(Jewish Group) Rene Slotkin, one of the few surviving 'Mengele twins,' dies at 84
As a physical education teacher at an Orthodox boys school in New York City, René Slotkin frequently wore short-sleeved shirts — leaving the numbers tattooed into his arm visible to anyone who saw him.
His story of Holocaust survival was remarkable: Slotkin and his sister were among just 200 sets of twins to survive gruesome experimentation by the infamous Nazi physician Josef Mengele at Auschwitz, then were reunited six years after being separated.
Slotkin’s story, which he told and retold, including in a film about his family, was never far from the minds of his fellow congregants at Congregation Ohab Zedek, the Upper West Side synagogue down the block from his home where he studied Talmud every morning well into his 80s.
“I still find it staggering that a man who saw so much horror and devastation not only clung to his faith and belief, but did so with happiness and hakarat hatov,” or gratitude, Jonathan Field wrote in the Jewish Link on Friday about his fellow congregant, who died on Sunday at 84.
more...