You have certainly heard about Josef Mengele, aka the infamous nickname "Angel of Death, " haven't you? He was a cruel Nazi doctor who, during World War II, performed terrifying and inhuman experiments with prisoners - including children - from Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.

Dark Curriculum

Some of the experiments Mengele had done during his time in the extermination camp involved starving babies to find out how long a newborn would be able to survive without food, sew twins (who were among his favorite research "themes") together. to create Siamese and conduct studies and inject dyes into prisoners' eyes to change the color of the iris, among many - many - other torturous tests.

Auschwitz Children

Obviously, as a result, many of their “guinea pigs” died in the course or as a result of their experiences. This was when the Angel of Death - who deserved to be called the Devil - did not send the survivors to be decimated in the gas chambers. Because this guy managed to escape from Europe at the end of the war and ended up here in Brazil.

First, Mengele spent a season in Paraguay, but after the Mossad - Israeli Secret Service - captured other Nazi fugitives like him, the Angel of Death came to our country in 1960. As far as anyone knows, Mengele lived in Sao Paulo quietly until his death in 1979 when he drowned in Bertioga. He was buried in the Rosary Cemetery at Embu das Artes under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard, and was never tried for his crimes.

Devilish Bone

After decades of pursuing the Angel of Death, a search operation involving the governments of Israel, the US and West Germany has come to its grave. In 1985, his skeleton was exhumed, and who identified the bones as Mengele's was pathologist Daniel Romero Muñoz.

Josef Mengele at the time she was a Nazi officer in the service of the Third Reich

Muñoz's advice was confirmed by DNA tests conducted in 1992, and the infamous bones have remained forgotten in the Sao Paulo IML ever since - as Mengele's family refused to repatriate the remains back to Germany. Now, after the sinister Nazi's bones had been gathering dust all this time, Dr. Muñoz himself decided to give her some use.

Bone Story

The bones are being used during forensic medicine classes at the University of São Paulo and, according to the pathologist, they are an excellent "teaching material". That's because the bone brings a series of traces of Mengele's life during the time he served in the army, as well as the health problems he suffered during his exile.

Angel of Death

According to Muñoz, thanks to Mengele's medical records, pathologists knew, for example, that he had suffered a pelvic fracture during a motorcycle accident in Auschwitz, and this fracture is present in the bone. In addition, the skull has a small hole in the left zygomatic (or cheek bone), the result of a sinusitis that the Angel of Death suffered for a long time.

Dr. Daniel Romero Muñoz with Mengele's bones during a class

In addition, there are also records that Mengele suffered from dental abscesses - which he himself dealt with a sharp blade - and the skull bears these traces. Interestingly enough, USP faculty hope that studying the bones of this wicked character will transcend medical school and that the focus should not be restricted to the purely scientific side of the thing.

According to Professor Maria Luiza Tucci Carneiro, from USP's Laboratory of Studies on Ethnicity, Racism and Discrimination, the intention is to cover analyzes for the areas of History and Ethics as well. According to Tucci, bones can "teach" how doctors, psychiatrists, and other scientists in the service of the Nazis used their knowledge to exclude ethnic groups they considered to be inferior - a classification that resulted in genocide.