DEKEL, LUCETTE MATALON LAGNADO SHEILA COHN

by CHILDREN OF THE FLAMES

  Instead, we were ordered to take two suitcases and report to the village synagogue, where we were jammed along with all the other Jews in our town.

  From there, we were moved to a ghetto in a big city. The conditions were terrible. We had no clothes. We were forced to wear-literally the shirt on our back. We weren’t given food, either, and we were constantly hungry. Dead people littered the streets; they had starved to death.

  One day, the Germans returned. We were taken out of the ghetto and placed in cattle cars. The journey took eight days-eight days without water, without food. It is painful for me to remember what went on there. It is too horrible to describe.

  We arrived at Auschwitz in May 1944. I can even tell you the exact time: ten o’clock in the morning.

  When they opened the doors to our cattle cars, there were a lot of dead children. During the trip, some mothers couldn’t bear to hear the cries of their hungry babies-and so they killed them. I remember two blond, very beautiful children in my car whose mother had choked them to death because she could not stand to watch them suffer.

  When we stepped off the trains, we could hear soldiers yelling,

  “Men on one side, women on the other side.” Some German SS guards were also shouting,

  “We want twins-bring us the twins!”

  Dr. Mengele was making the selections. He stood there, tall, nice looking, and he was dressed very well, as if he wanted to make a good impression.

  He had very soft hands, and he made fast decisions.

  I heard my father cry out to them he had twins. He went over personally to Dr. Mengele, and told him,

  “I have a pair of twin boys.”

  Mengele sent some SS guards over to us. My twin, Tibi, and I were ordered to leave our parents and brothers and follow them.

  But we didn’t want to be separated from our mother, and so the Nazis separated us by force. My father begged Mengele to give us some food and water. But Mengele motioned to an SS guard, who beat him up on the spot.

  As we were led away, I saw my father fall to the ground.

  There is nothing in Josef Mengele’s early life that would have prepared him for the notoriety that was destined to engulf him. As a youth, he was charming and carefree and not especially studious. No one who remembers Mengele growing up in his picturesque Bavarian town ever saw a hint of the pathology that would make him a killer, or a sign of the obsessions that would make him a concentration-camp doctor. There was an innocence and a sweetness to young Josef that would lead Gunzburg’s citizens to shake their heads in disbelief when they heard, years later, of his savage deeds at Auschwitz. The fiendish death-camp physician had nothing in common with the lovable youngster they all had known. The Nazi professor brutally experimenting on young twins could hardly have been the same playful little scamp they affectionately called “the Beppo,” years after he had grown out of the childish nickname.

  Even as he grandly swept through the barracks at Auschwitz years later, he was like a vision, this handsome, genteel German officer in his impeccable SS uniform, shiny boots, and white gloves. He looked less like a Nazi official than a Hollywood version of one-Tyrone Power in the role of SS captain. Dr. Josef Mengele would maintain this beautiful facade throughout his tenure at Auschwitz. None of the bewildered new arrivals would discern the murderer, or even the sadist, in the polite young SS doctor until it was too late. Mengele would decide who lived and who died with a smile and an airy wave of his elegant white-gloved hand. He would charm the women of AuschwitzBirkenau even as he sent them to the gas chambers. The Gypsies would love him as one of their own to the very end. But Mengele would be at his best with the young twins he removed from the selection line for use in his medical experiments. With them, he could be as warm and affectionate as he had been as a little boy growing up in a small Bavarian farming town. Did He see something of his old self in these children, innocent and doomed? For what better symbol, after all, of Mengele’s own dual nature-the angel and the monster, the gentle young doctor and the sadistic killer-than a twin.

  Josef Mengele was born on March 16, 1911, in Ginzburg, a medieval village on the banks of the Danube. Three years earlier, his mother, Walburga, had given birth to a stillborn child. Soon after, she became pregnant again. within sixteen months, Josef had a brother, Karl Thaddeus. In 1914, another son, Alois, was born. Josef adored “Lolo.” He felt much closer to him than to Karl Jr and, as they grew up, always included him in all their games.

  In the years before World War I, the Mengeles lived modestly, sharing a house with another family. While Walburga tended to the boys, Karl Mengele spent most of his time expanding his new factory.

  Karl was new to Gun:zburg. He had left his own native village after his older brother inherited the family farm, and studied to become an engineer. Settling in Gunzburg, he had married the strong, energetic Walburga, four years his senior.

  Walburga’s parents, who were wealthy farmers, loaned their sonin-law the money to start his new business. Karl quickly proved he deserved the investment by patenting a number of handy farming tools, which enhanced his standing in his wife’s hometown. What precisely these tools were has been lost in Gunzburg’s history-but their inventor, though long dead, still enjoys a reputation as a creative, industrious man.

  World War I was the turning point for the Mengeles’ fortunes.

  The family received lucrative contracts to manufacture military goods and was busy turning out army vehicles and other weaponry. At the end of the war, once again in the farm-equipment business, the Mengele plant was among the largest in Gunzburg. By 1918, the Mengeles were rich enough to move to a home of their own. Karl and his wife picked a lovely villa across the street from the Gymnasium the boys would attend.

  VERA GROSSMAN: I was born in Czechoslovakia in 1938 to a very wealthy family. My father, who was twenty years older than my mother, owned many fields and plantations. More than two hundred laborers worked for him, tilling the soil and helping to pick and package the fruits and vegetables.

  He fell in love with my mother when she was just a young girl.

  Before the war, Mother was extremely beautiful. She had jet-black hair and blue eyes.

  When they married, he brought her to live on his estate and lavished her with clothes, servants, jewels. All her dresses were hand-made in Prague.

  Once, a dress she had ordered for a wedding didn’t arrive on time.

  My father sent his chauffeur all the way to Prague-hundreds of kilometers away-to fetch it.

  My father was delighted when Olga and I were born. At his age, he considered twins a double blessing. We were spoiled and given everything children could want.

  Of course, this lifestyle came to an and when the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia. Jews could no longer live openly. Even though my father was very rich, and had connections with the government we still had to go into hiding. We had to abandon everything.

  First, my father bribed a Christian family to let us live in their attic. It was a terrifying period. I was only four years old, but I remember how we were constantly admonished not to make any noise. Even to cry was forbidden, because it would endanger the family.

  And to this day, I am haunted by this feeling-that if I do something wrong, my whole family will die.

  Eventually, it became so dangerous to hide Jews in Czechoslovakia that no one wanted to shelter us-no matter what my father was willing to pay. We lived like animals, lying low during the day, foraging for food at night. I can recall eating raw potatoes, when that was all my parents could find.

  But eventually the Germans found us there. We were sent to a series of concentration camps, until we arrived finally at Auschwitz, in the spring of 1944.

  To outsiders, the Mengeles seemed a close, devoted family. A devout Catholic, Walburga raised her sons to be regular churchgoers.

  Old family albums show Josef dressed as an altar boy, the picture of innocence and piety. Dressed in their Sunday best, father, mother, and the three children went each
week to the beautiful eighteenthcentury church near the old marketplace. They were a handsome family and, as their wealth increased, the cause of some fascination in the town.

  Neighbors recall how Josef, Karl Heinz, and Lolo shared friends, romped about the fields, and went on frequent outings with their parents. A few older residents can still remember the skating parties Karl and Walburga held for the children on a small pond near their house. They served delicious candied apples, while music from a wind-up gramophone played in the frosty air.

  The Mengele boys were always the object of much fawning, especially Josef. He was a docile child, and eager to please; Walburga had made sure of that. But though he acted like an angel, he looked more like a young Gypsy. In fact, some who knew him then had the distinct feeling that at any moment this obedient little boy would make a run for it, defying his parents as other normal children did.

  Mengele never broke loose, however. His early school records show he was a model child, who impressed his teachers with his exceptionally good behavior. Though a mediocre student, he still managed to receive A’s in conduct and diligence throughout his elementary and high school years. Even in the strict Prussian atmosphere of a prewar Gymnasium, teachers went out of their way to praise the perfect conduct of Beppo Mengele.

  ALEX DEKEL: I could hear the blaring music of Lohengrin being piped through loudspeakers as I walked through the gates of Auschwitz It was like entering the inferno.

  I was thirteen years old when my mother and I were deported to the death camp from our hometown of Cluj, in Transylvania.

  In early March 1944, my mother had received word that we were being sent to a work camp in central Hungary, supposedly to help with the war effort.

  We were afraid, but the hope of living, of going only to a labor camp, kept us going.

  The deportations were organized alphabetically, and since our last initial was D we were the first to be called to board the train.

  After two horrible days aboard this train, I knew we had gone far beyond the borders of Hungary, and were destined either for Germany or Poland. Panic reigned in the cars. Two people committed suicide.

  My mother clutched me to her and covered my ears with her hands.

  When the train finally stopped, the Germans ordered everyone to get out. I smelled a faint burning odor. A sign along the tracks read

  BIRKENAU.

  Dr. Mengele was standing at the head of the selection line. He noticed me immediately because I didn’t look Jewish. I had very blond hair, and blue eyes, and I was in excellent physical shape. When he started talking to me, I answered him in fluent German.

  Mengele wasn’t only looking for twins-he wanted triplets, midgets, hunchbacks, any unusual types. Even people like me-Jews who looked like perfect Aryans. He asked me to step out of the line. I looked around for my mother, but she had disappeared.

  I prayed that she was among a group of women who had been selected to live.

  Mengele’s mother was the archetypal German hausfrau whose life revolved around her children. Photographs show a heavyset woman with a stern, homely face and dark, scowling eyes. Unlike her husband, who adopted an aristocratic demeanor with his growing wealth, Walburga made no attempt to alter her dowdy and matronly appearance.

  In the fashion of older peasant women, she dressed almost entirely in black.

  “Wally” Mengele suffered from a terrible weight problem, which stemmed from her lone indulgence: food. She simply loved to eat.

  One Gunzburg woman who knew her well, now relocated to New York’s affluent Westchester County, spins story after story about this impassioned craving. Mrs. Mengele’s favorite pastime, she recalls, was the afternoon kaffee klatsch, the get-tog ethers with women friends over coffee and pastry. Over the years, Walburga grew enormous. She ate constantly, compulsively. She became so obese, she could hardly walk.

  She was so massive, she looked almost pregnant. She was so hungry she devoured everything in sight.

  There was a troubling, terrifying side to Mengele’s mother that only a few people saw, such as the workers at her husband’s factory.

  Dr. Zdenek Zofka, the unofficial historian of Gunzburg, says the employees fretted whenever Wally came to visit. She had no compunctions about yelling at them and embarrassing them before the others, according to Zofka, and was inclined to fly into rages at the slightest provocation. They nicknamed her “the Matador,” and instinctively stayed out of her way. Once, she screamed at some female employees for not having washed the factory’s curtains. When they argued it was not their job, she continued to scold and threaten them, thereby earning their lifelong enmity. Over forty years after her death, old Mengele factory workers still harbor bitter feelings toward the indomitable Walburga Mengele.

  Mengele’s mother was larger than life, and she loomed as a gigantic figure in Josefs life-impossible to escape, equally impossible to please. She could be warm and maternal, or she could behave like a raging bull. Her reactions were impossible to predict. In an unpublished autobiography he wrote many years after the war, Mengele recounted a day when his father came home with a wonderful surprise for the family: a new automobile. The three boys were overjoyed. Karl invited his wife to come out and join them for a ride. But Walburga was livid. How dare he indulge in such a large purchase-such an extravagance-without her approval? Karl tried to soothe her, to no avail, and finally exploded and threatened to leave her. According to his account, Josef listened, petrified, to his parents’ quarrel. After his father had left the room, the little boy went over to comfort his mother.

  “I will always stay with you,” he told her.

  HEDVAH AND LFAH STERN: When they opened the door to our cattle car, our mother became very frightened. “Stay with me, children,” she told us, refusing to let go of our hands.

  But then some prisoners told her in Yiddish,

  “Tell them you have twins.

  There is a Dr. Mengele here who wants twins. Only twins are being kept alive.”

  But our mother didn’t want to be separated from us. She said,

  “No, you are coming with me,” and continued walking toward the crematorium.

  We were thirteen-and-a-half years old when our family was sent to Auschwitz from our small town in Hungary. There were a lot of Jews living in that town before the war.

  Our mother was a widow. Father died when we were only six years old, and mother never remarried. She decided to raise us by herself because she feared that a second husband might mistreat us.

  We were very close to our mother. She was a seamstress, and after our father died, she had to work hard to support us. Yet she never let us feel like orphans. She gave us whatever we wanted. We lacked for nothing.

  We adored her. We fought with each other to get her attention. We dreamt of the day we would be old enough to work and help her.

  We hoped to open up our own seamstress shop. Whatever we earned, we planned to give it to our mother. We wanted to call it

  “The Stern Sisters.”

  At Auschwitz, mother was determined to hold on to us. She hid us under her skirt.

  Josef was the one person who was able to pierce his mother’s stern facade and elicit a smile and a little warmth. Mengele’s writings about his childhood suggest that from the start, he was his mother’s son, loyally siding with her, whatever the issue. He seems to have preferred his temperamental mother to his father, whose life revolved around the factory. Although Mengele patterned himself in dress and demeanor after Karl, his love was reserved for Walburga. Twice married, he never lived with any woman for any length of time. Also twice separated, he had relationships marred by estrangements and disaffection. He could not form a deep attachment, even to the mother of his child.

  When he was fifteen years old, Mengele became ill with osteomylitis, a disease of the bone marrow that was almost always fatal in those days.

  He also developed two ailments that were probably related to the osteomylitis: nephritis, a painful inflammation of the kidn
eys, and a severe systemic infection. Because of his illness, he was out of school between six and nine months. His grades, never very good, suffered a dramatic decline. It was a struggle simply to keep up with his classmates and not be left back. He failed several subjects, prompting one teacher to observe on his report card that Josef “must become more diligent, more studious, and more ambitious.”

  Outside the confines of the dreary Gymnasium, Mengele fared much better. His social skills were far more impressive than his intellectual prowess. To his friends and schoolmates, young Josef was charming and articulate-a natural leader. The handsome, debonair Beppo was in his element in Gunzburg’s chic cale society and salons.

  Mengele and his youngest brother, Lolo, ran with an elite, affluent crowd of young men and girls who were pretty and flirtatious without being loose. Josef and his friends dressed impeccably, soon drove their own cars, and never left home without the requisite hat and white gloves. They didn’t actually wear the gloves, but only held them, nonchalantly, in one hand.

  It is ironic that years later, in his autobiography, Mengele conjured a picture of himself as a solitary, self-effacing youth. In his own eyes, he was an exceptionally virtuous young man, serious and committed, with few interests other than his studies and political youth groups.

  He depicted himself as monk like and ascetic, different from other young men his age.

  But Mengele’s vision of his past was, in fact, an excellent description of his lonely existence during the period he penned his manuscript, when he was already in his sixties. He was merely projecting what his mother had wanted him to be-austere, chaste, self denying-whereas his actual nature tended toward luxury and self-indulgence. Like his father, he preferred the finer things in life.

  At balls, which were held throughout the year at the homes of his wealthy friends, Beppo Mengele was one of the most sought-after dance partners. He was extremely handsome, with classic features and a slight enigmatic smile. Most striking were his eyes, which were wide and thoughtful and varicolored. Josef was certainly conscious of his good looks, though he wished he were taller. Like his father, he took great pains to appear the picture of elegance. His suits were always of the most expensive fabrics, tailored in the most flattering cut.