f helped her administer a strong dose of morphine to kill the child (Astor 82-83). Other prisoner hospital workers began administering abortions to women before Mengele could learn of their pregnancy. In cases where the pregnancy was too far along for abortion the child would be killed at birth and the mother told the child was stillborn (Astor 81). These abortions were extremely painful. There was no anesthesia administered and the only instruments were the two hands of the nurse or doctor administering the abortion (81).By the time the Russians liberated Auschwitz Menegle had disappeared. He was spotted at Mauthausen shortly after, but when it seemed the Russians would soon control that death camp also he left his SS uniform behind and took on the role of a soldier of the Wehrmacht (Dekel 102). The unit later surrendered to American troops and Mengele became a prisoner of war. At this time he began using an extra set of identification papers a friend had given him under the name of Fritz Ulmann. Mengele changed the papers to read Fritz Hollman and was released from the POW camp by soldiers who saw no evidence he had been in the SS (103). After this, Mengele began a long trail that no one could ever quite catch up with.The cruelty of Mengele’s actions will never be understood by anyone who was not a part of it. There is no way to describe in a few pages the terrible physical and psychological torment Dr. Mengele’s “patients” endured. Unfortunately, all of his experiments and torment left the world with no practical information. Mengele was quite unsuccessful in his goal to unlock the secrets of genetic engineering. As surviving Mengele subject Alex Dekel states, “I have never accepted the fact that Mengele himself believed he was doing serious work – not from the slipshod way he went about it. He was only exercising his power” (Lynott screen 3). It is almost impossible to imagine...
