many kids there to pick from

Twin´s Life in a Camp

- The twins looked up to Mengele as a father - Didn't have to do work like the other prisoners at the camp -Got more food than others - Would wake up every morning for role call -Thought to be better off as a twin, until you were the next victim of the experiments

Isolation Endurance

- Used because Mengele wanted to see if twins could survive without each other. - He would lock twins in separate rooms without any company -He would then wait it out and observed who survived longer

Main Goal of Mengele

- Wanted to create a pure Aryan society -Tried to fabricate blue eyes and blonde hair, and then have them reproduce more Aryan kids -Studied genetics to make sure all mothers would give birth to Aryan children -Used eye injections in attemp to change eye color - Wanted his name to be known world wide

Gas Chambers

- sed to kill those deemed "unfair for work. - at included women, children, the elderly, twins, and the disabled most common used way of killing people. Most of the Gas Chambers were destroyed before the U.S. army liberated the camps, so that they could not be used as evidence. The most commonly used gases was hydrogen cyanide.

"Little people"

-Along with Twins Mengele also had a fascination with "Little people" or drawfs —dwarfism is a genetic condition which usually inhibits normal growth causing those affected to be 4'10or shorter -a family of seven from Transylvania that Mengele was especially interested in -the Ovtizes -He removed teeth and put them under high physiological stress

Mengele's criminal record

-Mengele's name was on a list of Wanted war criminals but the officials released him quickly - Was issued a warrant of his arrest in 1959 - He was never tried for these crimes against humanity - Worked on his experiments in secret so he could get his work done without being accused of crimes

Survivors of the experiments

-Only a few hundreds of twins that were in experiments were found surviving -the twins that survived suffered medical diseases after their experiments including tuberculosis and many miscarriages

Surgeries Performed

-Sex change operations -Removal of limbs and organs: to see what we could live without -Autopsies would be performed in a pathology lab, right next to the crematorium

Mengele's Theory's

-Started trying to find cause of clef plates -wanted to find genetic cause of twins, dwarfs, and eye color (specificly how to modify these things)

Other German Soldiers

-The German soldiers that did not work in concentration camps did not know what was happening inside. -Other than Mengele, no other soldier showed up to the ramp sober because it was a really hard job deciding who lived and who died.

Zwillilingsvater

-This term refers to the person that took care of the twins because some were to young to fill out forms and such. - Directly translates to "twin's father" - Did not act as a father, but helped the younger twins carry out daily activities, and supervise all twins.

Tuberculosis (boy that was shot)

-Very dangerous infectious bacterial disease. Symptoms often include pain in the chest with breathing, coughing blood, chills, fever, weight and muscle loss, and swollen lymph nodes -doctors were arguing about a boy and wether or not he had tuberculosis -Mengele left and came back in an hour saying he didn't -Mengele shot the boy and directed him in that time to find that he didn't even have the disease

Ways that twins died

-bleeding to death from drawing blood -experiments gone wrong (ex: sewing hands together or hypothermia experiments) -blood transfusions -scarlet fever -infections -stress -injections of diseases -surgeries

# of kids that were killed

In holocaust- around 1.5 million Twins- around 3,000

Effects of the Experiments on Individuals

Survivors noted suffering from turburculosis, cancers, and miscarriages as a result of being apart of the experiments. A group of survivors held a mock trial for Josef Mengele as a way to try and meet their mission: "To heal the pain, to teach the truth, and to prevent prejudice"

Commonly Selected Victims

Twins: identical or fraternal, usually under the age of 18, those that were extremely young 4 or under were usually allow to be taken with their mother who would be with them strictly so the twins could last as long as possible in the experiments