DEKEL, LUCETTE MATALON LAGNADO SHEILA COHN by CHILDREN OF THE FLAMES Page A
Authors: CHILDREN OF THE FLAMES
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hated, or as feared, as Dr. Josef Mengele.
In the terrible summer of 1944, Birkenau was also crammed with hordes of newly arrived Hungarian women. Because of the stepped up number of transports, even Nazi efficiency was proving inadequate to the task of slaughtering all the Jews who kept arriving. Each day, hundreds of Hungarian women were herded into Birkenau. There was simply no time to put these women through the normal selection process as they got off the trains, or even to assign them a number, and Mengele was obliged to perform the selections later, inside the women’s camp.
Mengele was frequently accompanied during these inspections by a beautiful young German guard, Irma Grese. The
“Blond Angel,” as she was called, and the elegant Dr. Mengele made a splendid couple. Both were renowned around the camp for their beauty and sadism. Only eighteen, Irma loved to parade in her finery-clothes looted from the trunks of Jewish women. She gloated over the inmates who were forced by circumstance to be at her mercy. She cracked her leather whip on the helpless women like some Hollywood parody of a female SS guard. To Mengele, of course, she was utterly deferential.
The women of Birkenau both feared and admired Mengele. Much as they loathed to admit it, several of his female victims actually found him attractive. As he inspected them, some intuitively resorted to preening gestures of a time gone by, patting what was left of their hair, straightening their tattered camp uniforms, and attempting a smile.
Clearly, many of these poor women were merely using their sexuality in a desperate effort to save themselves. But despite their physical frailty and emotional anguish, some were not immune to Mengele’s sexual magnetism.
Mengele seemed as at ease with the adult women of Birkenau as he was with the twins, and all the more confident of his own attractiveness.
To this day, survivors note the extreme care he took with his appearance-his uniform, exquisitely tailored and perfectly pressed; his cap, so carefully angled on the head; and his white gloves, which he wore even while making selections. Indeed, to these forlorn women, destined to die, Mengele seemed almost a romantic figure.
Back in Gunzburg, he had exuded charisma as he strode through town with his brisk, energetic walk and the slight smile that never left his face. There, he could have his pick of all the town belles.
And the same was grotesquely true in the concentration camp. Here,, too, Beppo Mengele could select any woman he pleased-as his next victim.
As part of the selections Mengele conducted inside Birkenau, women were required to undress and parade naked in front of him.
This enabled him to judge whether they were fit to live just a little bit longer. Much as he was able to convince the young twins to like and trust him, Mengele intuitively knew the secret of making these female inmates feel at ease. Several of the women on parade would confide in him, admitting, in response to his questioning, that they were not feeling well, or suffered from some chronic ailment. What these women did not realize was that by trusting the handsome young doctor, and revealing to him their weaknesses and maladies, they were only hastening their own deaths.
JUDITH YAGUDAH: When Mengele made the selections inside Birkenau, the women were not sent immediately to the gas chambers. They were first taken to another compound, not far from the twins’ barracks.
These poor women knew they were going to be killed, and so they were constantly shouting and crying.
I would see big open trucks filled with naked women who were obviously destined for the gas chambers.
It was an awful, awful sight.
Once in a while, Mengele seemed to be drawn physically to one of the Jewish inmates, in spite of the efforts of their Nazi captors to strip them of their beauty. Shortly after arriving at Auschwitz, women were herded into Hitler’s version of a “beauty parlor,” where their heads
In the terrible summer of 1944, Birkenau was also crammed with hordes of newly arrived Hungarian women. Because of the stepped up number of transports, even Nazi efficiency was proving inadequate to the task of slaughtering all the Jews who kept arriving. Each day, hundreds of Hungarian women were herded into Birkenau. There was simply no time to put these women through the normal selection process as they got off the trains, or even to assign them a number, and Mengele was obliged to perform the selections later, inside the women’s camp.
Mengele was frequently accompanied during these inspections by a beautiful young German guard, Irma Grese. The
“Blond Angel,” as she was called, and the elegant Dr. Mengele made a splendid couple. Both were renowned around the camp for their beauty and sadism. Only eighteen, Irma loved to parade in her finery-clothes looted from the trunks of Jewish women. She gloated over the inmates who were forced by circumstance to be at her mercy. She cracked her leather whip on the helpless women like some Hollywood parody of a female SS guard. To Mengele, of course, she was utterly deferential.
The women of Birkenau both feared and admired Mengele. Much as they loathed to admit it, several of his female victims actually found him attractive. As he inspected them, some intuitively resorted to preening gestures of a time gone by, patting what was left of their hair, straightening their tattered camp uniforms, and attempting a smile.
Clearly, many of these poor women were merely using their sexuality in a desperate effort to save themselves. But despite their physical frailty and emotional anguish, some were not immune to Mengele’s sexual magnetism.
Mengele seemed as at ease with the adult women of Birkenau as he was with the twins, and all the more confident of his own attractiveness.
To this day, survivors note the extreme care he took with his appearance-his uniform, exquisitely tailored and perfectly pressed; his cap, so carefully angled on the head; and his white gloves, which he wore even while making selections. Indeed, to these forlorn women, destined to die, Mengele seemed almost a romantic figure.
Back in Gunzburg, he had exuded charisma as he strode through town with his brisk, energetic walk and the slight smile that never left his face. There, he could have his pick of all the town belles.
And the same was grotesquely true in the concentration camp. Here,, too, Beppo Mengele could select any woman he pleased-as his next victim.
As part of the selections Mengele conducted inside Birkenau, women were required to undress and parade naked in front of him.
This enabled him to judge whether they were fit to live just a little bit longer. Much as he was able to convince the young twins to like and trust him, Mengele intuitively knew the secret of making these female inmates feel at ease. Several of the women on parade would confide in him, admitting, in response to his questioning, that they were not feeling well, or suffered from some chronic ailment. What these women did not realize was that by trusting the handsome young doctor, and revealing to him their weaknesses and maladies, they were only hastening their own deaths.
JUDITH YAGUDAH: When Mengele made the selections inside Birkenau, the women were not sent immediately to the gas chambers. They were first taken to another compound, not far from the twins’ barracks.
These poor women knew they were going to be killed, and so they were constantly shouting and crying.
I would see big open trucks filled with naked women who were obviously destined for the gas chambers.
It was an awful, awful sight.
Once in a while, Mengele seemed to be drawn physically to one of the Jewish inmates, in spite of the efforts of their Nazi captors to strip them of their beauty. Shortly after arriving at Auschwitz, women were herded into Hitler’s version of a “beauty parlor,” where their heads
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