Doctor Josef Mengele and his experiments in the camp

Transcript of the podcast

Josef Mengele was a doctor of medicine and philosophy, an assistant to Professor Otmar von Verschuer in the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, member of Nazi Party and the SS. Physician in the Roma and Sinti Family Camp in Birkenau, and from August to December 1944, also the chief medical officer of the Birkenau camp. Responsible for the experiments about the human heredity. He was never punished for his crimes. Dr Agnieszka Kita from the Archives of the Muzeum talks about Josef Mengele.

Doctor Josef Mengele is one of the most recognizable perpetrators of crimes at Auschwitz, primarily due to his pseudomedical experiments. However, can we begin by discussing his childhood, youth, and life before he was transferred to Auschwitz?

I believe it's extremely important to learn about Mengele's background because I think it will help us better understand—or at least critically examine to some extent—his entire career and later life. Josef Mengele was born on March 16, 1911, in the Bavarian town of Günzburg. He came from a well-off family. His parents, Karl and Walburga, became tycoons in the production of agricultural machinery. They were very well-known people in their region; their opinions were respected, and their sons were raised with the highest standards. They never lacked anything. Josef Mengele had two younger brothers. As the eldest, he was the apple of his parents' eye.

From childhood, he displayed diverse interests in the natural sciences and music; he even wrote plays that were performed during local events. He was very versatile. He was a popular, intelligent person, well-regarded in the community; his friends called him “Bepo.” He was quite a sickly child, so he went through several serious illnesses during his childhood. However, this did not significantly affect his later life.

In 1931, Mengele joined the Stahlhelm, a paramilitary organization in which he was active. It was later taken over by the SA, but young Josef was already considering his career—perhaps not so much political as professional. He did not want to enter the family business; that task fell to his younger brothers, while Josef wanted to complete his studies.

Therefore, young Mengele went to Munich to submit his papers—not for medicine, but for dentistry. By chance, however, he ended up submitting his documents for medicine because, in the courtyard of the University of Munich, he met an acquaintance who was preparing to become a doctor. He began telling him what it's like, how the studies go, what opportunities they offer, what interesting subjects there are. Mengele thought, "Well, indeed, maybe instead of dentistry, I'll submit my documents for medicine." He was accepted.

He didn't excessively participate in student activities, but he had friends and girlfriends, as we'd say today. However, it was evident that he was very spoiled by his parents, which his fellow students mention and which he himself writes about in his diaries. For example, his father, to prevent him from having to ride a bicycle to classes—since he had kidney problems and to avoid exposing his kidneys to the cold—bought him a car. So young Mengele was one of the few students in Munich at that time who owned a car.

This somewhat placed him in the social elite of the university. I mentioned Mengele's diaries here, which are also very interesting because they give us insight into Josef Mengele's character, especially his younger years. He stopped writing these diaries at the outbreak of the war when he was called up to the front. And here we see the personality of a young man who is searching for his path in life on one hand, and on the other, is convinced of his own uniqueness and has a need to stand out and prove his worth. But he was quite a decent student—a calm guy who simply aimed to achieve success in science. In 1935, he defended his first thesis. After this defense, he obtained the title of Doctor of Philosophy. This thesis was titled "Racial-Morphological Research on the Lower Jaw in Four Racial Groups." Two years later, he became a Doctor of Medical Sciences, defending his thesis "Genealogical Studies on Cases of Cleft Lip and Palate." So generally, it was a thesis on the so-called harelip and cleft palate, which, as can be seen, fascinated him in those early years.

He studied philosophy in Munich and medicine in Frankfurt. In the meantime, Mengele became involved in politics. As I mentioned earlier, Stahlhelm was taken over by the SA. In 1937, Mengele joined the NSDAP – the Nazi party - and a year later, the SS. This was actually nothing extraordinary because many students, especially in elite fields like medicine or law, joined various National Socialist student associations. Some out of belief in the Nazi ideology, others out of pure opportunism, and others because their friends were joining—so they often followed the crowd.

Mengele believed in racial theories, which, by the way, was also nothing extraordinary because eugenics, genetics, and racism were somewhat mainstream sciences at that time. Racism was not invented in the Third Reich; eugenics was also not invented there. Initially, positive eugenics was popular and promoted by many scientists and anthropologists who believed that the reproduction of certain individuals only led to the harm of children. For example, Janusz Korczak, after his long studies, stated that, unfortunately, he must say with sadness that for some children, it would have been better not to be born than to live in the misery and tragedy they had to endure. So positive eugenics was very popular. Negative eugenics, which assumed the elimination of individuals possessing traits considered undesirable, developed later. In the Third Reich, it was very popular, as was the burgeoning field of genetics, which at that time posed more questions than answers, giving scientists a large field for exploration. The truth is that from the misunderstanding of these two fields—positive eugenics and genetics—what we must put in quotes, "racism," arose—a kind of biological scientific racism that led to the genocide that took place during the Second World War and beyond. Nevertheless, we'll focus on the Third Reich here. So racism in the Third Reich, the so-called “Rassenkunde” or racial science, was very popular. And Mengele had a chance to build a career in this field because these were young, popular disciplines that needed precisely such young, talented people for development. Mengele caught the eye of Professor Otmar von Verschuer from the University of Frankfurt. Verschuer later became the head of the Institute of Biology and Heredity at the University of Frankfurt am Main, and in 1937, Josef Mengele joined him. He became his assistant, and together they devoted themselves to research on twins.

In fact, Verschuer was an expert in the field of twin research. Also, the study of twins was not an invention of the Third Reich; it was an issue that had been studied since the 19th century, which many doctors, anthropologists, and sociologists were interested in. Twins have always fascinated people in various cultures; they had different meanings—from the culture of the Aborigines, where the birth of twins was perceived as a curse, to cultures where twins were symbols of prosperity, like in ancient Greece with Apollo and Artemis. Fascination with twins and studying two identical organisms was nothing extraordinary. Otmar von Verschuer was an expert and pioneer in this field. The problem with Professor Verschuer's research was that studying twins was a long-term process—multi-year, sometimes decades. Moreover, one had to have the consent of the subjects themselves or their parents, making it not easy work and requiring a lot of dedication, time, and maneuvering between law and scientific experiments. Because in the Third Reich, regardless of how we look at it, German citizens were under legal protection, and even during the war or in the late pre-war years, one could not simply experiment on German children. Therefore, what very quickly became apparent was that Auschwitz provided an opportunity to conduct such experiments.

In the meantime, however, Mengele was called up for military service and first underwent standard military training in a mountain infantry regiment. Then, in 1940, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht. After a few months, at his request, he was transferred to the Waffen-SS, and in January 1942, he was sent to the front as a medical officer in the SS Wiking Division. Earlier, Mengele had, of course, undergone appropriate training in a reserve medical battalion before being sent to the front. On behalf of the Race and Settlement Office in Poznań, he qualified people for Germanization—that is, he examined Volksdeutsche in terms of their so-called Aryan characteristics. However, in January 1942, he was sent to the Wiking Division, where he served as a medical officer. He received good evaluations as an efficient medical officer and doctor, and his service proceeded in this way.

He wasn't on the front for too long because, already in the summer of 1942, he returned to Germany. Here, a contentious issue arises because some sources state that Mengele was seriously wounded and was unfit for front-line service, so he was transferred to garrison duty within the Reich. On the other hand, there is no confirmation in documents that Mengele was seriously wounded; he also did not receive a wound badge, which would be quite standard in such cases. In the available photos of Mengele, we do not see him wearing such a badge. It seems to me that it would be quite obvious, and he would wear it proudly—the black or silver wound badge—if he had indeed been seriously wounded and awarded such a decoration, especially since he wore the Iron Crosses he received for bravery with pride. The truth is that Mengele, risking his life, saved soldiers from a burning tank, and for that reason, he received the Iron Cross.

Mengele remained in Germany and wondered what to do next with his scientific career because that was already his only option, which, let's not hide, he was pleased about because he was more of a scientist than a soldier. So, despite these experiences, a return to academia could be a chance for him to develop the career he had always dreamed of.

Why was Dr. Mengele transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp? Was this solely his decision? What could have prompted such an action, and what were his tasks and duties in the camp?

From what we know, it wasn't that Mengele went to the commandant of Auschwitz and said, "I would like to serve here now as a camp doctor." It was more due to the encouragement of Verschuer, who saw in this an opportunity for himself and his institute. In 1942, Verschuer became the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. This was the culmination of his scientific work to date. Because there was a war, conducting scientific research was difficult; there weren't many research subjects, and it wasn't a priority. However, he was looking for opportunities to conduct research, and a concentration camp provided such an opportunity.

In a concentration camp, you had access in one place to multitude of people of different “races,” as the Nazis classified them, of different origins and appearances, often suffering from various ailments. And most importantly, there were also twins there, who were in one place and constantly available. So he urged Mengele, suggesting that he might apply to Auschwitz as a camp doctor and conduct his research there. Mengele agreed to this. Auschwitz turned out to be a significant opportunity for the development of his career—however that may sound—but we have to look at it from the perspective of Mengele and Verschuer to understand it at all.

So, from mid-1943, Josef Mengele was active in Auschwitz. Initially, he became the chief doctor of the so-called "Zigeunerlager" on sector BIIe, which was the section where Sinti and Roma families were incarcerated. He also served as a camp doctor in hospitals and in Birkenau, and from late autumn 1944, he was the chief doctor in the male hospital BIIf. In December 1944, he became an SS doctor in the Birkenau infirmary. So we see that Mengele performed various roles in Auschwitz. The most well-known is, of course, as the doctor in the so-called Gypsy camp and as the person who dealt with twins.

Arriving at Auschwitz was a shock because the reality of a concentration camp was something horrifying, even compared to the everyday reality during the war or at the front. Mengele was in shock because no one had prepared him for this; he had never undergone training in concentration camps like the guards had. And here he was sent; his offices were located here; this is where he worked. So he witnessed the extermination of Jews mainly, but also Sinti, Roma, and other prisoners, every day with his own eyes.

Many prisoners pinned certain hopes on him for the possibility of improving their lives, especially the lives of sick prisoners. Mengele himself initially tried in some way to improve their lives, but this really lasted very briefly and should not be overestimated in the whole history of Josef Mengele in Auschwitz. Of course, Mengele very quickly, let's say, recovered from the initial shock and began conducting his scientific research here. He accepted assignments from his superiors and colleagues from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.

His main tasks, apart from initially being the chief doctor in the camp for Roma and Sinti families, were studies on twins, the physiology and pathology of dwarfism, heterochromia of the iris, congenital anomalies, and noma. Perhaps let's start with noma because this is what Mengele first dealt with. Noma, or cancrum oris, is a disease caused by poor living conditions and malnutrition. It was very common among children in the Roma camp. Living conditions in Europe were already good enough that noma did not occur; it was something that at that time occurred in Africa or Southeast Asia, but not in Europe. Therefore, the possibility of studying noma was something new.

So what kind of studies did he begin to conduct? He set up a ward in barrack no. 22 of sector BIIe, where he studied these cases of noma. He had the assistance of two doctors, prisoners deported from the Czech Republic: Epstein and Weisskopf, who took care of these children because Mengele focused heavily on children. The children liked him. He provided them with better conditions and better food. Between barracks 29 and 31, there was even a playground, which was a propaganda element often shown to camp visitors.

As a result, the lives of these children were relatively better than those of other prisoners—of course, until a certain point. An experiment, by its nature, must be based on something, and the experiment with noma consisted of checking what causes noma and how to cure it. It turned out that improving living conditions causes noma to disappear. When Mengele realized that this was indeed the case, he abandoned the experiment, and the people with noma whose condition began to improve—especially the children—the disease returned, and many of these children simply died because the conditions in which they lived and the disease that affected them led to this outcome.

Mengele's radicalism is also evident in his approach to eliminating epidemics in the camp, such as the typhus epidemic, which involved murdering all prisoners from one block. The emptied building was then designated for those prisoners who, in the meantime, had been disinfected and sanitized. So he managed to control this epidemic. These drastic methods employed by Mengele in his actions, which he eventually resorted to, were reflected in the eyes of his colleagues and superiors because Wirths, the chief garrison doctor, had a very good opinion of him. In Wirths's assessment of Mengele, we can read only positive things: that Mengele is very committed to his work, often performing tasks that go beyond his official duties; that he is dedicated, a good doctor; that the work he does here is indeed very good—that he is a good SS doctor.

How this translated into the lives of prisoners, as I gave those two examples, is easy to imagine. Regarding Mengele's attitude, we often see contradictory behaviors. On one hand, he conducts experiments that lead to people's deaths; on the other hand, the children like him. Of course, the children are not aware of why Mengele gives them chocolate and provides them with milk. Nevertheless, he approached the children's affection very naturally; he talked to them, played with them. This shows us, on the other hand, how cynical he was and how he pursued his goals. That is, he did not recognize the immoral behaviors he exhibited.

At a certain point, these children's lives were better. For these children, perhaps it wasn't important why Mengele was doing this. However, as I say, this should not obscure the entire picture for us. During the preparation for the trial against Mengele after the war, many former residents of the Roma camp said they owe him their lives and would not say anything bad about him. In testimonies for the Frankfurt trials, one can indeed find several such statements from Sinti and Roma who went through the camp. However, when we confront this with Mengele's actions and his behavior in the camp, and with the opinions of other prisoners, it looks different.

Of course, as I mentioned, Mengele became most notorious for his research on twins. Many myths have arisen around these studies because many survivors said that Mengele was studying how to make German women have more children—to give birth to twins. If the purpose of the study was how to make German women give birth to twins, I assume he would have studied the parents of these children because they gave them life. However, Mengele studied the twins themselves, which was a continuation of Verschuer's research involving genetic studies, studies on heredity, certain anomalies in the structure of organisms, and specific proteins—proteins that could be used to identify susceptibility to diseases.

However, Mengele's experiments on twins were not aimed at making German women have more children; they had purely anthropological and genetic objectives. The entire questionnaire related to his research—which, by the way, is available in our archives—shows the complexity and intricacy of these studies. It contains many questions concerning the minutest details of internal organ structures, which, of course, Mengele could examine after the killing of one of the twins. It often happened that these children were killed one after the other to conduct comparative autopsies and see how the organs looked—for example, those of a sick person versus a healthy one. So, these experiments mainly involved comparative studies on genetics, heredity, and related issues.

I want to point out that, to us today, these experiments may seem pseudoscientific and senseless. But we need to consider the knowledge people had in the 1930s and 1940s compared to what we possess now. The fact that something is inhumane doesn't necessarily mean it's pseudoscientific. Of course, many SS doctors, to avoid the front lines or to advance their scientific careers, conducted meaningless studies that, beyond their cruelty, contributed nothing to science. However, many of these doctors conducted research that had some scientific value. Nevertheless, the scale of cruelty and depravity—and sometimes the transient nature of what occurred in concentration camps, including Auschwitz—overshadowed the scientific aspect, which, of course, is understandable.

Other matters that Mengele studied at Auschwitz included the physiology and pathology of dwarfism and structural anomalies. These involved the skeletons he prepared and sent to various research institutes, including those in Berlin and Vienna. These were people who were murdered because of their illnesses or physical anomalies. They were selected during the so-called "selections," in which Mengele often participated, and after examination, they were killed. Their skeletons were then prepared and sent as exhibits for medical students. There's an interesting story about a theatrical group of little people from Hungary who arrived at Auschwitz. They were also subjects of Mengele's research. Many of them survived the war and could later recount their experiences. Unfortunately, for many others, their stories did not end well—they were killed and their bodies prepared. To this day, skeletons from Auschwitz are found in many German institutes of anthropology or medicine, and there are special projects that ensure these people receive a dignified burial after their identities or even families are found, allowing them to have a proper farewell.

Another issue that Mengele studied—or rather, he prepared specimens for his colleague Dr. Karin Magnussen, also an assistant at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute—was heterochromia of the eyes. This is a condition where the eyes have different colors, or part of an eye has a different color. It is rare, but in Auschwitz, there were enough such individuals to conduct research. Therefore, after killing these people, their eyes were extracted and sent for study to Berlin and other institutes. Mengele was not only conducting his own research but also supplying specimens and research results to other scientists, mainly from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.

I want to note that many myths arose around Mengele in the camp, such as the alleged sewing together of twins, which did not happen. Simply because Mengele saw himself as a scientist, a theoretician, a man conducting research. Sewing twins together, as Vera Alexander mentioned, wouldn't make sense from a medical point of view, because Mengele had sufficient medical knowledge—and the medical understanding of the time allowed him to know—that it would lead nowhere. So where did this legend come from? It likely originated from the fact that Mengele performed transfusions on twins without prior cross-matching tests. This meant that if the donor's blood didn't match the recipient's, it led to death. To perform a transfusion, people had to be connected—not sewn together—but connected with needles and tubes so that the blood could flow. Therefore, this legend about Mengele as someone who sewed children together probably came from this.

Similarly, the notion of Mengele's constant presence on the unloading and selection ramp. Every Jewish deportee arriving at Birkenau in 1944 believed that Josef Mengele was present at the selection ramp. This was impossible because, even if he devoted more of his time to participating in selections and research, he couldn't be there every time, considering that several transports could arrive in a single day. Mengele physically couldn't be responsible for all the selections. Likewise, every experiment conducted in Auschwitz was attributed to Mengele, even if he wasn't substantively involved in what was actually being done or what he specialized in. There are reports that Mengele conducted electroshock experiments. He was invited once and observed how the experiment proceeded, but he never conducted it himself because he wasn't qualified and wasn't scientifically interested in it. The same goes for sterilization. Perhaps he participated in a sterilization procedure and saw how it was done, but that wasn't what he was involved in or what he was paid for. Because we need to remember that someone was funding his research, right? And the institution that sent him expected specific results. So, just as today's researchers receive grants and must demonstrate effectiveness, it was the same with Mengele. He couldn't do everything from A to Z; he had to prove himself in his specific field because someone was holding him accountable.

Did any documentation of Dr. Mengele's research survive?

He took most of it with him, so at least we do not have these documents in our archives. Perhaps it is somewhere in private hands; that can't be ruled out. However, the only things that have survived are what Martyna Puzyna, an anthropologist, preserved—some documents she hid. After the war. Some of them were found. Unfortunately, not all the ones she had previously mentioned; not everything was recovered. We also have lists of prisoners—for example, twins—that carry the signature of Mengele. We have orders for the Hygiene Institute to conduct analyses or examinations of certain samples, signed by Josef Mengele. So, there are some documents. However, those that could fully provide insight into his experiments are not available. All we can read are the testimonies of Survivors, but again, we must be cautious because even prisoner doctors weren't all specialized in what Mengele was doing.

Speaking of Dr. Mengele, can we say how Survivors, doctors, and colleagues remembered him?

Mengele was perceived primarily by his superiors as a very competent scientist, a person with extensive knowledge who did many things beyond his official duties—I mean Dr. Wirths specifically. With colleagues, he maintained rather cool relations. He had two, let's say, friends: Hans Münch from the Hygiene Institute and, it is said that it was also Victor Capesius, the pharmacist from the Auschwitz pharmacy. These were probably the people with whom he maintained the closest contact. He wasn't socially active, which we can even see in Karl Höcker's album. Mengele appears in those photos, but please notice that he always is somehow away, has a bored expression, and isn't particularly engaged in conversation. So we can say he maintained some distance.

In the opinion of Survivors, the views are extreme—from those who believe that Josef Mengele improved their lives and that they survived the camp thanks to him, to those who saw him as a demon because the way he approached his experiments and his research subjects reveals his ruthlessness and cynicism. The doctors who worked with him, prisoners, speak of a rather cold but polite person who was distant. For example, Mengele never touched a patient; he always observed. He was demanding toward his subordinates, toward the prisoners forced to work for him. Sometimes he could get angry, although it was rare for him to personally hit someone. There are stories that he supposedly shot someone, that he walked around beating prisoners. If we separated all the surrounding context and camp environment, we would simply have an ambitious scientist who wanted to build a career and contribute something important to his field of research.

Why did it happen this way? Simply because, in a concentration camp, normal rules didn't apply. The fact that Mengele conducted experiments in the camp and didn't care about the well-being of the "subjects" he experimented on isn't surprising because many doctors acted similarly on the principle of "because I can." Research on humans is usually surrounded by numerous restrictions. Even in the Third Reich, this was the case. That is, one couldn't just take a person and conduct experiments on them—unless we are talking about concentration camp prisoners, where these restrictions didn't exist because, first of all, these prisoners had no rights. Many doctors didn't hesitate to cross this moral boundary of what is allowed and what isn't, and these experiments could be conducted in very drastic forms, which on one hand seem inhumane, even monstrous, and on the other hand could contribute something to medicine. For example, the Dachau experiments conducted by Luftwaffe doctors on pressure and altitude.

We're talking here about human nature, which in certain situations—such as Auschwitz—can manifest in one way or another. And I think we should be aware of this because then we more clearly see the boundary that must not be crossed, even in such extreme situations. This is also a lesson for our morality. Therefore, I believe that the topic of medical experiments—or even Mengele himself—goes far beyond experiments on twins or selecting people on the ramp to be murdered. It's a subject that can be studied on many, many levels and is, in my opinion, still relevant. And I hope that, just as in Germany, many universities are forming interdisciplinary teams dealing with Third Reich medicine from scientific, historical, and moral perspectives, such teams will also start forming in Poland. Of course, it's very difficult because we're talking about the harm done to real people. From my point of view, as a researcher, I must strive for the truth, even if sometimes it can be very uncomfortable—but as they say, the truth will defend itself.

Returning to Dr. Mengele himself, what were his post-war experiences?

Mengele left Auschwitz on January 18, 1945, and went to Gross-Rosen. Of course, his departure was preceded by intensive packing and destruction of certain documents. Some documents were sent, some he took with him, but he didn't stay long in Gross-Rosen either because the front was advancing rapidly. Therefore, he joined the Wehrmacht, one of the Wehrmacht's hospital units, and managed to reach Saxony, where he was in a neutral zone. Then he was captured by the Americans near Weiden. Interestingly, he was there under his own name—Josef Mengele. Why did this happen, and why was he soon released from captivity in September 1945? Because the Americans didn't yet have a list of war criminals. That is, Mengele was already wanted, but such a list hadn't yet reached that POW camp.

So, Mengele wasn't on it. He was in the camp under his own name and was released under his own name. After leaving the POW camp, Mengele learned that he was wanted, that scientist-doctors were being sought by the Allies to bring them to trial. Therefore, Mengele assumed a false identity and hid on the Fischer family's farm, where he worked as a hired laborer until about 1949. The Fischers suspected that Mengele had never been a farmer and had nothing to do with agriculture, but they preferred to stay quiet and not report him. They didn't know who he was but suspected that he was probably an educated man—certainly not a farmer, certainly not someone raised in the countryside. In the meantime, there Mengele divorced his wife, whom he had married before the war. From this marriage with Irene Schönbein, his only son Rolf was born in 1944. He later would play a significant role in this story, especially in the 1970s.

However, Mengele himself was unhappy being a fugitive. He could never reconcile with being a wanted criminal when he believed he had done so much good, that he was only a scientist, just doing his job. He simply believed that he had done nothing wrong. Eventually, with the help of friends and former SS men, Mengele managed to get to Argentina. It's not that he simply boarded a plane or a ship; it was also a journey across the Alps because he had to go from Bavaria to Italy, then from Italy to Argentina. So, in 1949, under the name Helmut Gregor, he came to Argentina and began a new life in Buenos Aires.

In the meantime, he started an affair with his brother's wife, who already had one child, so Rolf gained a half-brother. Mengele eventually participated in opening the South American market to his family's agricultural machinery from Günzburg. He became increasingly involved in medical matters—working in a pharmaceutical company under a different name, sometimes practicing medicine. However, he lived very well in Argentina, considering that no one was looking for him there, as the Argentine government also had a specific policy regarding fugitives. On one hand, Argentina had joined the Allies; on the other hand, due to its history and earlier contacts with Germany, many German fugitives found refuge there. President Perón also hoped to use these people in some way. Mainly, Mengele lived well because his family kept sending him money. So he had funds; he even traveled to Europe, also under a false name. He met with his son, although at that time his son didn't know that this was his father—it was just "Uncle." So Rolf saw his father but didn't know it was him.

Mengele lived quite comfortably in Argentina until the capture of Adolf Eichmann. When Mossad captured Eichmann, fear fell upon Mengele as well, thinking that they probably knew where he was and would soon find him, capture him, take him to Israel, and put him on trial. Therefore, Mengele moved to Paraguay, where a dictator was in power and he secretly supported escaped Nazis, so life for Mengele in Paraguay was also quite comfortable. Not as luxurious as in Buenos Aires because here he had to hide much deeper. He was also unhappy because he couldn't really do anything; wherever he appeared, someone could spot him. He fell into paranoia, thinking that someone would capture him at any moment.

Mengele's wandering ended in Brazil, where, with the help of friends—including former military men, former SS men, and Nazi sympathizers—he found a refuge for the end of his life. Also in Brazil, he met with his son Rolf, to whom he told the story of his life. Rolf was in a very difficult situation because, on the one hand, this was his father; on the other hand, he was a war criminal. He didn't report Mengele and didn't reveal his whereabouts. He managed to fly to Brazil and return in such a way that the authorities tracking him were unable to locate Mengele.

But Mengele's life was not interesting at all. He lived in slums, lonely, suffering from various ailments resulting not only from age but also from the stress he was experiencing. Ultimately, in February 1979, Mengele went on vacation to the ocean with friends, and there, on February 7, due to a stroke or possibly an aneurysm, he drowned in the ocean and couldn't be saved. And thus, at the age of 68, Josef Mengele departed from this world.

His death did not end his story because many people couldn't or didn't want to accept his death. Especially many Survivors—victims of Mengele—didn't want to believe that he was dead. Many people, including post-war Nazi hunters led by Simon Wiesenthal, wanted to keep the case alive—not only of Mengele but also of other war criminals—because in the 1970s and 1980s, it was a time when no one really cared about prosecuting anyone. Hence, these extraordinary stories about Mengele arose—that he was hiding in the jungle, that he had built a fortress guarded by armed men with dogs, that Mengele was conducting experiments in Brazil in a village where only twins were being born. And the legend of Mengele grew later in pop culture.

In 1985, an exhumation took place, and it turned out that the remains were indeed Josef Mengele. One of the people who participated in this exhumation was David Marwell, also the author of a book about Josef Mengele—probably the best one when it comes to a sensible and substantive approach to Mengele's history. Marwell very interestingly and thoroughly describes these post-war events and the investigation into whether these were indeed Mengele's remains. He also describes the mistakes made during the examination of the remains, which they later had to rectify as an international commission. And after all these perturbations, it was announced that yes, it was indeed Josef Mengele.

Of course, after Mengele's death in 1979, many people still claimed to have seen him. Mengele became somewhat of a legend and a symbol of criminal Nazi medicine. Is this justified? Well, here is an interesting question because, from the point of view of the usefulness of his research for the war industry—which the Third Reich focused on—they weren't particularly significant. During the war, experiments from Dachau or experiments from Ravensbrück with sulfonamides seemed to have much higher priority. Does Mengele deserve to be such a symbol? I think not. Much of it was due to the pop-cultural aura that has accompanied him since the late 1970s. Was he really such an outstanding criminal? I don't think so.