by Edwin Black
The ERO initiated its own twin study with a detailed four-page questionnaire. Among its numerous questions: “What is your favorite fruit?” and “Do you prefer eggs boiled soft or hard?” It also provided a place for each twin’s fingerprints and the names and addresses of family members. ERO investigators located one especially fertile family in Cleveland that had repeatedly produced multiple births. When Davenport wrote up the case for Journal of Heredity in 1919, he explained that it had taken more than six visits by field workers to determine the full scope of the original couple’s fecundity. Later, Eugenical News announced that Columbia, Missouri, was home to more twins than any other city in the nation-one pair for every 477 people.46
Hereditarians sought twins of all ages-not just children-for proper study. The family tree of a New England family of twins, including one pair ninety-one years of age, fascinated eugenicists. Geneticists excavated old journals to discover even earlier examples, such as a seventeenth-century Russian woman who gave birth twenty-seven times, each time producing twins, triplets or quadruplets, yielding a total of sixty-nine children47
Race and twins quickly became an issue for American eugenicists. In a 1920 lecture series, Davenport raised the issue of “racial difference in twin frequency” in the same geographic area. He pointed out that from 1896 to 1917, in Washington, D.C., the “negro rate [of twins] is 20 percent higher than the white rate.” For whites in the nation’s capital, it was 1.82 pairs of twins per hundred births, while blacks had 2.27 per hundred. At about the same time, Eugenical News, analyzing recent census data, claimed that twin births overall still occurred at a frequency of approximately 1 percent nationwide; but the percentage of multiple births among Blacks was almost one-fifth greater than among whites. Davenport followed up such observations in his Jamaica race-crossing study, which featured in-depth studies of three sets of twins.48
Diagnostic and physiological developments in twin studies from any sector of the medical sciences were of constant interest to eugenic readers. So Eugenical News regularly summarized articles from the general medical literature to feed eugenicists’ unending fascination with the topic. In 1922, when a state medical journal reported using stethoscopes to monitor a twin pregnancy, it was reported in Eugenical News. When a German clinical journal published a study of tumors in twins, this too was reported in Eugenical News.49
With each passing issue, Eugenical News dedicated more and more space to the topic. The list of such reports became long. By the early 1920s, articles on twins became increasingly instructive. One typical article explained how to more precisely verify the presence of identical twins using a capillary microscope. Journal of Heredity also made twins a frequent subject in its pages. For example, it published Popenoe’s article entitled “Twins Reared Apart,” and Hermann Muller’s article “The Determination of Twin Heredity,” and regularly reviewed books about twins.50
Every leading eugenic textbook included a section on twins. Popenoe’s Applied Eugenics explained that identical twins “start lives as halves of the same whole” but “become more unlike if they were brought up apart.” Baur-Fischer-Lenz’s Foundation of Human Heredity and Race Hygiene cited several studies including those written by Popenoe in Journal of Heredity. The German eugenicists wrote, “Of late years, the study of twins has been a favorite branch of genetic research” and thanked Galton for his “flash of genius” in “[recognizing] this a long while ago.”51
In a similar vein, most international eugenic and genetic conferences included presentations or exhibits on twins-their disparity or similarity, their susceptibility to tuberculosis, their likes and dislikes. R. A. Fisher opened one of his lectures to the Second International Congress of Eugenics with the phrase: “The subject of the genesis of human twins… has a special importance for eugenicists.” The third congress offered an exhibit on mental disorders in twins, an exhibit illustrating fingerprint comparisons, a third juxtaposing identical and fraternal twins, and a fourth offering an array of fifty-nine anthropometric photoS.52
The quest for a superior race continued to intersect with the availability of twins. In the July-August 1935 edition of Eugenical News, Dr. Alfred Gordon published a lengthy article entitled “The Problems of Heredity and Eugenics.” His first sentence read: “Regulation of reproduction of a superior race (eugenics) is fundamentally based on the principles of heredity.” Gordon went on to explain, “The role of heredity finds its strongest corroboration in cases of psychoses in twins.” He then gave an example of just two case studies of twins. Such enthusiastic coverage in the biological and eugenic media was prompted a few months before by the extensive examination of just a single pair of twins undertaken at New York University’s College of Dentistry, this to identify pathological dentition.53
There were so few twins to study that surgeons in the eugenics community passed along their latest discoveries, one by one, to advance the field’s common knowledge. In one case, Dr. John Draper of Manhattan wrote to Davenport, “Last Thursday, I opened the abdomen of twin girls, fourteen years old. They presented very similar physical characteristics and the psychoses so far as could be determined were identical.” Davenport replied, “Your observations upon the internal anatomy of the twin girls is exceedingly important, as very few observations of this type have been made upon twins.” He offered to dispatch a field worker to make facial measurements. Such random reports were precious to eugenicists because physical experimentation on large groups was essentially impossible.54
All that changed when Hitler came to power in 1933. Germany surged ahead in its study of twins. The German word for twins is Zwillinge. There were tens of thousands of twins in the Reich. In 1921 alone, 19,573 pairs were born, plus 231 sets of triplets. In 1925, 15,741 pairs of twins were born, as well as 161 sets of triplets. Twins were now increasingly sought to help combat hereditary diseases and conditions, real and imagined. Verschuer’s book, Twins and Tuberculosis, was published in 1933 and received a favorable review in Journal of Heredity. In 1934, a Norwegian physician working with Verschuer and Fischer published in a German anthropology journal his analysis of 116 pairs of identical twins and 127 pairs of fraternal twins for their inheritance of an ear characteristic known as Darwin’s tubercle.55
But many more twins would be needed to accomplish the sweeping research envisioned by the architects of Hitler’s master race. In early December of 1935, Verschuer told a correspondent for the Journal of the American Medical Association that eugenics had moved into a new phase. Once Mendelian principles of human heredity were established, the correspondent wrote, “Further progress was achieved with the beginning of research on twins, by means of which it is possible to measure hereditary influence even though the hereditary processes are complicated…. Many of these researches, however, as Freiherr von Verschuer recently pointed out, are of questionable value…. What is absolutely needed is research on series of families and twins selected at random… examined under the same conditions, a fixed minimum of examinations being made in all cases.” The article went on to cite Verschuer’s view that meaningful research would require entire families-from children to grandparents.56 In plain words, this meant gathering larger numbers of twins in one place for simultaneous investigation.
To attract more twins, the Nazi Party and the National Socialist Welfare League promoted “twin camps” for the holidays. Verschuer circulated handy text references for all German physicians who might encounter twins. W’hen Verschuer opened his Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in 1936, the event created such fanfare in Eugenical News partially because, “Dr. Verschuer states that the object of his investigation is mankind, not the individual man, but families and twins; and in this work there will not [only] be investigated… interesting twins, but all twins and families of definite geographical origin.”57
At about that time, German neuropsychiatrist Heinrich Kranz of the University of Breslau published extensive genealogical details about seventy-five pairs of twin brothers and fift
y pairs of opposite gender twins, seeking correlations on criminal behavior. In a Journal of Heredity essay, Popenoe lauded Kranz’s investigation and predicted that such efforts would help identify “born criminals.” Popenoe welcomed more such German research because “it has become one of the most dependable methods of studying human heredity.”58
Indeed, a plethora of Nazi scientific journals were brimming with regular coverage of eugenic investigations of twins. Several publications were devoted solely to the subject, such as Zwillingsforschungen (Twin Research) and Zwillingsund Familienforschungen (Twin and Family Research). Verschuer frequently wrote for these journals. In some cases Mengele coauthored the articles, including an article on systemic problems and cleft palate deformation published in Zwillingsund Familienforschungen. Some published twin research credited Mengele as the principal investigator, such as an article on congenital heart disease, also for Zwillingsund Familienforschungen.59
Verschuer’s preoccupation with twin studies expanded feverishly. He required more and more twins. In a September 1938 application for funds from the German Research Society, Verschuer explained his plans. “Large-scale research on twins is necessary to explore the question of the hereditary aspects of human characteristics, especially illnesses. This research can take two paths: 1. Testing of all twins in a specific geographic area, done at our institute by Miss Liebmann. All twins in the Frankfurt district back to 1898 have been listed and almost all have been examined; she discussed some interesting cases in several articles and a comprehensive summary is being done. 2. Listing of series of twins. Based on cases in over 100 hospitals in west and southwest Germany, the number of twins among them were determined and the cases were examined according to illnesses.” He listed rheumatism, stomach ulcers, cancer, heart defects, anemia and leukemia as the conditions he was focusing on. Verschuer assured, “A good deal of material has been collected.”60
In 1939, Interior Minister Frick issued a public decree compelling all twins to register with their local Public Health Office and make themselves available for genetic testing. The Reich Statistics Bureau would cooperate in the identification campaign. The announcement in the Nazi medical publication Ziel und Weg (Goal and Path) was published with a lengthy quotation from Mein Kompf on the cover: “We must differentiate most stringently between the state as a mere container and race as its contents. This container is meaningful only when it has the ability to preserve and protect the contents; otherwise it is worthless.”61
American eugenicist T. U. H. Ellinger was in Germany shortly after the decree to visit with Fischer at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics. In a Journal of Heredity essay on his visit, Ellinger flippantly reported to his colleagues, “Twins have, of course, for a long time been a favorite material for the study of the relative importance of heredity and environment, of nature and nurture. It does, however, take a dictatorship to oblige some ten thousand pairs of twins, as well as triplets and even quadruplets, to report to a scientific institute at regular intervals for all kinds of recordings and tests.”62
When twins did report to the Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics, they were often placed in small, specially-constructed examination rooms, each lined with two-way mirrors and motion picture camera lenses camouflaged into the wallpaper. The staff proudly showed Ellinger all of these facilities.63 However, eugenicists at the institute could only go so far with mere observations.
Reich scientists needed more if they were to take the next step in creating a super race resistant to disease and capable of transmitting the best traits. Autopsies were required to discover how specific organs and bodily processes reacted to various experiments. Verschuer needed more twins and the freedom to kill them. The highest ranks of the Hitler regime agreed, including Interior Minister Frick, who ran the concentration camps, and SS Chief Heinrich Himmler.64 Millions of dispensable human beings from across Europe-Jews, Gypsies and other undesirables-were passing through Hitler’s camps to be efficiently murdered. Among these millions, there were bound to be thousands of twins.
Shortly after Verschuer took over for Fischer at the Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics, he proposed a Zwillingslager, or “twins camp,” within Auschwitz. He applied to the German Research Society, which between July and September of 1943 passed his application through the various steps needed for approval and funding. The grant covered a six-month period beginning in October 1943 under contract number 0296/1595. The camp was approved and was bureaucratically filed under the keyword “Twins Camp.”65
At the end of May 1943, Mengele arrived in Auschwitz, where he took control of the ramps where Jews were brought in. Verschuer notified the German Research Society, “My assistant, Dr. Josef Mengele (M.D., Ph.D.) joined me in this branch of research. He is presently employed as Hauptsturm Führer [captain] and camp physician in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Anthropological testing of the most diverse racial groups in this concentration camp are being carried out with permission of the SS Reichs Führer [Rimmler]. “66
Nazi Germany had now carried eugenics further than any dared expect. The future of the master race that would thrive in Hitler’s Thousand-Year Reich lay in twins. For this reason, there would now be a special class of victims at Auschwitz. There would be a special camp, special medical facilities and special laboratories-all for the twins.
After the locomotives lurched to a final stop at Auschwitz, after the whistle shrieked and the doors rolled open, after the bewildered masses tumbled out of the boxcars and onto the ramp, above the tumult of their own fear and the incessant barking dogs, all of them heard one word, and they heard it shouted twice.
As the SS passed through the trembling crowds lining up for the gas chambers, they cried out for all to hear:
Zwillinge! Zwillinge! Twins! Twins!
LEA LORINCZI: “When we got off the trains, we could hear the Germans yelling, ‘Twins, twins!’” Lea and her brother were spared.67
MAGDA SPIEGEL: “SS guards were yelling, ‘Twins, twins, we want twins.’ I saw a very good-looking man coming toward me. It was Mengele. “ They were also spared.68
JUDITH YAGUDAH: “When it was our turn, Mengele immediately asked us if we were twins. Ruthie and I looked identical. We had similar hairdos. We were wearing the same outfits. Mengele ordered us to go in a certain direction-and our mother, too.” Judith and Ruthie were spared.69
EVA MOZES: “As I clutched my mother’s hand, an SS man hurried by shouting, ‘Twins! Twins!’ He stopped to look at us. Miriam and I looked very much alike. We were wearing similar clothes. ‘Are they twins?’ he asked my mother. ‘Is that good?’ she replied. He nodded yes. ‘They are twins,’ she said.” Eva and Miriam were also pulled out of the gas chamber line.70
ZVI KLEIN: “My twin brother and I were marching toward the gas chambers when we heard people yelling, ‘Twins! Twins!’ We were yanked out of the lines and brought over to Dr. Mengele." Zvi and his brother were spared71
MOSHE OFFER: “/ heard my father cry out to them he had twins. He went over personally to Dr. Mengele and told him, I have a pair of twin boys. ‘… But we didn‘t want to be separated from our mother, and so the Nazis separated us by force. My father begged Mengele… As we were led away, I saw my father fall to the ground. “ The Offer boys lived. Their parents disappeared into the selection.72
HEDVAH AND LEAH STERN: “Some prisoners told [my mother} in Yiddish, ‘Tell them you have twins. There is a Dr. Mengele here who wants twins. Only twins are being kept alive. ‘“ The Stern sisters lived to tell their story.73
All of them lived through the Selektion. But now they lived in Mengele’s world of torture and testing, electroshock and syringes, eye injections and other hideous experiments-where live children and fresh cadavers were equally prized-all to achieve the eugenic ideal of a superior race in a place where mankind had sunk to the nadir of humanity.
* * *
Sadistic science at Auschwitz was part of
Nazi Germany’s eugenic desire to create its master race.
Like Verschuer, Mengele considered himself a warrior in the battle for eugenic supremacy. In an autobiographical account, Mengele spoke of his desire to create a super race as his initial motive for becoming a doctor. He traced his own family pedigree-pure Aryan stock-back four generations. An inmate anthropologist, Martina Puzyna, saved from death in order to work with Mengele, recalled, “He believed you could create a new super-race as though you were breeding horses…. He was mad about genetic engineering.” A prisoner pathologist forced to work closely with Mengele wrote that the Angel of Death was obsessed with “the secret of the reproduction of the race. To advance one step in the search to unlock the secret of multiplying the race of superior beings destined to rule was a ‘noble goal.’ If only it were possible, in the future, to have each German mother bear as many twins as possible.”74
Shortly after arriving at Auschwitz, Mengele established Verschuer’s twin camp at Barrack 14 in Camp F. Mengele had his pick of assistants from the finest doctors and pathologists in Europe, who came to Auschwitz condemned in sealed boxcars. One whom he selected from the ramp was a Hungarian Jewish pathologist named Miklos Nyiszli, a graduate of Friedrich WIlhelm University medical school in Breslau. He became one of Mengele’s favorite assistants. Nyiszli’s task was to dissect the endless torrent of special corpses and create meticulous postmortem reports. For this process, Mengele would not settle for a typical ramshackle, makeshift concentration camp facility. Instead, amid the filth and squalor of Auschwitz, Mengele requisitioned and created a modem well-equipped pathology lab75
