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That's eight hundred five oh seven thirtyone thirty six. You're listening to
talk Line with Brenner, America's premierJewish broadcast on the year since nineteen eighty
one. And now welcome back tothe program, Moms. Savah Burner's been
a while since I last communicated withour guests. Doctor David G. Mar
(05:15):
Will's an America and his star andhe's former director of the Museum of Jewish
Herbage in New York City, wherewe last had contact. He is president
of the Lubeck Institute. He justwrote a fascinating new book about Mangola.
So welcome to the program. Thankyou for joining us. You know,
it's interesting the book came out anumber of months ago and people are still
(05:35):
talking about it. The Mangela isstill mentioned even though he's dead. For
what well, his reign was duringthe Holocaust. He was one of the
He was the carried out to finalsolution, the infamous doctor Mangela. So,
but his name still lives on afterAdolf Hitler and Ockasman. Probably Mangela
is the most bandied about name ofthe Holocaust. Yeah, you know,
(05:56):
when I first started working on thisbook on January first, at twenty sixteen,
I started a Google alert for anymention of Mangla that would come up
on the Internet or any pressed aroundthe world. And I would say nearly
every day there's a mention of Mangola. And in the last since the coronavirus
pandemic has has hit us, it'sincreased tremendously. In the last five days
(06:20):
there have been thirty one mentions ofMangala somewhere in the world. Sometimes he's
mentioned as a historical figure, oftenin a kind of caricatured way, but
increasingly he is mentioned as the kindof benchmark for evil. You know,
they're talking about a bad seed,a bad doctor in a hospital or something
(06:41):
like that, to say, he'sthe doctor Mangola of that hospital. So
it's very interesting to see how hispersonality has been kind of appropriated as a
symbol for pure evil. Now youcame across and started working. I should
tell everybody that, among your otherdistinctions works that you've done, you were
chief of Investigator Research at the JusticeDepartments offers a special investigation in nineteen eighties.
(07:03):
When you actually worked on the Manglacase and you went to with his
victims and you went to the sceneof his crimes, did you actually ultimately
hold his bones in your hands?I did, Yes, I did.
That was an opportunity that in onesense, was something that you could savor
in a kind of symbolic sense.But it was a very emotional time for
me. How did that come about? Because let's put it this way,
(07:27):
there's always been controversy did he die? When did he die? So not
everybody's on the same page that heactually was for his bones were found in
South America? So what year didyou hold his bones? How did that
come about? We were initially involved, beginning in the first days of nineteen
eighty five. We were involved intrying to determine whether Mangela had ever had
(07:53):
any connection with the American government orwith American institutions or personnel. There were
allegations that We were emerging at thattime that Mengela had been a pow in
American custody and was released, thathe had been an intelligence asset, that
we had somehow helped him to leaveEurope to go to South America, and
we were passed by the Attorney Generalto investigate that. That investigation soon broadened
(08:16):
to become a man hunt to tryto find him. We were joined by
the US Marshal Service in that effort, and we were soon joined by both
the German and the Israeli government,so we had this international effort to find
him. The whole investigation took adramatic turn in June of nineteen eighty five
when a body was found in Brazilthat was purported to be Mengolas, and
(08:37):
the whole focusing investigation just shifted downto Sam Paulo, Brazil, where the
body was exhoomed. It was onlya bunch of bones that had been there
was no soft tissue left, andthat in the pre DNA days, we
were attempting to determine whether the bodythat skeleton belonged to Joseph Mengelo or not.
(09:00):
And it was a very complex forensicinvestigation. But in the course of
that. Of course, the boneswere examined, and I was there in
Brazil with the American forensic team,and that's when I had that dubious honor
of having held his bones in myhand. But to the Israeli government then
the others really believed that it wasMangla because it seemed like a very I
guess disappoint the end if it washim. I'll tell you what was so
(09:22):
provocative about it was the circumstances throughwhich the body was discovered seemed a little
bit too too neat for some people. And because Mangela had been an anthropologist
and a physician, the suspicion arosethat perhaps he had faked this step,
that he had found a body thatlooked like him and that had had it
(09:46):
buried in the grave. And sothere was always this concern that there was
some kind of hoax being perpetrated onthe public, and that Mangela, the
kind of evil talented science, hadhad pulled the wool over everyone's eyes.
And that was a view. Itwas held by by many, many people,
including many in the survivor community whowho couldn't quite come to terms with
(10:11):
the notion that mangel had died akind of old man's death and didn't comply
with their own kind of imagination ofhim, and they were robbed of the
ability to confront him and for himto have been held accountable for his crimes.
So it's a complicated emotional psychological issuefor a lot of people. And
(10:35):
that's why it took a long timefor the eventual investigation into the you know,
the forensic effort to come to fruition, And it actually didn't end until
the DNA DNA as a forensic toolhad developed the point where it could be
used on the set of bones thathad been found in in this grave in
(10:56):
some pollum, which wasn't until nineteenthe early nineteen nineties. But how did
how did he actually die according tothis scenario? Okay, so he died,
and I argue in the books thatthis scenario is the absolute correct one.
He died of while swimming. Hewas on a short holiday on the
(11:18):
coast of Brazil, and he wentswimming and had a stroke while swimming and
either died of the stroke or diedas a result of drowning as a result
of the stroke. So he diedfrom illness or compounded by by his swimming
and then he was buried in underanother person's name, and it wasn't until
(11:41):
that was in February of nineteen seventynine when he died and the body was
discovered in June of nineteen eighty five. Well, who who tipped you off
that this was Joseph Mangula? Sowhat happened? Was I mentioned before that
we were involved in this tripart typeinternational investigation which included the Germans and the
(12:03):
Israelis. And in June of lateMay, the end of May nineteen eighty
five, the Germans searched the homeof a executive or a retired executive from
the Mangola family firm in the townof Gunsbourg in Bavaria, where Mangela had
been born, and they found inthis person's house some correspondent which suggested that
(12:26):
Mangola might have died in Brazil.So at that time the whole, the
whole focus of the investigation shifted downto Brazil and we all went not at
the same time, but over thecourse of several weeks we all were down
in Brazil. So at this pointthen there were four countries involved in the
investigation, the Americans, the Germans, the Israelis and now the Brazilians,
(12:50):
and I described very carefully in thebook how these various scientists from these various
countries worked together to examine the bonesand come to a conclusion, which they
did in a kind of preliminary wayin at the end of June. But
my colleagues and I at Osi werenot satisfied with the findings, and we
(13:11):
continued to look and for the nextyear or so, we were back in
Brazil, we were back in Germany, and we were able to discover a
lot more information which led to amuch more confident conclusion. Question though,
is and doctor David Marvel's Our Guests, He's written, Mangola amasking the Angel
of Death, is that the Israeliswere looking for him? Was there a
(13:35):
period of time when they almost hadhim? Because it would seem that he
was able to allude not just theIsraelis but everybody else that was looking for
him. Yeah, so, Mangel, right after the war he was I'll
bring you up to date on it, because this context, I think is
important. Right after the war,Mangolo was taken into custody by US forces.
(13:56):
He did two things though. Firsthe got rid of his SS uniform
and put on a Arrmoch uniform andhe joined a field hospital Wearmoch field hospital,
that's the kind of regular German Armyfield hospital, and was able to
blend in with that unit when hewas taken into custody with that unit.
He was in the in two differentus POW camps, but he didn't have
(14:22):
the tell tale mark that defined himas an ss man. He did not
have the tattoo under his left armwhich the SS typically had, which which
was their blood type tattooed onto theirunder arm, and he didn't have it
because for the various reasons, butso that he was able to be released
(14:43):
by the Americans without being identified asan ss man. And he then took
up an assumed name and lived ona farm in Bavaria for four years.
He left Germany in nineteen forty ninewith the help of his family, who
were quite wealth and made his waysover the Brenner Pass to the Italian port
of Genoa and then to Argentina,and he lived there untouched by anyone,
(15:13):
fearful and still under a false name, but got more and more comfortable until
in nineteen fifty six he took onhis former name and identity became jose Mangela
living in Argentina, and it wasn'tuntil the end of the end of the
summer of nineteen fifty eight that theGermans began to investigate Joseph Mangela. He
(15:35):
got word of this and decided hehad to leave Argentina and he went to
Paraguay, and he felt pretty comfortablein Paraguay. He got Paraguayan citizenship,
and then when the Israelis kidnapped capturedAlaf Eichmann in nineteen sixty, Mangola realized
that he couldn't be safe anywhere.He felt safe and up to that time
(15:56):
in Bavaria in Paraguay because he wasa citizen of Paraguay and the Paraguayans wouldn't
extradite one of their citizens. Butnow he realized that the Israelis could capture
him anywhere, and they didn't needto extradite him, and they could take
him the way they took Aikman.So from Paraguay he went to Brazil in
probably the autumn of nineteen sixty.The Israelis had Mangola on their search list
(16:23):
when they captured Eichman, and theyactually went to his former residence to look
for him, but by that timeMengola had already been long gone and was
already a citizen in Paraguay. Butthey focused then on Paraguay. They got
some tips that he was in Paraguayand they searched for him, and they
eventually learned that he might have goneto Brazil, and in nineteen sixty two,
(16:48):
one of their members of their teamclaims to have had him in his
sights, had actually seen him andidentified him, and they contacted the headquarters
in Israel and they were told toback off. And it was at that
time that the German scientists that theEgyptian government had imported German scientists to help
them in developing some rocket technology,and the Musat shut down the search for
(17:15):
Mangel at that time to focus theirresources on a much more current and imposing
threat, and they really didn't takeup the search for Mengel again until until
Menachem began became Prime minister, Yes, and they began a kind of limited
search for from Mengel, and theydid a very comprehensive job. They had
(17:41):
a number of different operations intended tofind Mengela. There's a report that was
released by the Israelis in September twentyseventeen, which is the declassified report of
their search for Mengela and other warcriminals. And I was amazing to have
read it, to learn how muchthey knew about Mangland, how close they
(18:03):
actually got both in sixty two andthen in sixty five, and they actually
had enough information to have been ableto find him, but they failed to
do it, and not through lackof trying, and not through lack of
creativity and passion in the pursuit,but for a lot of bureaucratic reasons.
They failed to find him. Thenbecause the conventional thinking least when I and
(18:25):
I studied the Mangless story, Ialways led to believe that the reason why
they didn't capture him in the earlynineteen sixties is that they got sidetracked by
the Schumacher case of a boy kidnappedby religious grandparents smuggled to Brooklyn, New
York. So the most odd resourceswas to get Yos Schumacher back to his
parents because they were going to raisehim non religious. So that's what I
(18:47):
led was led to believe that thatwas the reason. I believe that too.
I believe that too until I readthe most odd report. And if
you look at the dates Schumacher's bodyJuhaman on his body. But Schumacher was
discovered on July fourth or around thattime, and the sighting of Mangela that
I've referred to before wasn't until theend or the mid to end of July.
It was really the German scientists inEgypt that was the approximate cause for
(19:12):
having pulled them off. That sothe most resources you're saying went to deal
with the German scientists in Egypt,which was a major threat to his ral
as opposed to the Operation Damocles.Yeah, we're assuming with doctor David G.
Marwell. He's an American is starringformer director of the Museum and Jewish
Heritage. He worked as chief ofInvestigative Researcher the Justice Department's Office of Special
(19:37):
Investigations. His fascinating book is calledMangola Unmasking the Angel of Death. We're
going to be right back. We'rethe people of the book. So where's
yours? Have you ever wanted towrite and publish your own book? Are
you concerned that your family, friendsand colleagues will never know how you did
all the great things in your life. I'm New York Times best selling author
(19:57):
Michael Levin and book are My Babies. My company, Jewish Leaders Books writes
and publishes books by Jewish leaders,people who lead in their companies, their
communities, their synagogues, their philanthropies, and their families. We don't just
write the book for you. Wecan publish your book on Amazon and provide
Simon and Schuster distribution into Barnes andNobles and even airport bookstores. We're working
(20:21):
with Zev Brenner and talk Line tobring our unique service to Zev's audience.
Let your stories come to life withJewish Leaders Books. Reach out to Zev
today at two one two seven sixnine one nine two five Extension one hundred,
or email them at Zev Brenner atgmail dot com and we'll see you
on the bestseller list. Come onover and join us at t for two,
(20:45):
located in the heart of Marine Park, Brooklyn on Quentin Road. They're
launching a new dairy free concept.You might remember them for their outstanding dairy
restaurants, but now they're pivoting towardsdairy free. Alternative menu with a variety
of creative dishes is where everyone canfind exceptional fresh, delicious food choices of
salads, soups, appetizers, pastas, fish options, and yes, even
(21:10):
pizza dairy free. Let your palateenjoy every dairy free dish ten percent off
every meal with the code word Isabellajust in case of allergies. They have
eggs, soys, peanuts, fishand nut products on premises. For reservations,
call seven one, eight four eightnine for two zero five. Again
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since nineteen eighty one. And nowhere's your host. Welcome back to the
(23:47):
program, Mom Zev Brenner with usright now. Doctor David G. Marrowell,
American is starin former director of theMuseum of Jewish Heritage in New York
City. He also is currently thepresident of the Lubeck Institute, and he
was Chief Investigative Research at the JusticeDepartment's Office of Special Investigation in nineteen eighties.
He actually worked on finding Joseph Mengelo. He actually held his bones his
(24:10):
new book Mangela Masking the Angel ofDeath. So mengelas is considered to be
the embodiment of evil. We tendto look at the Hitler and Eichmann and
some of the other architects of theof the Holocaust and the Third Reich as
being evil people through and through.But let's look doctor, doctor Mangola was
certainly somebody who's a professional. Hewas talented, he was a doctor,
(24:34):
So who was he? You know? Ze? When I started this book,
my initial intention was to write abook about the investigation, which I
was just talking about in the earliersegment. But in preparing for it,
I knew I had to write,you know, some introductory chapters about who
Mangola was. And I discovered inthat pursuit a body of new scholarship about
(24:56):
Mangela, mostly from German historian thatI had been unaware of it, most
of it published since two thousand andA picture emerged of him that was quite
unlike the picture that I had carriedwith me, which was of a kind
of renegade, sadistic, mad scientistwho who was kind of off the rails
(25:19):
and operating motivated by kind of grotesqueinterest in twins and in dwarfs, and
following a kind of pernicious and uglyand grotesque motivation. But the more that
I read about his studies at theuniversity and his career until he joined the
army and eventually went to Aushwood,the more I was surprised, and the
(25:44):
more I believe that it was importantto try to paint an accurate picture of
Mangela. I mentioned before that,you know, Mengela had become a kind
of symbol for both the Holocaust andfor the escape from justice of too many
Nazi criminals. The more they hebecame that symbol, the more obscure he
had become as a human being.And what I tried to do in the
book is to strip away some ofthe myths that has attached itself to Mengola
(26:07):
and has served to elevate him intothis iconic role. And at the same
time, I hope that I replacedwhat is a frightening character of this man
with something that's even more unsettling,and that is the picture of the human
being that he actually was. Mengolahad received an elite education. He began
(26:27):
in nineteen thirty at the University ofMunich and studied both medicine and anthropologies.
He got two PhDs, one inanthropology and one in medicine, and he
studied these sciences, the science scienceof anthropology, which really became a racial
science, and of medicine. Whenthese two disciplines became very very important for
(26:52):
the Nazi state, which had justthe Nuts Party had just become into power
when Mengola had was ready in themiddle of his studies, and the science
that he was interested in was elevatedinto a kind of partnership role with Nazi
ideology that the Germans relied. TheNazis relied on science to undergird and to
(27:15):
support their worldview of the relative valueof different races. And at the same
time their their interest in that sciencebenefited the science itself by by giving it
extra funding and by elevating those whopracticed it in terms of their status.
So Mangela studied with Nobel Prize winnerstwo or three who would either be already
(27:37):
had been a Noble Prize or wouldsoon in the future. He worked for
one of the great geneticists of thetime. His mentor in anthropology, A
Man Namollison, was considered one ofthe grapes in physical answer apology. So
he had kind of an elite educationand he was considered a very bright light
(27:57):
in Nazi science at the time,and this was a something that I hadn't
quite appreciated. I read his dissertations, both of them. I read the
articles he published in books, hisbook reviews, and one could argue that
had the war not taken place andhe and all that that entailed, that
(28:19):
Mangela probably would have become a,you know, quite a prominent and famous
German academic, the German scientist,professor at university, and probably the head
of some some laboratories somewhere or someinstitute. But of course history didn't go
that way, and Mangela ended upafter the war began and joined joined the
(28:41):
SS, the WAFA and s Sas a physician, became a kind of
army doctor. And something that thatmost of the biographies of Mangela do not
quite understand was the extent of hismilitary activity. He was with the Viking
Division of the s S from thevery first days of the invasion of the
(29:03):
Soviet Union and remained there for eighteenmonths when he was evacuated from the area
around Stalingrad in January of nineteen fortythree. So from January, from June
of nineteen forty one to January fortythree he was in not quite constant but
but unrelenting violent combat on the EasternFront. His unit was involved in the
(29:30):
early days of the invasion in massatrocities in the Ukraine. We don't know
whether Mangla himself was involved in butwe know that that the unit, know
this division in which he was servingwas and eventually he was able to be
evacuated out of the retreat from Stalingradwhere he was covered where his unit was
covering the retreat, and ended upback in Berlin where he became associated with
(29:57):
the Kaiser wilhelmmats To in Berlin,which was a the institute that was studying
racial science and anthropology, and madecontact with the scientists there and his former
mentor, and eventually then was transferredto Auschwitz in June of nine in the
end of May of nineteen forty three. So was he saying district experiments before
(30:21):
the war. Was he known asbeing a sadist or being somebody who delighted
in the torture of human beings forresearch. No, he was quite a
conventional indeed, probably would be consideredin the vanguard of German science at the
time. He was involved in evaluatingvery Nazi enterprise of valuing and people to
determine what race they were, Buthe was not involved in any kind of
(30:42):
what one would consider in human experimentation. His dissertations were quite conventional using the
respect respectable in quote science at thetime when he got to Auschwitz, and
this is a rather complicated and importantthing to understand. When he got to
(31:03):
Auschwitz, he understood, and thisis his logic, that he had access
to significant resources that would permit himto continue his scientific research without the normal
borders and constraints that would be placedon him that word placed on him before
(31:26):
the war, and that would wouldbe placed in him in on him in
other contexts. Let's take for instance, everyone knows that Mangela was interested in
twins, and they often explain hisinterests in twins to suggest that he was
that his experiments in Auschwitz were designedto determine what was the secret of twin
(31:47):
births? How do how could wecreate twin births? Because this argument goes
because he wanted to increase the birthrate of the Aryan people in Germany.
Now this is not true. Thisis a widely held belief, but it
ignores a few things. It ignores. Number one, that the issue of
(32:09):
twin research was something that was widespreadnot only in Germany but throughout the scientific
world. It was the only andthe best, let's say, the best
method for genetic research, because twinsoffer you the opportunity of studying two people
who have the same genetic code inthe case of identical twins, and two
(32:31):
people who have the same exact environmentalexperience in the case of fraternal twins,
and by comparing them you're able todraw conclusions about what is caused by genetics
and what is caused by environment.And the other thing I learned was that
as much as what as people talkabout mangle as science at our shits,
(32:53):
we actually know very little about thenuts and bolts of what he actually did.
There are no records, with theexception of a few scraps in in
uh in the records, for instance, of the institutions that would support the
research, but there's there's no Thereare no case studies or or um or
(33:16):
records left by Mangola of the researchthat he conducted. All we have is
the scattered and incomplete memories of peoplewho were associated with him, either as
subjects of experiments or as people whoobserve them, as as collaborators or as
unwitting collaborators. Did you have anysparks of humanity that we're able to glean
(33:38):
from Holocaust survivors, well, manymany Holocaust survivors do speak of a kind
of ambivalence in a way, becauseMangola did exhibit, according to their testimony,
some examples of even kindness towards towardssome of the victims. But again,
(33:59):
this this ev it is quite quitein some cases difficult to accept completely
because you have to remember the conditionsof the people who are making these statements,
who are often traumatized children at thetime, who weren't in a position
to make judgments about what the motivesof these experiments were, what the objects
(34:20):
of the experiments were. All theyknow is what happened to them personally.
And as I say, it's it'salmost impossible to understand with any real confidence
the exact nature of the experiments.But we do know that Mengela established in
a way a kind of research instituteat Auschitz, patterned on the institute that
(34:42):
he was involved in both in Frankfortand in Berlin. He recruited, I
recruited, with quotes around it,some of the great scientific minds among the
inmates who were delivered to Auschitz fromall over Europe, great pathologists and pediatricians
and medical illustrators and nurses and medicaltechnicians and neurologists who were in these transports
(35:09):
who arrived at Ashwitz and Mangela.Not only did he select out victims to
be killed, he selected subjects tobe experiment upon, and he said selected
physicians and scientists to help him inthese experiments. So it was a much
larger and more complicated enterprise than Ihad understood before I had done this new
(35:34):
research. We're speaking with doctor DavidG. Marwell, an Americans Starring,
the former director of the Museum ofJewish Heritage here in New York City.
He was chief of Investigative Research asa Justice Department offers of special investigations.
He actually and investigated Joseph Mengelo thatcase, and he held his bones in
his hands. His new book iscalled Mangela, Amasking the Angel of Death.
(36:00):
We're going to be right back.At the end of a long day,
I unwind in my den with myfavorite book and an amazing view of
my Anderson windows. Reading is theSun's sets helps me relax as I get
lost in my imagination. I'm aself expressionist Seymour at Anderson self Expressionist dot
com. Love the life you seeavailableok Greater Windows and Doors at thirteen oh
(36:22):
two sixtieth Street in Borough Park Callthem at seven eight nine seven two two
six two six. Greater Windows hasbeen serving the community for over thirty years.
Commercial and residential accounts welcome online atGreater Windows dot com. We're the
people of the book, So where'syours? Have you ever wanted to write
(36:42):
and publish your own book? Areyou concerned that your family, friends,
and colleagues will never know how youdid all the great things in your life?
I'm New York Times best selling authorMichael Levin and books are my babies.
My company, Jewish Leaders Books writesand publishes books by Jewish Leaders,
people who lead in their companies,their communities, their synagogues, their philanthropies,
(37:02):
and their families. We don't justwrite the book for you. We
can publish your book on Amazon andprovide Simon and Schuster distribution into Barnes and
Nobles and even airport bookstores. We'reworking with Zev Brenner and talk Line to
bring our unique service to Zev's audience. Let your stories come to life with
Jewish Leaders Books. Reach out toZev today at two one two seven six
(37:25):
nine one nine two five Extension onehundred, or email them at Zev Brenner
at gmail dot com and we'll seeyou on the best seller list. Come
on over and join us at Tfor two, located in the heart of
Marine Park, Brooklyn on Quentin Road. They're launching a new dairy free concept.
You might remember them for their outstandingdairy restaurants, but now they're pivoting
(37:47):
towards dairy free alternative menu with avariety of creative dishes where everyone can find
exceptional, fresh, delicious food,choices of salad, soups, appetis,
his pastas, fish options, andyes, even pizza dairy free. Let
your palat enjoy every dairy free dishten percent off every meal with the code
(38:09):
word Isabella just in case of allergies. They have eggs, soys, peanuts,
fish and nut products on premises forreservations called seven one eight four eight
nine for two zero five. Againthat seven one eight four eight nine for
two zero five for tea for two. You're listening to Talk Line with Zev
(38:29):
Brenner, America's premier Jewish broadcast onthe year since nineteen eighty one. Now
welcome back to the program. MomsZef Brenner. Our special guest is doctor
David G. Marl, an Americanhistorian, the former director of the Museum
of Jewish Heritage here in New YorkCity's president of the Leo Beck Institute.
(38:52):
He is also formerly the chief ofInvestigative Research at the Justice Department's Offers a
special investigation in nineteen eighties, heactually reach the Mangola case and actually held
his bones in his hands. Hisfascinating new book is called Mangola, Unmasking
the Angel of Death and as acontroversy now about using some of the research
(39:14):
from Mangal in the Holocaust to savelives today, saying that his tainted research
it came at the costs of killingthousands a month, thousands of people.
Yeah, I mean there's a andI'm often asked about whether any of the
evidence results of Mangos experiments were usedat all. And I did come across
one one example I've outlined in thebook. I think five or six research
areas that Mangola was involved in,including the eye color experiments and twin experiments
(39:38):
and experiments with took called gypsy population. But he also did experiments with there
was a disease at Auschwitz, whichhad all but disappeared in the developed world
by the time of the Second WorldWar, was a kind of oral cancer.
It was disfiguring and ultimately fatal thatwas the result of poor hygiene and
(40:00):
poor nutrition. And there was abig outbreak of this disease was called Noma.
That the outbreak had taken hold inthe Gypsy camp where Menela had been
the camp position. And Mengel haddecided that he was going to try to
find a cure for the disease.And he recruited, and I used again,
recruited in quotes, a great CzechJewish a pediatrician who was working in
(40:24):
a infirmary in another part of thecamp, and he brought him there,
and he set him up in abarrack at the Gypsy camp and gave him
all the equipment he needed, whatevermedical support he needed. And this physician,
doctor Berthold Epstein, was able tofind an effective treatment and cure for
(40:47):
for Noma. And we know aboutthis because there was another inmate physician who
worked with him named Lucy Addlsberger,who was a German jew who had been
forced to act as as an inmatephysician and in nineteen forty six, when
she's a displaced person, she writesan article for lance At Journal in England
(41:10):
where she describes Spertold's experiments and histreatment of the disease of noma and describes
what it was. So it couldbe that some people actually took from that
article some beneficial understanding of how totreat this disease. The ultimate and kind
of grotesque irony is, of coursethat the disease was caused by the camp
(41:32):
itself, and had they had betternutrition and better sanitary conditions, the disease
would never have occurred. And theother and the heartbreaking agony is that that
the children who were cured of thisdisease by doctor Epstein were then later gassed,
So wow, a real cruel.So he didn't have the veneer.
He was a sophisticated band of sciencewho at the same time was also a
(41:57):
beast of the worst order. Andhow he killed people but they didn't care,
but he did care about his experiments. So you mentioned that you had
the and we speak to doctor DavidMarwell. His fascinating book is called Mangola
Masking the Angel of Death. Wereable to get a hold of people who
knew Mangola from his scientific days,from his other periods of time, or
(42:19):
even after the war. Yeah,when I when I A lot of that
took place back in nineteen eighty fivewhen we were looking from Mangela Um I
interviewed and a number of people whohad who had known him, former colleagues,
from school, school friends, andthat quit that that information informed me
greatly and made its way into myunderstanding of who Mangola was. But I
(42:45):
say, in the end, heends up being a kind of enigmatic figure,
and I don't mean a positive way. I got to meet Mangola's son
as well, his son who wasborn in nineteen forty four, who never
really met I mean he met hisfather as an infant and as a toddler,
and then met him again when hewas a preteen twelve years old in
(43:07):
nineteen fifty six, and Mengelet wentback to Europe for a visit. But
he didn't know that Mangola at thattime was his father. He thought it
was his uncle. He never reallyencountered Mangola as an adult until right before
Mangela's death, when he when theson, whose name was Roth, made
his way to Sampaolo to visit hisfather and to confront him, to try
(43:30):
to get an answers from him asto why he did what he did and
try to understand precisely what had motivatedhim. And I talked in the book
about this encounter. It's it's reallykind of the epilogue of the book where
the young Mangelo, whom I met, who you know, grew up in
the sixties in Germany, was akind of, you know, at radical
politics. Long hair was kind ofthe alternative progressive and had this kind of
(43:55):
intellectual abhorrence of what he he hadlearned about his father. But at the
same time they had the kind ofemotional, some whould say, biological connection
to his father, and this kindof ambivalence was a big complication for him.
(44:15):
And Mangel, who was cut offfrom his family and had carried on
a kind of painful correspondence with hisson over the years, wanted very much
to meet him in person, andso they had this confrontation in nineteen seventy
seven, about eighteen months or fifteenmonths before Mangola died, and the son
(44:36):
describes it in some detail in whichI recount in the book about him asking
his father about Auschwitz and asking hisfather about his notion that some races were
had more value than others, andMangela responds and it's a very emotional exchange
for both of them. And thenin the end, the kind of the
most interesting document that I'd found alongthe way was a letter that Mangela wrote
(45:00):
to his son Ralph right after thevisit, where he talks about how important
the visit was to him. Buthe then says, look, I know
how you feel, and I regretthat you feel that way, but I
make no excuses for what I've done, and I have certain limits to my
patients. I've given you an explanationand you can either accept it or you
(45:20):
can't. But I have limits tomy patients, and those limits extend to
when I considered my racial community thisis the right Nazi term when that is
threatened. So it's a perfect exampleof how mangel And never advanced beyond his
own thinking from back in the dayswhen he was at Auschwitz. So the
(45:42):
entire rest of his life he wasunrepentant to the end. Now we have
feel them was left. But didhe have help from the Nazi organizations that
exist at the under the war,whether you called the Odessa Group or whatever
it might be, to help relocatethe top Nazis. He was helped by
Nazis throughout his run. You know, I'd worked on the Barbie case before
the Mangle of case, where wefound that Barbie had been actually been helped
(46:06):
by down the so called route lineMangel that we found actually benefited from his
family's wealth. They had owned abig company in Gunsberg, and the money
that they were able to invest inhis escape made it possible. There was
a kind of organized effort, butit wasn't done politically. There were,
you know, people who would takemoney to help him get across the border.
(46:28):
When he was in South America,which at the time when he arrived
there was a very benign environment forformer Nazis because of Juan Perrone. He
did join in with the emigrant communitythere. He had met, for example
Eisman a few times. But hisactual departure from Europe was we concluded,
not not assisted by playny of theNazier. So let me answer this question.
(46:52):
Because he lived for four years afterthe war ended in Berlin. He
did travel to the Anna Berlin inBavaria. In Bavaria, Okay, and
he's for prior time he lived underthe name Mangla. How was it that
the German authorities Nazi hunters Israel whenhe will to find he must have been
he was high up on the mostwanted list. How was he able to
(47:12):
do that? Well? He reallymuch more notorious today than he was accepted
to his victims, of course,but in nineteen forty five he was not
a household world were done at all. And the fact of the matter is
he was in his wife, whowas listed in the phone book in Buenos
Aires. And when he gave uphis fake name in nineteen fifty six,
he was perfectly safe. There wasno effort to find him. Wasn't until
(47:37):
nineteen fifty eight when the German prosecute. He began this investigation when he felt
that he was being threatened, andreally wasn't until the Israel has captured Eichman
that he really was fearful. Soin a sense, he died a death
of a heart. He got awaywith it, at least in this world,
he got away with it. Yeah, I mean, you can look
(47:57):
for he certainly did have the existencethat one would have fantasized. You know,
when we started the investigation, wethought he had some kind of jungle
compounds, you know, with beautifulwomen and guard dogs and things like that.
He has a very modest, somewhateven say squaded life there and was
ill, had a lot of maladies, and was cut off from from his
(48:20):
family and his homeland. So hewasn't a very happy man, that's no,
no, just And what did hedo? Did he work in the
medical field while he was on thelamb? Did he work in research?
When he was in Argentina. Towardsthe end of his stay there, he
invested with the help of the family, in a pharmaceutical company that produced a
drug to treat suberculosis, And hewas involved in that sense in some scientific
(48:45):
work. But once he once heleft in fifty fifty eight fifty nine,
he sold his interest and from thenon he worked as a farm manager in
Brazil, managed a farm for acouple that gave him haven. And he
had money from his from his familyin Germany throughout the period. And was
he in contact with his family.He was, from what you're saying,
(49:06):
in the family in Germany, andso they couldn't trace him through the family
in Germany. They had a somewhatelaborate cutout system where the mail would be
delivered to someone and then they wouldhand carry it to the family, so
they had security precautions. But youcould argue that had the Germans done the
right thing and had you know,searched the right mailbox at the right time,
(49:29):
they could have found him. Butit was a complicated thing to do,
and the Germans made an effort overtime, I mean, arguably demonstrably
unsuccessful, but it wasn't as thatthey didn't do anything. Now was his
wife with him? His wife waswith him during the years on the land.
Because he said the son wasn't hiswife. The mother and his son
divorced him, did not go toSouth America with him, and divorced him
(49:50):
in nineteen fifty four. He thenmarried. He had the second marriage,
actually to his brother's widow, whocame to South America, lived with him
in Buenos Aires with her son,who was both his nephew and his step
son. When he went to Brazil, she did not follow him. She
went back to Europe, so hewas by himself. He divorced her at
the end and he went He didn'tdivorced her at the end, but they
(50:14):
were separated yet. Doctor David Marl, thankful being with us. What's the
next week going to be about?It's a book about a guy named Putsi
Humstengel. It's about a super wartimeintelligence project where Humstengel, who had been
a friend of Hitler's and an earlyNazi Party official, was brought to Virginia
and was advising the Allies on theinner workings of the Nazi regime. He
(50:34):
was a Harvard graduate and had beena friend of Franklin Roosevelt in the nineteen
tens at the Harvard Club in NewYork. And so it's a very interesting,
very interesting story. I'm looking forwardto seeing that, and I kind
of may urge our listeners to getMangelo Amassing The Angel of Death, written
by our author, doctor David G. Marwell. He's a historian, former
director of the Museum of Jewish Heritagein New York City, but also former
(50:59):
chief of Investigative Research at the JusticeDepartment's Offers of a Special Investigation. In
nineteen eighties, he worked in theMangulo case and actually helped Mangulos bones his
remains in his hands. Doc Tomorrow, thank you for being with us.
My pleasures that thanks very much,and We're gonna be right back. Don't
go away, stay tuned. Pleasewelcome the one hundred and tenth Mayor of
the Great City of New York,Mayor Eric Adams, one of my favorite
(51:21):
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Have you ever wanted to write andpublish your own book? Are you
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(52:05):
all the great things in your life? I'm New York Times best selling author
Michael Levin and books are my babies. My company. Jewish Leaders Books writes
and publishes books by Jewish leaders,people who lead in their companies, their
communities, their synagogues, their philanthropies, and their families. We don't just
write the book for you. Wecan publish your book on Amazon and provide
(52:27):
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We greatly appreciate it. Tonight,doctor David Marble joins a historian and he
(01:14):
is used to be with the Museumof Jewish Heritage, and his fascinating book
is about Mangal of the Architect theAngel of Death, daring Hitler's Holocaust against
the Jewish people. You want tospecial broadcasts who are America's only Jewish radio
programs on regular broadcast radio, onthe internet and digital platforms who begin right
after these messages. We're the peopleof the book. So where's yours?
(01:36):
Have you ever wanted to write andpublish your own book? Are you concerned
that your family, friends, andcolleagues will never know how you did all
the great things in your life?I'm New York Times best selling author Michael
Levin and books are my babies.My company, Jewish Leaders Books writes and
publishes books by Jewish leaders, peoplewho lead in their companies, their communities,
(01:57):
their synagogues, their philanthropies, andtheir family. We don't just write
the book for you. We canpublish your book on Amazon and provide Simon
and Schuster distribution into Barnes and Noblesand even airport bookstores. We're working with
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your stories come to life with Jewishleaders books. Reach out to Zev today
(02:19):
at two one two seven six nineone nine two five Extension one hundred,
or email them at Zev Brenner atgmail dot com and we'll see you on
the best seller list. Come onover and join us at t for two,
located in the heart of Marine Park, Brooklyn on Quentin Road, they're
launching a new dairy free concept.You might remember them for their outstanding dairy
(02:42):
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creative dishes where everyone can find exceptional, fresh, delicious food choices of salads,
soups, appetizers, pastas, fishoptions, and yes, even pizza
dairy free. Let your palate enjoyevery dairy free dish ten percent off every
(03:04):
meal with the code word Isabella justin case of allergies. They have eggs,
soys, peanuts, fish and nutproducts on premises. For reservations,
call seven one eight four eight ninefor two zero five. Again that seven
one eight four eight nine for twozero five for tea for two. At
the end of a long day,I unwind in my den with my favorite
(03:27):
book and an amazing view up myAnderson Windows. Reading is the sunsets helps
me relax as I get lost tomy imagination. I'm a self expressionist seemore
at Anderson self Expressionist dot com.Love the life you see. Available Greater
Windows and Doors at thirteen oh twosixtieth Street in Borough Park Call them at
seven one eight nine seven two twosix two six. Greater Windows has been
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That's eight hundred five oh seven thirtyone thirty six. You're listening to
talk Line with Brenner, America's premierJewish broadcast on the year since nineteen eighty
one. And now welcome back tothe program, Moms. Savah Burner's been
a while since I last communicated withour guests. Doctor David G. Mar
(05:15):
Will's an America and his star andhe's former director of the Museum of Jewish
Herbage in New York City, wherewe last had contact. He is president
of the Lubeck Institute. He justwrote a fascinating new book about Mangola.
So welcome to the program. Thankyou for joining us. You know,
it's interesting the book came out anumber of months ago and people are still
(05:35):
talking about it. The Mangela isstill mentioned even though he's dead. For
what well, his reign was duringthe Holocaust. He was one of the
He was the carried out to finalsolution, the infamous doctor Mangela. So,
but his name still lives on afterAdolf Hitler and Ockasman. Probably Mangela
is the most bandied about name ofthe Holocaust. Yeah, you know,
(05:56):
when I first started working on thisbook on January first, at twenty sixteen,
I started a Google alert for anymention of Mangla that would come up
on the Internet or any pressed aroundthe world. And I would say nearly
every day there's a mention of Mangola. And in the last since the coronavirus
pandemic has has hit us, it'sincreased tremendously. In the last five days
(06:20):
there have been thirty one mentions ofMangala somewhere in the world. Sometimes he's
mentioned as a historical figure, oftenin a kind of caricatured way, but
increasingly he is mentioned as the kindof benchmark for evil. You know,
they're talking about a bad seed,a bad doctor in a hospital or something
(06:41):
like that, to say, he'sthe doctor Mangola of that hospital. So
it's very interesting to see how hispersonality has been kind of appropriated as a
symbol for pure evil. Now youcame across and started working. I should
tell everybody that, among your otherdistinctions works that you've done, you were
chief of Investigator Research at the JusticeDepartments offers a special investigation in nineteen eighties.
(07:03):
When you actually worked on the Manglacase and you went to with his
victims and you went to the sceneof his crimes, did you actually ultimately
hold his bones in your hands?I did, Yes, I did.
That was an opportunity that in onesense, was something that you could savor
in a kind of symbolic sense.But it was a very emotional time for
me. How did that come about? Because let's put it this way,
(07:27):
there's always been controversy did he die? When did he die? So not
everybody's on the same page that heactually was for his bones were found in
South America? So what year didyou hold his bones? How did that
come about? We were initially involved, beginning in the first days of nineteen
eighty five. We were involved intrying to determine whether Mangela had ever had
(07:53):
any connection with the American government orwith American institutions or personnel. There were
allegations that We were emerging at thattime that Mengela had been a pow in
American custody and was released, thathe had been an intelligence asset, that
we had somehow helped him to leaveEurope to go to South America, and
we were passed by the Attorney Generalto investigate that. That investigation soon broadened
(08:16):
to become a man hunt to tryto find him. We were joined by
the US Marshal Service in that effort, and we were soon joined by both
the German and the Israeli government,so we had this international effort to find
him. The whole investigation took adramatic turn in June of nineteen eighty five
when a body was found in Brazilthat was purported to be Mengolas, and
(08:37):
the whole focusing investigation just shifted downto Sam Paulo, Brazil, where the
body was exhoomed. It was onlya bunch of bones that had been there
was no soft tissue left, andthat in the pre DNA days, we
were attempting to determine whether the bodythat skeleton belonged to Joseph Mengelo or not.
(09:00):
And it was a very complex forensicinvestigation. But in the course of
that. Of course, the boneswere examined, and I was there in
Brazil with the American forensic team,and that's when I had that dubious honor
of having held his bones in myhand. But to the Israeli government then
the others really believed that it wasMangla because it seemed like a very I
guess disappoint the end if it washim. I'll tell you what was so
(09:22):
provocative about it was the circumstances throughwhich the body was discovered seemed a little
bit too too neat for some people. And because Mangela had been an anthropologist
and a physician, the suspicion arosethat perhaps he had faked this step,
that he had found a body thatlooked like him and that had had it
(09:46):
buried in the grave. And sothere was always this concern that there was
some kind of hoax being perpetrated onthe public, and that Mangela, the
kind of evil talented science, hadhad pulled the wool over everyone's eyes.
And that was a view. Itwas held by by many, many people,
including many in the survivor community whowho couldn't quite come to terms with
(10:11):
the notion that mangel had died akind of old man's death and didn't comply
with their own kind of imagination ofhim, and they were robbed of the
ability to confront him and for himto have been held accountable for his crimes.
So it's a complicated emotional psychological issuefor a lot of people. And
(10:35):
that's why it took a long timefor the eventual investigation into the you know,
the forensic effort to come to fruition, And it actually didn't end until
the DNA DNA as a forensic toolhad developed the point where it could be
used on the set of bones thathad been found in in this grave in
(10:56):
some pollum, which wasn't until nineteenthe early nineteen nineties. But how did
how did he actually die according tothis scenario? Okay, so he died,
and I argue in the books thatthis scenario is the absolute correct one.
He died of while swimming. Hewas on a short holiday on the
(11:18):
coast of Brazil, and he wentswimming and had a stroke while swimming and
either died of the stroke or diedas a result of drowning as a result
of the stroke. So he diedfrom illness or compounded by by his swimming
and then he was buried in underanother person's name, and it wasn't until
(11:41):
that was in February of nineteen seventynine when he died and the body was
discovered in June of nineteen eighty five. Well, who who tipped you off
that this was Joseph Mangula? Sowhat happened? Was I mentioned before that
we were involved in this tripart typeinternational investigation which included the Germans and the
(12:03):
Israelis. And in June of lateMay, the end of May nineteen eighty
five, the Germans searched the homeof a executive or a retired executive from
the Mangola family firm in the townof Gunsbourg in Bavaria, where Mangela had
been born, and they found inthis person's house some correspondent which suggested that
(12:26):
Mangola might have died in Brazil.So at that time the whole, the
whole focus of the investigation shifted downto Brazil and we all went not at
the same time, but over thecourse of several weeks we all were down
in Brazil. So at this pointthen there were four countries involved in the
investigation, the Americans, the Germans, the Israelis and now the Brazilians,
(12:50):
and I described very carefully in thebook how these various scientists from these various
countries worked together to examine the bonesand come to a conclusion, which they
did in a kind of preliminary wayin at the end of June. But
my colleagues and I at Osi werenot satisfied with the findings, and we
(13:11):
continued to look and for the nextyear or so, we were back in
Brazil, we were back in Germany, and we were able to discover a
lot more information which led to amuch more confident conclusion. Question though,
is and doctor David Marvel's Our Guests, He's written, Mangola amasking the Angel
of Death, is that the Israeliswere looking for him? Was there a
(13:35):
period of time when they almost hadhim? Because it would seem that he
was able to allude not just theIsraelis but everybody else that was looking for
him. Yeah, so, Mangel, right after the war he was I'll
bring you up to date on it, because this context, I think is
important. Right after the war,Mangolo was taken into custody by US forces.
(13:56):
He did two things though. Firsthe got rid of his SS uniform
and put on a Arrmoch uniform andhe joined a field hospital Wearmoch field hospital,
that's the kind of regular German Armyfield hospital, and was able to
blend in with that unit when hewas taken into custody with that unit.
He was in the in two differentus POW camps, but he didn't have
(14:22):
the tell tale mark that defined himas an ss man. He did not
have the tattoo under his left armwhich the SS typically had, which which
was their blood type tattooed onto theirunder arm, and he didn't have it
because for the various reasons, butso that he was able to be released
(14:43):
by the Americans without being identified asan ss man. And he then took
up an assumed name and lived ona farm in Bavaria for four years.
He left Germany in nineteen forty ninewith the help of his family, who
were quite wealth and made his waysover the Brenner Pass to the Italian port
of Genoa and then to Argentina,and he lived there untouched by anyone,
(15:13):
fearful and still under a false name, but got more and more comfortable until
in nineteen fifty six he took onhis former name and identity became jose Mangela
living in Argentina, and it wasn'tuntil the end of the end of the
summer of nineteen fifty eight that theGermans began to investigate Joseph Mangela. He
(15:35):
got word of this and decided hehad to leave Argentina and he went to
Paraguay, and he felt pretty comfortablein Paraguay. He got Paraguayan citizenship,
and then when the Israelis kidnapped capturedAlaf Eichmann in nineteen sixty, Mangola realized
that he couldn't be safe anywhere.He felt safe and up to that time
(15:56):
in Bavaria in Paraguay because he wasa citizen of Paraguay and the Paraguayans wouldn't
extradite one of their citizens. Butnow he realized that the Israelis could capture
him anywhere, and they didn't needto extradite him, and they could take
him the way they took Aikman.So from Paraguay he went to Brazil in
probably the autumn of nineteen sixty.The Israelis had Mangola on their search list
(16:23):
when they captured Eichman, and theyactually went to his former residence to look
for him, but by that timeMengola had already been long gone and was
already a citizen in Paraguay. Butthey focused then on Paraguay. They got
some tips that he was in Paraguayand they searched for him, and they
eventually learned that he might have goneto Brazil, and in nineteen sixty two,
(16:48):
one of their members of their teamclaims to have had him in his
sights, had actually seen him andidentified him, and they contacted the headquarters
in Israel and they were told toback off. And it was at that
time that the German scientists that theEgyptian government had imported German scientists to help
them in developing some rocket technology,and the Musat shut down the search for
(17:15):
Mangel at that time to focus theirresources on a much more current and imposing
threat, and they really didn't takeup the search for Mengel again until until
Menachem began became Prime minister, Yes, and they began a kind of limited
search for from Mengel, and theydid a very comprehensive job. They had
(17:41):
a number of different operations intended tofind Mengela. There's a report that was
released by the Israelis in September twentyseventeen, which is the declassified report of
their search for Mengela and other warcriminals. And I was amazing to have
read it, to learn how muchthey knew about Mangland, how close they
(18:03):
actually got both in sixty two andthen in sixty five, and they actually
had enough information to have been ableto find him, but they failed to
do it, and not through lackof trying, and not through lack of
creativity and passion in the pursuit,but for a lot of bureaucratic reasons.
They failed to find him. Thenbecause the conventional thinking least when I and
(18:25):
I studied the Mangless story, Ialways led to believe that the reason why
they didn't capture him in the earlynineteen sixties is that they got sidetracked by
the Schumacher case of a boy kidnappedby religious grandparents smuggled to Brooklyn, New
York. So the most odd resourceswas to get Yos Schumacher back to his
parents because they were going to raisehim non religious. So that's what I
(18:47):
led was led to believe that thatwas the reason. I believe that too.
I believe that too until I readthe most odd report. And if
you look at the dates Schumacher's bodyJuhaman on his body. But Schumacher was
discovered on July fourth or around thattime, and the sighting of Mangela that
I've referred to before wasn't until theend or the mid to end of July.
It was really the German scientists inEgypt that was the approximate cause for
(19:12):
having pulled them off. That sothe most resources you're saying went to deal
with the German scientists in Egypt,which was a major threat to his ral
as opposed to the Operation Damocles.Yeah, we're assuming with doctor David G.
Marwell. He's an American is starringformer director of the Museum and Jewish
Heritage. He worked as chief ofInvestigative Researcher the Justice Department's Office of Special
(19:37):
Investigations. His fascinating book is calledMangola Unmasking the Angel of Death. We're
going to be right back. We'rethe people of the book. So where's
yours? Have you ever wanted towrite and publish your own book? Are
you concerned that your family, friendsand colleagues will never know how you did
all the great things in your life. I'm New York Times best selling author
(19:57):
Michael Levin and book are My Babies. My company, Jewish Leaders Books writes
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Simon and Schuster distribution into Barnes andNobles and even airport bookstores. We're working
(20:21):
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Let your stories come to life withJewish Leaders Books. Reach out to Zev
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(20:45):
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(21:55):
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since nineteen eighty one. And nowhere's your host. Welcome back to the
(23:47):
program, Mom Zev Brenner with usright now. Doctor David G. Marrowell,
American is starin former director of theMuseum of Jewish Heritage in New York
City. He also is currently thepresident of the Lubeck Institute, and he
was Chief Investigative Research at the JusticeDepartment's Office of Special Investigation in nineteen eighties.
He actually worked on finding Joseph Mengelo. He actually held his bones his
(24:10):
new book Mangela Masking the Angel ofDeath. So mengelas is considered to be
the embodiment of evil. We tendto look at the Hitler and Eichmann and
some of the other architects of theof the Holocaust and the Third Reich as
being evil people through and through.But let's look doctor, doctor Mangola was
certainly somebody who's a professional. Hewas talented, he was a doctor,
(24:34):
So who was he? You know? Ze? When I started this book,
my initial intention was to write abook about the investigation, which I
was just talking about in the earliersegment. But in preparing for it,
I knew I had to write,you know, some introductory chapters about who
Mangola was. And I discovered inthat pursuit a body of new scholarship about
(24:56):
Mangela, mostly from German historian thatI had been unaware of it, most
of it published since two thousand andA picture emerged of him that was quite
unlike the picture that I had carriedwith me, which was of a kind
of renegade, sadistic, mad scientistwho who was kind of off the rails
(25:19):
and operating motivated by kind of grotesqueinterest in twins and in dwarfs, and
following a kind of pernicious and uglyand grotesque motivation. But the more that
I read about his studies at theuniversity and his career until he joined the
army and eventually went to Aushwood,the more I was surprised, and the
(25:44):
more I believe that it was importantto try to paint an accurate picture of
Mangela. I mentioned before that,you know, Mengela had become a kind
of symbol for both the Holocaust andfor the escape from justice of too many
Nazi criminals. The more they hebecame that symbol, the more obscure he
had become as a human being.And what I tried to do in the
book is to strip away some ofthe myths that has attached itself to Mengola
(26:07):
and has served to elevate him intothis iconic role. And at the same
time, I hope that I replacedwhat is a frightening character of this man
with something that's even more unsettling,and that is the picture of the human
being that he actually was. Mengolahad received an elite education. He began
(26:27):
in nineteen thirty at the University ofMunich and studied both medicine and anthropologies.
He got two PhDs, one inanthropology and one in medicine, and he
studied these sciences, the science scienceof anthropology, which really became a racial
science, and of medicine. Whenthese two disciplines became very very important for
(26:52):
the Nazi state, which had justthe Nuts Party had just become into power
when Mengola had was ready in themiddle of his studies, and the science
that he was interested in was elevatedinto a kind of partnership role with Nazi
ideology that the Germans relied. TheNazis relied on science to undergird and to
(27:15):
support their worldview of the relative valueof different races. And at the same
time their their interest in that sciencebenefited the science itself by by giving it
extra funding and by elevating those whopracticed it in terms of their status.
So Mangela studied with Nobel Prize winnerstwo or three who would either be already
(27:37):
had been a Noble Prize or wouldsoon in the future. He worked for
one of the great geneticists of thetime. His mentor in anthropology, A
Man Namollison, was considered one ofthe grapes in physical answer apology. So
he had kind of an elite educationand he was considered a very bright light
(27:57):
in Nazi science at the time,and this was a something that I hadn't
quite appreciated. I read his dissertations, both of them. I read the
articles he published in books, hisbook reviews, and one could argue that
had the war not taken place andhe and all that that entailed, that
(28:19):
Mangela probably would have become a,you know, quite a prominent and famous
German academic, the German scientist,professor at university, and probably the head
of some some laboratories somewhere or someinstitute. But of course history didn't go
that way, and Mangela ended upafter the war began and joined joined the
(28:41):
SS, the WAFA and s Sas a physician, became a kind of
army doctor. And something that thatmost of the biographies of Mangela do not
quite understand was the extent of hismilitary activity. He was with the Viking
Division of the s S from thevery first days of the invasion of the
(29:03):
Soviet Union and remained there for eighteenmonths when he was evacuated from the area
around Stalingrad in January of nineteen fortythree. So from January, from June
of nineteen forty one to January fortythree he was in not quite constant but
but unrelenting violent combat on the EasternFront. His unit was involved in the
(29:30):
early days of the invasion in massatrocities in the Ukraine. We don't know
whether Mangla himself was involved in butwe know that that the unit, know
this division in which he was servingwas and eventually he was able to be
evacuated out of the retreat from Stalingradwhere he was covered where his unit was
covering the retreat, and ended upback in Berlin where he became associated with
(29:57):
the Kaiser wilhelmmats To in Berlin,which was a the institute that was studying
racial science and anthropology, and madecontact with the scientists there and his former
mentor, and eventually then was transferredto Auschwitz in June of nine in the
end of May of nineteen forty three. So was he saying district experiments before
(30:21):
the war. Was he known asbeing a sadist or being somebody who delighted
in the torture of human beings forresearch. No, he was quite a
conventional indeed, probably would be consideredin the vanguard of German science at the
time. He was involved in evaluatingvery Nazi enterprise of valuing and people to
determine what race they were, Buthe was not involved in any kind of
(30:42):
what one would consider in human experimentation. His dissertations were quite conventional using the
respect respectable in quote science at thetime when he got to Auschwitz, and
this is a rather complicated and importantthing to understand. When he got to
(31:03):
Auschwitz, he understood, and thisis his logic, that he had access
to significant resources that would permit himto continue his scientific research without the normal
borders and constraints that would be placedon him that word placed on him before
(31:26):
the war, and that would wouldbe placed in him in on him in
other contexts. Let's take for instance, everyone knows that Mangela was interested in
twins, and they often explain hisinterests in twins to suggest that he was
that his experiments in Auschwitz were designedto determine what was the secret of twin
(31:47):
births? How do how could wecreate twin births? Because this argument goes
because he wanted to increase the birthrate of the Aryan people in Germany.
Now this is not true. Thisis a widely held belief, but it
ignores a few things. It ignores. Number one, that the issue of
(32:09):
twin research was something that was widespreadnot only in Germany but throughout the scientific
world. It was the only andthe best, let's say, the best
method for genetic research, because twinsoffer you the opportunity of studying two people
who have the same genetic code inthe case of identical twins, and two
(32:31):
people who have the same exact environmentalexperience in the case of fraternal twins,
and by comparing them you're able todraw conclusions about what is caused by genetics
and what is caused by environment.And the other thing I learned was that
as much as what as people talkabout mangle as science at our shits,
(32:53):
we actually know very little about thenuts and bolts of what he actually did.
There are no records, with theexception of a few scraps in in
uh in the records, for instance, of the institutions that would support the
research, but there's there's no Thereare no case studies or or um or
(33:16):
records left by Mangola of the researchthat he conducted. All we have is
the scattered and incomplete memories of peoplewho were associated with him, either as
subjects of experiments or as people whoobserve them, as as collaborators or as
unwitting collaborators. Did you have anysparks of humanity that we're able to glean
(33:38):
from Holocaust survivors, well, manymany Holocaust survivors do speak of a kind
of ambivalence in a way, becauseMangola did exhibit, according to their testimony,
some examples of even kindness towards towardssome of the victims. But again,
(33:59):
this this ev it is quite quitein some cases difficult to accept completely
because you have to remember the conditionsof the people who are making these statements,
who are often traumatized children at thetime, who weren't in a position
to make judgments about what the motivesof these experiments were, what the objects
(34:20):
of the experiments were. All theyknow is what happened to them personally.
And as I say, it's it'salmost impossible to understand with any real confidence
the exact nature of the experiments.But we do know that Mengela established in
a way a kind of research instituteat Auschitz, patterned on the institute that
(34:42):
he was involved in both in Frankfortand in Berlin. He recruited, I
recruited, with quotes around it,some of the great scientific minds among the
inmates who were delivered to Auschitz fromall over Europe, great pathologists and pediatricians
and medical illustrators and nurses and medicaltechnicians and neurologists who were in these transports
(35:09):
who arrived at Ashwitz and Mangela.Not only did he select out victims to
be killed, he selected subjects tobe experiment upon, and he said selected
physicians and scientists to help him inthese experiments. So it was a much
larger and more complicated enterprise than Ihad understood before I had done this new
(35:34):
research. We're speaking with doctor DavidG. Marwell, an Americans Starring,
the former director of the Museum ofJewish Heritage here in New York City.
He was chief of Investigative Research asa Justice Department offers of special investigations.
He actually and investigated Joseph Mengelo thatcase, and he held his bones in
his hands. His new book iscalled Mangela, Amasking the Angel of Death.
(36:00):
We're going to be right back.At the end of a long day,
I unwind in my den with myfavorite book and an amazing view of
my Anderson windows. Reading is theSun's sets helps me relax as I get
lost in my imagination. I'm aself expressionist Seymour at Anderson self Expressionist dot
com. Love the life you seeavailableok Greater Windows and Doors at thirteen oh
(36:22):
two sixtieth Street in Borough Park Callthem at seven eight nine seven two two
six two six. Greater Windows hasbeen serving the community for over thirty years.
Commercial and residential accounts welcome online atGreater Windows dot com. We're the
people of the book, So where'syours? Have you ever wanted to write
(36:42):
and publish your own book? Areyou concerned that your family, friends,
and colleagues will never know how youdid all the great things in your life?
I'm New York Times best selling authorMichael Levin and books are my babies.
My company, Jewish Leaders Books writesand publishes books by Jewish Leaders,
people who lead in their companies,their communities, their synagogues, their philanthropies,
(37:02):
and their families. We don't justwrite the book for you. We
can publish your book on Amazon andprovide Simon and Schuster distribution into Barnes and
Nobles and even airport bookstores. We'reworking with Zev Brenner and talk Line to
bring our unique service to Zev's audience. Let your stories come to life with
Jewish Leaders Books. Reach out toZev today at two one two seven six
(37:25):
nine one nine two five Extension onehundred, or email them at Zev Brenner
at gmail dot com and we'll seeyou on the best seller list. Come
on over and join us at Tfor two, located in the heart of
Marine Park, Brooklyn on Quentin Road. They're launching a new dairy free concept.
You might remember them for their outstandingdairy restaurants, but now they're pivoting
(37:47):
towards dairy free alternative menu with avariety of creative dishes where everyone can find
exceptional, fresh, delicious food,choices of salad, soups, appetis,
his pastas, fish options, andyes, even pizza dairy free. Let
your palat enjoy every dairy free dishten percent off every meal with the code
(38:09):
word Isabella just in case of allergies. They have eggs, soys, peanuts,
fish and nut products on premises forreservations called seven one eight four eight
nine for two zero five. Againthat seven one eight four eight nine for
two zero five for tea for two. You're listening to Talk Line with Zev
(38:29):
Brenner, America's premier Jewish broadcast onthe year since nineteen eighty one. Now
welcome back to the program. MomsZef Brenner. Our special guest is doctor
David G. Marl, an Americanhistorian, the former director of the Museum
of Jewish Heritage here in New YorkCity's president of the Leo Beck Institute.
(38:52):
He is also formerly the chief ofInvestigative Research at the Justice Department's Offers a
special investigation in nineteen eighties, heactually reach the Mangola case and actually held
his bones in his hands. Hisfascinating new book is called Mangola, Unmasking
the Angel of Death and as acontroversy now about using some of the research
(39:14):
from Mangal in the Holocaust to savelives today, saying that his tainted research
it came at the costs of killingthousands a month, thousands of people.
Yeah, I mean there's a andI'm often asked about whether any of the
evidence results of Mangos experiments were usedat all. And I did come across
one one example I've outlined in thebook. I think five or six research
areas that Mangola was involved in,including the eye color experiments and twin experiments
(39:38):
and experiments with took called gypsy population. But he also did experiments with there
was a disease at Auschwitz, whichhad all but disappeared in the developed world
by the time of the Second WorldWar, was a kind of oral cancer.
It was disfiguring and ultimately fatal thatwas the result of poor hygiene and
(40:00):
poor nutrition. And there was abig outbreak of this disease was called Noma.
That the outbreak had taken hold inthe Gypsy camp where Menela had been
the camp position. And Mengel haddecided that he was going to try to
find a cure for the disease.And he recruited, and I used again,
recruited in quotes, a great CzechJewish a pediatrician who was working in
(40:24):
a infirmary in another part of thecamp, and he brought him there,
and he set him up in abarrack at the Gypsy camp and gave him
all the equipment he needed, whatevermedical support he needed. And this physician,
doctor Berthold Epstein, was able tofind an effective treatment and cure for
(40:47):
for Noma. And we know aboutthis because there was another inmate physician who
worked with him named Lucy Addlsberger,who was a German jew who had been
forced to act as as an inmatephysician and in nineteen forty six, when
she's a displaced person, she writesan article for lance At Journal in England
(41:10):
where she describes Spertold's experiments and histreatment of the disease of noma and describes
what it was. So it couldbe that some people actually took from that
article some beneficial understanding of how totreat this disease. The ultimate and kind
of grotesque irony is, of coursethat the disease was caused by the camp
(41:32):
itself, and had they had betternutrition and better sanitary conditions, the disease
would never have occurred. And theother and the heartbreaking agony is that that
the children who were cured of thisdisease by doctor Epstein were then later gassed,
So wow, a real cruel.So he didn't have the veneer.
He was a sophisticated band of sciencewho at the same time was also a
(41:57):
beast of the worst order. Andhow he killed people but they didn't care,
but he did care about his experiments. So you mentioned that you had
the and we speak to doctor DavidMarwell. His fascinating book is called Mangola
Masking the Angel of Death. Wereable to get a hold of people who
knew Mangola from his scientific days,from his other periods of time, or
(42:19):
even after the war. Yeah,when I when I A lot of that
took place back in nineteen eighty fivewhen we were looking from Mangela Um I
interviewed and a number of people whohad who had known him, former colleagues,
from school, school friends, andthat quit that that information informed me
greatly and made its way into myunderstanding of who Mangola was. But I
(42:45):
say, in the end, heends up being a kind of enigmatic figure,
and I don't mean a positive way. I got to meet Mangola's son
as well, his son who wasborn in nineteen forty four, who never
really met I mean he met hisfather as an infant and as a toddler,
and then met him again when hewas a preteen twelve years old in
(43:07):
nineteen fifty six, and Mengelet wentback to Europe for a visit. But
he didn't know that Mangola at thattime was his father. He thought it
was his uncle. He never reallyencountered Mangola as an adult until right before
Mangela's death, when he when theson, whose name was Roth, made
his way to Sampaolo to visit hisfather and to confront him, to try
(43:30):
to get an answers from him asto why he did what he did and
try to understand precisely what had motivatedhim. And I talked in the book
about this encounter. It's it's reallykind of the epilogue of the book where
the young Mangelo, whom I met, who you know, grew up in
the sixties in Germany, was akind of, you know, at radical
politics. Long hair was kind ofthe alternative progressive and had this kind of
(43:55):
intellectual abhorrence of what he he hadlearned about his father. But at the
same time they had the kind ofemotional, some whould say, biological connection
to his father, and this kindof ambivalence was a big complication for him.
(44:15):
And Mangel, who was cut offfrom his family and had carried on
a kind of painful correspondence with hisson over the years, wanted very much
to meet him in person, andso they had this confrontation in nineteen seventy
seven, about eighteen months or fifteenmonths before Mangola died, and the son
(44:36):
describes it in some detail in whichI recount in the book about him asking
his father about Auschwitz and asking hisfather about his notion that some races were
had more value than others, andMangela responds and it's a very emotional exchange
for both of them. And thenin the end, the kind of the
most interesting document that I'd found alongthe way was a letter that Mangela wrote
(45:00):
to his son Ralph right after thevisit, where he talks about how important
the visit was to him. Buthe then says, look, I know
how you feel, and I regretthat you feel that way, but I
make no excuses for what I've done, and I have certain limits to my
patients. I've given you an explanationand you can either accept it or you
(45:20):
can't. But I have limits tomy patients, and those limits extend to
when I considered my racial community thisis the right Nazi term when that is
threatened. So it's a perfect exampleof how mangel And never advanced beyond his
own thinking from back in the dayswhen he was at Auschwitz. So the
(45:42):
entire rest of his life he wasunrepentant to the end. Now we have
feel them was left. But didhe have help from the Nazi organizations that
exist at the under the war,whether you called the Odessa Group or whatever
it might be, to help relocatethe top Nazis. He was helped by
Nazis throughout his run. You know, I'd worked on the Barbie case before
the Mangle of case, where wefound that Barbie had been actually been helped
(46:06):
by down the so called route lineMangel that we found actually benefited from his
family's wealth. They had owned abig company in Gunsberg, and the money
that they were able to invest inhis escape made it possible. There was
a kind of organized effort, butit wasn't done politically. There were,
you know, people who would takemoney to help him get across the border.
(46:28):
When he was in South America,which at the time when he arrived
there was a very benign environment forformer Nazis because of Juan Perrone. He
did join in with the emigrant communitythere. He had met, for example
Eisman a few times. But hisactual departure from Europe was we concluded,
not not assisted by playny of theNazier. So let me answer this question.
(46:52):
Because he lived for four years afterthe war ended in Berlin. He
did travel to the Anna Berlin inBavaria. In Bavaria, Okay, and
he's for prior time he lived underthe name Mangla. How was it that
the German authorities Nazi hunters Israel whenhe will to find he must have been
he was high up on the mostwanted list. How was he able to
(47:12):
do that? Well? He reallymuch more notorious today than he was accepted
to his victims, of course,but in nineteen forty five he was not
a household world were done at all. And the fact of the matter is
he was in his wife, whowas listed in the phone book in Buenos
Aires. And when he gave uphis fake name in nineteen fifty six,
he was perfectly safe. There wasno effort to find him. Wasn't until
(47:37):
nineteen fifty eight when the German prosecute. He began this investigation when he felt
that he was being threatened, andreally wasn't until the Israel has captured Eichman
that he really was fearful. Soin a sense, he died a death
of a heart. He got awaywith it, at least in this world,
he got away with it. Yeah, I mean, you can look
(47:57):
for he certainly did have the existencethat one would have fantasized. You know,
when we started the investigation, wethought he had some kind of jungle
compounds, you know, with beautifulwomen and guard dogs and things like that.
He has a very modest, somewhateven say squaded life there and was
ill, had a lot of maladies, and was cut off from from his
(48:20):
family and his homeland. So hewasn't a very happy man, that's no,
no, just And what did hedo? Did he work in the
medical field while he was on thelamb? Did he work in research?
When he was in Argentina. Towardsthe end of his stay there, he
invested with the help of the family, in a pharmaceutical company that produced a
drug to treat suberculosis, And hewas involved in that sense in some scientific
(48:45):
work. But once he once heleft in fifty fifty eight fifty nine,
he sold his interest and from thenon he worked as a farm manager in
Brazil, managed a farm for acouple that gave him haven. And he
had money from his from his familyin Germany throughout the period. And was
he in contact with his family.He was, from what you're saying,
(49:06):
in the family in Germany, andso they couldn't trace him through the family
in Germany. They had a somewhatelaborate cutout system where the mail would be
delivered to someone and then they wouldhand carry it to the family, so
they had security precautions. But youcould argue that had the Germans done the
right thing and had you know,searched the right mailbox at the right time,
(49:29):
they could have found him. Butit was a complicated thing to do,
and the Germans made an effort overtime, I mean, arguably demonstrably
unsuccessful, but it wasn't as thatthey didn't do anything. Now was his
wife with him? His wife waswith him during the years on the land.
Because he said the son wasn't hiswife. The mother and his son
divorced him, did not go toSouth America with him, and divorced him
(49:50):
in nineteen fifty four. He thenmarried. He had the second marriage,
actually to his brother's widow, whocame to South America, lived with him
in Buenos Aires with her son,who was both his nephew and his step
son. When he went to Brazil, she did not follow him. She
went back to Europe, so hewas by himself. He divorced her at
the end and he went He didn'tdivorced her at the end, but they
(50:14):
were separated yet. Doctor David Marl, thankful being with us. What's the
next week going to be about?It's a book about a guy named Putsi
Humstengel. It's about a super wartimeintelligence project where Humstengel, who had been
a friend of Hitler's and an earlyNazi Party official, was brought to Virginia
and was advising the Allies on theinner workings of the Nazi regime. He
(50:34):
was a Harvard graduate and had beena friend of Franklin Roosevelt in the nineteen
tens at the Harvard Club in NewYork. And so it's a very interesting,
very interesting story. I'm looking forwardto seeing that, and I kind
of may urge our listeners to getMangelo Amassing The Angel of Death, written
by our author, doctor David G. Marwell. He's a historian, former
director of the Museum of Jewish Heritagein New York City, but also former
(50:59):
chief of Investigative Research at the JusticeDepartment's Offers of a Special Investigation. In
nineteen eighties, he worked in theMangulo case and actually helped Mangulos bones his
remains in his hands. Doc Tomorrow, thank you for being with us.
My pleasures that thanks very much,and We're gonna be right back. Don't
go away, stay tuned. Pleasewelcome the one hundred and tenth Mayor of
the Great City of New York,Mayor Eric Adams, one of my favorite
(51:21):
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