Ovitz family . Of Jewish origin they were circus actors , traveling musicians who survived prison in the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Second World War . While at this site they were exposed to many experiments for being of small stature (dwarfs [1] ), by Dr. Josef Mengele , nicknamed The Angel of Death of Auschwitz, who sought to discover the mechanisms of genetic inheritance.
Summary
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- 1 History and origin of the family
- 2 Liliput Theater Company
- 3 Auschwitz Concentration Camp
- 4 Scientific sadist
- 1 Death of Mengele
- 5 See Also
- 6 References
- 7 Sources
History and origin of the family
Originally from Rozávlya in Máramaros County (today Rozavlea in Maramureş , Romania ), Shimson Eizik Ovitz ( 1868 – 1923 ) was born, affected by pseudoachondroplasia ) [2] , of normal height and facial characteristics at birth, falling, at the age of 2 years, the growth rate below the standard growth curve, a fact that leads to disproportionate growth of short members. A typical feature of these individuals is the so-called duck gait, which appears when they begin to walk. It is a type of genetic dwarfism, which leaves their legs very small and fragile, and prevents them from running.
He was about 90 centimeters tall, and despite belonging to an Orthodox family , following the Talmudic laws that affirm that birth defects are the result of the sins of the parents, he was treated with great affection, dedicating himself at first to the animation of parties, and later to spiritualism, becoming a respected rabbi. At the age of 18 he married a woman of normal height, Brana Fruchter, who shortly after left him a widower, for which he immediately remarried another woman of “normal height”, Batia Bertha Husz.
The children from his first marriage to Brana Fruchter were: Rozika ( 1886 – 1984 ) and Franzika ( 1889 – 1980 ), both dwarfs. From his second marriage to Batia Bertha Husz , he has the following children: Avram ( 1903 – 1972 ) (dwarf), Freida ( 1905 – 1975 ) (dwarf), Sarah ( 1907 – 1993 ) (medium height), Micki ( 1909 – 1972 ) (midget), Lea (born 1911 ) (medium height), Elisabeth ( 1914 – 1992 ) (midget), Ariel ( 1917to 1944 ) (medium height), and Piroska ( 1921 to 2001 ), also known as pearl (dwarf).
Batia gave her family advice that would stay with them for the rest of their lives, ultimately saving their lives.
“Through thick and thin, never be apart. Stay together, take care of each other and live for each other.”
One of his sons Ariel, who did not follow his mother’s advice, died trying to escape from a Hungarian labor camp , and his wife, parents, and newborn daughter were murdered at Auschwitz.
Liliput Theater Company
Shimshon Eizik Ovitz taught his children to play instruments, sing and tell stories, and above all to always smile. As teenagers, he founded the ” Liliput Theater Company “, with which they traveled around Hungary and quickly became very famous. They immediately hired 9 people of normal height from the Slomowitz and Fischmann families as assistants . They were very talented, and they spoke Yiddish, Romanian, German, and Hungarian.
Until 1944, the family continued to travel through Central Europe. The 19 of March of 1944 Hitler decided to invade Hungary, and the invasion caught the seasonal Ovitz at a state theater in the middle of the field. Adolf Eichmann organized the deportation of every Jew who was not in Budapest, and the Ovitz family was captured on May 17 , put into a truck, and transferred to Auschwitz.
Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Elisabeth Ovitz 1914-1992.
The 18 as maypole as 1944Dr. Mengele was notified by one of his assistants of the arrival of the trains, and specifically of the existence of dwarves in them. Fascinated by what was in front of him, a whole family ordered that they be taken to the special prisoner barracks. The testimonies agree that he was laughing out loud. From that moment, his ordeal began. The entire troop declared themselves family, the Ovitz declared that the Slomowitz and Fischmann were their “normal” relatives to avoid death. According to the testimony of Elisabeth, one of the sisters, about the first time she saw Mengele on the platform where she was conducting the “selection”, Mengele was a handsome man, and her eyes lit up when she saw the little family. Mengele had tortured, experienced and dissected dozens of twin brothers for the sole reason of documenting the resemblance of their internal organs and with the Ovitz family he saw the final test subjects. In fact, Elizabeth stated that Mengele excitedly stated:
“Now I will have work for the next twenty years, now science will have an interesting topic to consider.”
Piroska Ovitz (Pearl 1921 to 2001)
Family members were separated from the rest and subjected to all sorts of aberrant experiments, according to Elisabeth’s testimony:
The most terrible experiments of all were the gynecological ones. Only those who were married suffered them. They tied us to the bed and the systematic torture began. They injected us with things in the womb, they took blood from us, they poked us, they pierced us and they took samples. The pain was unbearable. The doctor conducting the experiments took pity on us and asked his superiors to stop them so as not to endanger our lives. It is impossible to express the intolerable pain that we suffered and that continued for many days after the experiments had ceased. I don’t know if our physicist influenced Mengele or if the gynecological experiments were simply completed. In any case, they were arrested and others started. They removed fluid from our spinal cord and flushed our ears with extremely cold or hot water, causing us to vomit. Later the hair extraction began, and when we were about to collapse, painful tests began in the regions of the brain, nose, mouth and hands. All those tests are fully documented with illustrations.
The family lasted 7 months. Almost all made it out alive. The 27 as January as 1945 , Auschwitz was liberated, and the family was rescued by Soviet troops . Back in their native Transylvania , they learned that the rest of the family had been murdered and their house ransacked by the neighbors, but as good foresters, they had buried the jewels in the garden, and with that money, for the next 4 years , the family wandered around Europe, making a living again as comedians and singers, with the company rebuilt, but this time, reliving their experience in the Nazi camps. Each night, Elisabeth and one of her brothers danced a dance that ran the line from life to death called Totentanz (the dance of death).
In 1949 they emigrated to Israel , where they continued to perform until 1955 when they retired and opened a cinema , and in Israel they remained until their death. The last to die was Perla, in 2001 . The Historia channel aired a documentary about the Ovitz family in his honor. His liks are found in the sources of this article.
Scientific sadist
Mengele’s name is often cited as an example of the horrors that are achieved in the name of science.
Josef Mengele .
Although it is not denied that there are scientists who carry out fraudulent practices, who have sadistic behaviors or make experiments of questionable morality. But this is not the case with Mengele.
Mengele was insane but he was not a scientist. His practices didn’t make the slightest sense, they were absurd, out of a nightmare; He even tried to create artificial Siamese twins by joining the circulatory systems of two twins. In his madness, Mengele had an exact pair of crystal eyes made of Elizabeth’s for his collection, made up of both crystal and real eyes of various shades. No one knows the purpose of this collection of horrors.
Mengele’s contribution to science is similar to that of a child who burns ants with a magnifying glass and his experiments lack the slightest scientific value. Mengele was just a sadistic murderer to whom his government provided victims, financing and instruments.
Death of Mengele
Mengele managed to escape to South America , probably thanks to the Rat Lines [3] . He lived in Argentina working as a toymaker with a false identity. When he was discovered by a Cazanazis and Israel requested his extradition, the Argentine government denied having knowledge of Mengele’s residence and helped him escape. Neither the Mossad nor any of the numerous investigators hunting Nazi war criminals managed to find Mengele again. In 1979 he died on a beach in Brazil .
