Dr. Josef Mengele was known in Auschwitz as "The Angel of Death" for his demeanor during the selections on the ramp. Mengele earned his Ph.D. in physical anthropology from the University of Munich in 1937 and worked at the Institute for "Erbbiologie und Rassenhygiene" (Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene) with Dr. Otmar von Verschuer, a leadin...
Creator:
Hirschberger, Fritz, 1912-2004
Contributed By:
University of Minnesota, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Hirschberger took the first part of the title from a prayer that was part of the Roman Catholic liturgy until it was rescinded by the Second Vatican Council (1965). In 1984 a small group of Carmelite nuns established a convent at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in a building that had stored Zyklon B, the prussic acid used in the gas chambers to ext...
Creator:
Hirschberger, Fritz, 1912-2004
Created:
1990?
Contributed By:
University of Minnesota, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Fear not your enemies, for they can only kill you.Fear not your friends, for they can only betray you.Fear only the indifferent, who permit the killers andbetrayers to walk safely on earth.- Edward Yashinski, Yiddish poet who survived the Shoah only to die in a Communist prison in Poland.[Note: The painting is based on a photograph taken by SS-H...
Creator:
Hirschberger, Fritz, 1912-2004
Created:
1994?
Contributed By:
University of Minnesota, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
The visual text of this painting relates to testimony given at the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials between 1963-1965, in "Auschwitz: A report on the proceedings against Robert Karl Ludwig Mulka and others before the court at Frankfurt" by Bernd Naumann, published in 1966. At the trial four Polish witnesses (three of whom were doctors), two SS men tes...
Creator:
Hirschberger, Fritz, 1912-2004
Contributed By:
University of Minnesota, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
At Auschwitz/Birkenau extermination camp some of the world's finest musicians were forced to perform for the amusement of the Nazi SS guards, while their Jewish victims were tortured and gassed. Henry Meyer, Gisela Hirschberger’s (Hirschberger’s wife) cousin played the violin in one of the death camp orchestras at Auschwitz/Birkenau. He survived...
Creator:
Hirschberger, Fritz, 1912-2004
Created:
1990?
Contributed By:
University of Minnesota, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Naked and shorn, husband and wife dance in a final embrace in Zyklon B's blue crystal deadly rain.Rain, rain - blue rainGo awayRain, rain - blue rainNever comeAgain.Zyklon B, a commercial form of hydrocyanic acid, which became active on contact with air, was manufactured by a firm called Degesch, which was largely owned by I.G. Farben. The chemi...
Creator:
Hirschberger, Fritz, 1912-2004
Contributed By:
University of Minnesota, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Slogan over the main entrance to Auschwitz I. Many artists during and after the Holocaust used the image of a crucified Christ to represent the Jewish people, most famously Marc Chagall’s White Crucifixion (1938). In this image, "Work Makes You Free" replaces the typical Latin INRI, Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Ivdaeorvm (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the J...
Creator:
Hirschberger, Fritz, 1912-2004
Created:
1990?
Contributed By:
University of Minnesota, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
![The Transmutations of Dr. Mengele [Children into Angels]](https://dkp5i0hinw9br.cloudfront.net/81ff80844f09b0b0d9c3b623c38a3d0a1a506ed7.png "The Transmutations of Dr. Mengele [Children into Angels]")
