So the three need to find Vogel and finish the job before people find out what really happened. Unfinished business; Israeli agents hailed for killing a Nazi war [20], Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the Schutzstaffel (SS; 'Protection Squadron') in 1938. Through November 1944, SS doctors undermined their efforts through selection, which sent the sickest prisoners (only Jews after August 1943 . She refuses to acknowledge him, and he comments, looking straight into her eyes, "I forgot. After the war, Mengele fled to Argentina in July 1949, assisted by a network of former SS members. )[15] In a letter of recommendation, VonVerschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. Historian of Nazi Germany [56] His experiments on dwarfs and people with physical abnormalities included taking physical measurements, drawing blood, extracting healthy teeth, and treatment with unnecessary drugs and X-rays. He was also interested in people with different-colored irises and in the etiology and treatment of noma (water cancer of the cheek). Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three began living together. He served in this capacity at the gas chambers located in crematoria IV and V.[39], When an outbreak of nomaa gangrenous bacterial disease of the mouth and facestruck the Romani camp in 1943, Mengele initiated a study to determine the cause of the disease and develop a treatment. The story deals with retired Mossad agents Rachel (Mirren), Stefan (Wilkinson) and David (Ciaran Hinds), and a 1965 mission that won them renown. [93] In February 1961, West Germany widened its extradition request to include Brazil, having been tipped off to the possibility that Mengele had relocated there. [83], Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials in the mid-1940s, but the Allied forces believed that he was probably already dead. Contribution to Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, 1998 - 2023 American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. While the psychological depth of the older characters is deftly portrayed, Chastain as the young Rachel is too much of an incomprehensible cipher to carry a story of this weight. The hangar doors of an airplane that has just landed open, revealing a woman and two men standing silently at the hatch. Arent you tired of lying? One character tells another, speaking of Vogels alleged death. Find Dr. Voegele's phone number, address, insurance information, hospital affiliations and more. Photo: Laurie Sparham/?Miramax Film Corp. All Rights Reserved. He was hoping to track down Mengele so that he too could be brought to trial in Israel. The subjects were photographed, plaster casts were made of their teeth and jaws, and their fingerprints and toeprints were taken. However, each has his or her own strength, and you root for them anyway. [89] Under interrogation, Eichmann provided the address of a boarding house that had been used as a safe house for Nazi fugitives. You might expect some intelligent thought on the subject from director John Madden, who's chiefly known for the glum Edith Wharton adaptation Ethan Frome and the brainy romp Shakespeare in Love. The unidentified previous owner, who acquired the journals in Brazil, was reported to be close to the Mengele family. [58] Alex Dekel, a survivor, reports witnessing Mengele performing vivisection without anesthesia, removing hearts and stomachs of victims. The German physicians who ran SS and Wehrmacht medical institutions, along with medical personnel at lower levels, participated actively in carrying out Nazi extermination plans. Claubergs experiments killed some of his subjects, and others were put to death so that autopsies could be performed. The three Mossad agents (one woman, two men) assigned to capture him in 1965 in East Berlin and smuggle him back to Israel for a public trial have lost loved ones to the Nazis and other enemies of their country, but they tackle their Mission: Impossiblelike stratagem with military efficiency at first. Similar procedures were used for later epidemics of scarlet fever and other diseases, with infected prisoners being killed in the gas chambers. The Auschwitz doctor who couldn't 'do no harm' - BBC Future The majority of the story is set in the earlier time period of 1966 where three Mossad agents (Marton Csokas, Jessica Chastain and Sam Worthington) come together to bring the Nazi war criminal Dieter Vogel back to Israel to stand trial. The Debt | Movies | Detroit | Detroit Metro Times The interactions between Rachel and Vogel surely show the most dramatic tension ever established while knicker-free and in gynecological stirrups. The killing of prisoners was also accompanied by research into the changes that occur in the human organism as a result of starvation in particular, liver atrophy (braune Atrophie). The grant was used to build a pathology laboratory attached to CrematoriumII at AuschwitzII-Birkenau. During his shift, David becomes violently enraged after Vogel explains his beliefs that Jews have many weaknesses, such as selfishness, making them easily subdued. He received basic training in 1938 with the Gebirgsjger ('light infantry mountain troop') and was called up for service in the Wehrmacht (Nazi armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. Remembering one of fashions most problematic faves, Karl Lagerfeld. [64] Mengele fled Gross-Rosen on 18 February, a week before the Soviets arrived there, and traveled westward to atec in Czechoslovakia, disguised as a Wehrmacht officer. Dr. Lothaire D. Voegele is a Thoracic Surgeon in Aiken, SC. You see, the punch line spoiler alert is that the threesome didnt actually kill Vogel, as they told Israel and the world. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938. [82] He returned to Buenos Aires several times to settle his business affairs and visit his family. Ruth Elias was pregnant when she was transferred from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz. A timeline of Justin Bieber, Hailey Bieber, and Selena Gomezs love triangle. [40], Mengele used Auschwitz as an opportunity to continue his anthropological studies and research into heredity, using inmates for human experimentation. [113] Worldwide interest in the case was heightened by a mock trial held in Jerusalem in February 1985, featuring the testimonies of over one hundred victims of Mengele's experiments. Right, Dr. Mengeles OB-GYN examining room, in his stirrups. Jesper Christensen's performance as Vogel stands out as chilling, an eerie mixing of grandfatherly charisma and cold hatred. The Debt is adapted by British screenwriter Matthew Vaughn (with Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan) from the award-winning 2007 movie Hahov, which probed the morality of Mossad's pursuit of escaped Nazis a tender topic for the State of Israel and for Jews worldwide ever since the abduction and prosecution of Adolf Eichmann. Ten thrillers that channel Jason Bourne | The Spectator The architecture of "The Debt" has an unfortunate flaw. The Surgeon of Birkenau (Jesper Christensen), in East Berlin. At the Block No. Because it flips between two eras, two people play each character: one older and one younger version of the same person. Then there's an ingenious operation, which I will not describe, to spirit him out of his clinic and into captivity. He initially lived in and around Buenos Aires, then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960, all while being sought by West Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal, who wanted to bring him to trial. Hi. The Debt (2010 film) - Wikipedia [119], In 1992, DNA testing confirmed Mengele's identity beyond doubt,[120] but family members refused repeated requests by Brazilian officials to repatriate the remains to Germany. Eytan Fox's excellent 2004 film Walk on Water skillfully integrated the excitement of the chase with humane, intelligent reflection about what a man does to himself when he lowers himself to the standards of the oppressor. At a dinner after their daughter's book release party, Stefan takes Rachel aside to set a meeting to discuss new information he has obtained. On Mengeles orders, children suffering from noma were put to death in order for pathology investigations to be carried out. He was portrayed by Jesper Christensen, who also portrayed Mr. White in the James Bond films. Here the Mengele figure is called Dieter Vogel and played by Jesper Christensen as a Hannibal Lecterlike evil genius who can instantly read Jews minds and press the exact buttons to make them irrational with hurt and rage. The so-called Surgeon of Birkenau, Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen), escaped justice at the end of the war. The espionage thriller begins in 1997, as shocking news reaches retired Mossad secret agents Rachel Singer (Dame Helen Mirren) and Stephan Gold (Tom Wilkinson) about their former colleague David Peretz (Ciarn Hinds). Torn between vengeful alpha-agent Stephan (played as a youth by Marton Csokas) and sensitive liberal David (Sam Worthington), who's a Holocaust survivor like herself, Chastain's Rachel is also the movie's unlikely main action figure, contorting her porcelain features into a ferocious scowl as she beats her prey to a pulp. She leaves a note for the journalist and prepares to leave, but suddenly spots Vogel in his 80s by now among the other patients and follows him to an isolated area of the hospital. Jewish Resistance Against the Nazis on JSTOR [107], Meanwhile, sightings of Mengele were being reported all over the world. Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site. The Debt | Christianity Today The younger versions of the characters have scenes that are intrinsically more exciting, but the actors playing the older versions are more interesting. Greg Warren dared to go where no comedian has gone before. Because the film jumps the rails toward the end, it might be worth mentioning the good parts. They have been honored in their country by their action for more than 30 years. There's nothing intrinsically sacrilegious or vulgar about framing a Holocaust story as a thriller. Prisoner doctors / Camp hospitals / History / Auschwitz-Birkenau As soon as the examinations of a given pair of twins or dwarf were finished, Mengele ordered them killed by phenol injection so that he could go on to the next phase of his experiments, the comparative analysis of internal organs at autopsy. "The Debt" weaves a tangled web of lies and deceptions around a seemingly heroic raid in 1965 carried out by three agents of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency known for more ability than it exhibits here.

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