The Twin Children of the Holocaust

It has been approximately seventy-five years since the Doctors Trial at Nuremburg took place in Germany (1946-1947), at the end of World War II. Accusations of criminal activity were directed at twenty-three individuals, mostly doctors, for the brutal medical experiments they conducted on concentration camp prisoners. Missing from the trial was the infamous Auschwitz physician, Dr. Josef Mengele, known as the “Angel of Death” for his experiments on twins, dwarfs, and individuals suffering from various genetic anomalies.

It has also been nearly forty years since the June 27, 1985 event that brought the Mengele twins together for the first time for a four-day visit to the camp, followed by a three-day public hearing on Mengele’s war crimes, held at Yad Vashem (A Memorial and a Name), in Jerusalem, Israel. As a Jewish twin and as a psychologist I felt compelled to attend. This year, I am honored and gratified to have published an annotated collection of the photographs I took at that gathering.

The pictures capture the twins and the activities we shared in Poland, in Israel, the three-day public hearing on Mengele’s war crimes, and beyond; I remained in contact with some of the twin pairs over the years. When Mengele’s death by drowning was announced in June 1985, I traveled to Terre Haute, Indiana for an inquest, organized by one of the twins, to review the forensic evidence along with experts in psychology, Holocaust studies and special investigation. (Some twins who attended refused to believe that Mengele had died, believing that his death was a mere hoax).

Source: Nancy L. Segal

Documenting Twins Who Survived

I am not a photographer, but I learned that one can sometimes work miracles with a state-of-the-art Nikon camera. Many of the pictures I took are excellent in quality, some are not, but as I looked through them, it was clear that their quality was not their most important feature. Most important was that these photographs were a faithful record of the aftermath of a tragic period in human history, one that should never be repeated. The Twin Children of the Holocaust: Stolen Childhood and the Will to Survive was published in March and includes a section in which the nature and supposed purpose of the experiments are described.

The picture on the cover which also appears in a later section of the book is of particular interest. I took it at Birkenau—the part of the camp built after Auschwitz where the twins were housed. The backdrop is a black and white still scene from the Soviet-made film of the twin children being escorted from the camp by their liberators. The two children in the front who are clearly visible are then nine-year-old identical twins, Eva Mozes Kor and Miriam Mozes Czaigher. Standing before this image are the same twins, now adults—forty-nine-year-old Eva Kor (L) and Miriam Czaigher, each pointing to their childhood likeness. This image conveys the determination, the resilience, and the will to survive--as expressed in the title of the book—that enabled this photograph to be made.

Twin Experiments During the Holocaust

Many people are unaware of the horrific medical experimentation that occurred across many of the death camps. Even those who do may be unfamiliar with the actual tests and procedures performed on the twins, as well as on others of medical interest to Mengele.

At Auschwitz, the Ovivi family had seven dwarfed children who were sequestered for specific experiments. These entertainers, founders of the Lilliput Troupe in Hungary, were forced to dance naked for the pleasure of the Nazi officers and had their teeth and feces collected for study. A gentleman with polydactyly, a condition in which the hand has more than five fingers, was of great interest to Mengele who became visibly upset when the man passed away. A pair of identical female twins was scheduled for a procedure in which they would have sexual relations with identical male twins to see if the pregnancies resulted in twins. Of course, this experiment, aside from being cruel, had little scientific merit. First, the twins were weak and hungry and without menses, so there was little chance of conception. Second, it is far more logical to study the parents of twins, rather than the twins, to examine the processes leading to multiple birth.

Source: Nancy L. Segal

There are current implications of this horrific period in human history. This book and the events detailed therein serve critical educational purposes—exposing this wrongdoing is a step toward prevent its occurrence in the future. Moreover, given that a segment of the population in the United States and elsewhere denies that the Holocaust ever took place, it may be that the personal stories will have greater impact in opening their minds than historical accounts.

Reckoning with the Damage Done

Twin research is a well-respected method for examining genetic and environmental influences on behavioral, physical, and health-related traits. The information twin studies provide helps explain individual differences in general intelligence, Alzheimer’s disease, and athletic skill in the nontwin population.

However, many people do not understand how twins are used in scientific studies. In fact, the logic behind this method is simple and elegant: The degree of similarity shown by identical twins is compared with that of fraternal (non-identical) twins. Identical twins share 100% of their genes, whereas fraternal twins share 50% of their genes, on average. Therefore, greater resemblance between identical twins than fraternal twins is consistent with genetic influence on the trait under study. However, findings of genetic influence on behavioral traits was not popular in the 1950s and beyond, largely due to Mengele’s criminal use and abuse of the twin method. Not until the 1980s did the twin method make a comeback, explained by advances in human genetics and research results that could not be explained solely with reference to experiential factors.

Understanding Twins Essential Reads

The Unique Development of Twin Language

How Parental Indifference Affects the Twin Bond

Twin research has proliferated among researchers from diverse disciplines, including behavioral economics and political science, and has kindled additional interest among members of the traditional fields of psychology and medicine. The Behavior Genetics Association and International Society for Twin Studies attract large numbers of scholars and students to their annual conventions.

The official journals of these organizations—Behavior Genetics and Twin Research and Human Genetics, respectively—are prestigious outlets for research findings. However, in the minds of some people, Mengele left an indelible stain on scientific studies with a genetic bent. Mengele was clearly aware of what twin research could accomplish, but his perverted applications of the identical-fraternal twin comparison set twin studies back for some time. A distinguished panel at the Yad Vashem hearing, that included historian Yehuda Bauer, the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, and the late geneticist Arno Motulsky, among others, concluded that the experiments had no scientific merit or guiding principles. They were performed solely at the whim of the doctors, sometimes in conjunction with physicians at the Kaiser-Wilhem Instiute in Berlin with whom Mengele collaborated.

Given the inhumane treatment of the twins and other inmates, it is reasonable to ask if the data collected then could be useful today. Various scholars have addressed this question, but the twins’ voices have been largely silent. I raised this topic with some of the twins at the November 1985 inquest where I heard a variety of viewpoints. Some twins felt that using the data was unthinkable, whereas others felt it might justify their suffering. This is a dialogue that is important to consider—because some researchers might reason that gathering data in unacceptable ways may be forgiven or forgotten years later.

A Fresh Take On Human Nature

I see each of these twin pairs as a fresh take on human nature. Their separate stories are poignant, but also informative. They show us the importance of having a close social partner in order survive their unimaginable surroundings—in a perverted form of co-twin control, Mengele injected one twin with typhus before eventually having both twins killed to compare their organs.

For those who survived, having their twin by their side also helped weather the uncertainties they faced following liberation. Twins and twin relations have a universal appeal. Perhaps this is because most people strive for the understanding and acceptance that is the hallmark of most identical twinships.

The twins were among the youngest of the concentration camp inmates—most children did not survive, but twin children were kept alive longer because they were valuable to Mengele for his cruel and misguided experiments. A number of the twins I met in 1985 are no longer with us, but each life story and image remain precious. Working on this project has truly shown me the enormous power of pictures.