The Angel of Death and Cryptorchidism

 

Josef Rudolf Mengele, a German physician favored by Adolf Hitler, served as an officer of the Gestapo during World War II and the Jewish Holocaust. Known as the "Angel of Death," he committed medical atrocities at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he led medical selections.

Dr. Josef Mengele would ascend a platform upon the arrival of trains carrying Jews to determine who was fit for labor and who was not. Generally, he sent Jews over the age of thirty-eight to the gas chamber, while the younger ones were assigned to forced labor. He conducted cruel and unethical medical experiments on prisoners, especially children, aiming to gather information on genetics and carry out pseudoscientific research. His fascination with twins led him to perform grotesque operations, such as removing one twin's head to transplant it onto the other, resulting in the death of all involved.

Mengele conducted inhumane and unethical research, including the castration of Jewish boys to examine their testicles and make microscopic observations. He discovered that in boys older than two with undescended testicles, the number of spermatogonia (precursor cells of spermatocytes) was significantly reduced. This cruel and immoral information was later conveyed to the medical community, establishing the importance of correcting cryptorchidism (undescended testicles) before the age of two to preserve fertility in the future.

After the war, Mengele managed to escape and lived in various locations in South America, conducting strange experiments in each. Despite efforts to bring him to justice, he was never captured or tried for his crimes at Auschwitz. He drowned in Brazil in 1979.

The Jewish community invested a considerable amount of money in pursuing this criminal until discovering his grave. In 1985, it was revealed that a body buried in a cemetery near São Paulo was Mengele's, identified through DNA tests and other forensic methods.

With unethical cruelty, the "Angel of Death" determined that children with undescended testicles should be surgically handled before the age of two to preserve their fertility potential.

• The author is a professor and pediatric surgeon at RCM. Appointments -- (787) 340-1868