Mengele's lampshade gift to Hitler | Winston Smith Ministry of Truth Archive

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Mengele's lampshade gift to Hitler

Anglo-Irish writer/poet John Sexton and Dr. Josef Mengele

In 2005 Sexton published a collection of his poems in a book entitled Vortex, which was also the name of one of the featured poems, about his disabled son (autism) and Dr. Josef Mengele.

According to Sexton, Mengele personally made Jews in soap, made human-skin lampshades, and even sent one to Hitler.

Following is Sexton's poem Vortex:

My ten-year-old son is standing in the bath,
his body surrounded by an aura of steam;
bath-water runs down the spiked stalactites of hair
that crown his head. His blue eyes are incredibly bright,
but communicate no more than the water at his feet.

He is speaking a giggling song of invented words,
and I realise that he is mimicking the water,
for he has loosened the plug with his toe,
and the bath is turning the vortex of its own substance,
sucking itself down into the foul sump beneath the house.

And now he is braying like a donkey,
for a dissolving lump of soap has caught in the plug-hole,
and the tune played by the bath
has turned to this raw screech.

I lift out the soap, and am surprised
that it seems alive with light, and for some reason
I am reminded of the soap created by Joseph Mengele
in the factories of Auschwitz. It was, from the accounts
of those who used it, a beautiful translucent soap,
made from the boiled remains of the murdered jews [sic].

I lift my son from the bath and stand him on a towel.
He is quite, no longer talking to the bath, for the bath is dry.
I rub his hair vigorously with a small towel;
he doesn't like it, but I persevere because it must be done.
I dry his body gently and am intrigued
that his skin has taken on some of the qualities
of the soap. Perversely, I am reminded once more
of Dr. Mengele. I remember a photograph I have seen
of him sitting in his office at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
On his desk is a lampshade, the twin of one
that he presented to the Feuhrer [sic]. It is made from human skin,
and I think,

O Doctor Mengele, if my son was in your hands,
what fine lampshade would you make of him?
What cure would yours be,
for the light that is smothered inside him?

As I dry his arms and thighs
I see that the imprinted pattern of teeth-marks,
where he has bitten himself over and over again,
have begun to fade.
Being double-jointed, no part of his body is immune
from his teeth. His toes are raw,
where he has bitten the nails to the quick.

As I clean the bath I send him into the hall
to put on his pyjamas. When I go out to him
he is lying on his back on the floor,
clapping the soles of this feet together,
applauding himself with his feet.

O my silly son,
where is it that you came from?
Wherever it is,
you brought yourself whole, as your are.

In the kitchen
I finish his hair with the dryer.
He takes hold of my waist and squeezes as tight as he can,
his fingers pinching my flesh.
Squeeze, he says, Squeeze.
Putting the dryer aside I loosen his fingers.
I lean down and kiss his head,
his wonderful clean hair,
but he is oblivious to my affection.

Later I check on my son in his bed.
He is fast asleep, his arms folded loosely over his head.
Mengele is standing at the far side of the room.
The hallway light from the crack in the door
slices through his body, swirls of dust are his only organs.
By his side, and along the sides of the bed,
I can see a half-circle of children, emaciated, their faces miserable.
Some are visibly retarded, some invisibly so,
but I can see what they are,
know what they are,
have the space inside me that they fit.
Mengele gazes at my sleeping son, but he says nothing, his face betrays nothing.
Only the children are talking, to themselves,
muttering incoherent mantras,
their voices like a vortex
drawing waters into unknown depths.

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