Talk:Josef Mengele

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Photo Source of Surviving Children

What is the source of the photo labeled as being twins? I did not make any changes to the caption because I do not have a Wikipedia-approved source, but I know one of the women in the photo and she's not a twin. The girl in the back left with her face partially obscured is Ruth Muschkies (I think I spelled her family name correctly).

Survived removal of kidney without anaesthitic? Really...

The article states:

Yitzhak Ganon, another survivor, reported in 2009 how Mengele removed his kidney without anesthesia. He was forced to return to work without painkillers.[58]

The reference, [58], is to a Spiegel International article which contains this:

Ganon had to lie down on a table and was tied down. Without any anesthetics, Mengele cut him open and removed his kidney. "I saw the kidney pulsing in his hand and cried like a crazy man," Ganon says. "I screamed the 'Shema Yisrael.' I begged for death, to stop the suffering."

After the "operation," he had to work in the Auschwitz sewing room without painkillers. Among other things, he had to clean bloody medical instruments. Once, he had to spend the whole night in a bath of ice-cold water because Mengele wanted to "test" his lung function. Altogether, Ganon spent six and a half months in the concentration camp's hospital.

Is this for real? How can a kidney be extracted withouth anasthetic, given an open renal artery needing suturing and a 'screaming' and presumably writhing patient, who then survives. Why would Mengele have bothered with such a -for him- uninteresting individual?

Highly dubious, especially when it comes out in 2009 - 65 years later - and no compensation claim had been made to the German government. 92.28.23.198 (talk) 21:42, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

We have two kidneys. Kidneys are removed all the time for various reasons (a kidney might be cancerous, for example) without seriously endangering the life of the patient. You might suppose that someone with only one kidney might have at most fifty-percent kidney functioning, but this is not the case. If the remaining kidney is healthy, kidney function will normally be much higher. In any case, it's perfectly possible to survive with twenty-percent kidney function. The sole purpose of an anaesthetic is to eliminate or reduce pain (and Mengeles apparently had no interest in that); it does not preserve the patient's life. The screaming and writhing could have easily been handled by ensuring that the victim was sufficiently bound. The victim would suffer greatly, of course, but Mengeles could plausibly operate without significant interference and without necessarily killing the victim. TheScotch (talk) 01:17, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Main Photo

Main photo should remove military uniforms that show a prideful Mengele in Nazi clothes. The man is a war criminal and the photo is not victim centric. A disgraced photo of him on the run is more suitable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iamthehistory (talk • contribs) 21:47, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

You need to be aware that all the top Nazis wore their uniforms virtually all the time, so to find a compatibly licensed image with civilian clothes will be impossible in most cases. We have very few photos that are compatibly licensed. File:Josef Mengele, Auschwitz. Album Höcker (cropped).jpg gives a better idea of what he actually looked like, as he is not in disguise. — Diannaa (talk) 12:05, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

The purpose of the photo in the infobox is to identify the subject of the article, not to right great wrongs or to present a particular point of view. Nazis, including the top brass as well as the rank and file and military, wore their uniforms virtually all the time. So photos of them in uniform are probably better for identification purposes than ones with civilian clothes.— Diannaa (talk) 12:23, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Problem with some of the sources, especially Levy

I don't know how many of you have looked into Alan Levy's book "Nazi Hunter: Wiesenthal File", but I downloaded it after reading some pretty odd claims on this article that used this book as a citation. Nowhere in the book does it say where he got his information from. How can a book released in 2006 accurately describe events that transpired 60 years ago? I checked the end of the book and it doesn't give any sort of bibliography or citations... WP:TSF, but calling this a tertiary-source is pretty inaccurate in itself, so generally WP:VNT 10:18, 19 October 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.179.51.51 (talk)

I have a copy of the book. It was originally published in 1993 (in the UK as The Wiesenthal File), not 2006. It's true the book has no footnotes or bibliography. But Alan Levy was an award-winning journalist and editor-in-chief of The Prague Post, so I don't personally have a problem with this source.

Could you please specify which information you are describing as "pretty odd claims" that are sourced to Levy? I checked, and it looks like Levy is only used as a source for fairly routine biographical details such as dates of moves, health issues, and the like, and most of the details supported by Levy citations are also supported by other books.— Diannaa (talk) 13:03, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Lead structure

Currently, there is a sentence in the lead which states:

He is mainly remembered for his actions at the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) concentration camp, where he performed deadly experiments on prisoners, as a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers and as one of the doctors who administered the gas.

Since, to my knowledge, all 3 actions were performed at Auschwitz, I would suggest changing it to (or something akin to):

He is mainly remembered for his actions at the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) concentration camp, where he performed deadly experiments on prisoners, was a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers, and was one of the doctors who administered the gas.

However, I wanted to get consensus on this or other alternate language. Thanks, ‡ El cid, el campeador ^talk 18:35, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Your version is easier to understand and has better flow, so I am in favor. — Diannaa (talk) 23:35, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Frequent Vandalism

Hello, I have noticed that this page, Josef Mengele, is frequently vandalized by anonymous editors. This page should be protected for 30 days or so, as to prevent more vandalism from occurring. Oogalee Boogalee (talk) 05:07, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

The IP that has been doing most of it has already been issued a 2-week block. — Diannaa (talk) 19:56, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Pseudo-science?

More out of interest than anything, I'm curious as to why Mengele's views and practices are not described as pseudo-scientific in the article, as compared to eg Trofim Lysenko's. The choice seems deliberate but I'm not aware of a policy or style guide that would cover it. Not arguing for it either way; when I read Lysenko the term was conspicuous in its inclusion and then when I came to compare this page it was conspicuous by contrast in its exclusion. Throwaway85 (talk) 04:10, 30 March 2023 (UTC)