Dr Mengele; man or monster?

 Dr Josef Rudolf Mengele  was a German SS officer and a physician in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz. Dr Mengele was one of the SS physicians who were in charge of the selection of arriving transports of prisoners, determining who was to be killed and who was to go into forced labour. However, Mengele is most infamous for his experiments on the inmates of the camp, including children, especially twins. On one day alone he killed fourteen twins. For this and much more Mengele became known as the 'Angel of Death'.

It is claimed he once drew a line on the wall of the children's section 150cm (about 5 ft) from the floor and decided that any children whose heads did not reach the line were sent straight to the gas chambers.

Dr Josef R. Mengele

He was particularly interested in identical twins and took a special interest in the camp inmates who were considered to have physical abnormalities. These included dwarfs, most notably the Ovitz family- seven of whom had dwarfism.

Mengele's experiments were  horrific . During 1943 Mengele performed certain experiments on female prisoners using shock treatments and sterilisation. Most of Mengele's victims died, either during the experiments or later as a result of infection.

Though the  people used for  Mengele's research were better fed and housed than other inmates, many of his experiments resulted in more painful deaths.When he visited the children on whom he conducted his experiments, he was known to call himself  "Uncle Mengele" and offer them sweets.

An Auschwitz prisoner doctor once said:

"He was capable of being so kind to the children, to have them become fond of him, to bring them sugar, to think of small details in their daily lives, and to do things we would genuinely admire.... And then, next to that,... the crematoria smoke, and these children, tomorrow or in a half-hour, he is going to send them there. Well, that is where the anomaly lay."

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gG2QaN_LUao