Israel’s Mossad is set to release its files on Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor known as the Angel of Death, who conducted sadistic medical experiments on prisoners in the Auschwitz death camp during the Holocaust.
The papers, known collectively as the “Meltzer File,” were given to Yad Vashem by the Israeli intelligence service and are set to be made available publicly by the end of the week. In one of the documents, published by the Maariv Hebrew language daily, quoted Prime Minister Menachem Begin calling for Mengele’s death in 1977.
"We decided to instruct the Mossad to renew the search for Nazi war criminals, especially Joseph Mengele, with a view to bring them to trial in Israel. If they cannot be brought to trial - kill them,” Begin was quoted as declaring.
The papers detail a number of unsuccessful attempts to capture Mengele, who, like many other former Nazis, fled to South America after the Second World War. Around five thousand former Nazis who escaped Europe made their way to Argentina with the aid of President Juan Peron, whose government established escape routes through Spain and Italy. The most famous of these was Adolf Eichman, one of the primary organizers of the Holocaust. He was kidnapped by Israeli intelligence in 1960 and brought to the Jewish state, where he was subsequently tried and executed.
Mengele himself lived in Buenos Aires for around ten years before moving on to Paraguay in a bid to avoid detection. He drowned in Brazil in 1979 and was later disinterred. His remains are currently used for instructing medical students at Sao Paulo University.
Read more in the Jerusalem Post
