Josef Mengele, the SS physician dubbed the “Angel of Death”, lived openly in Argentina and even part-owned a medical lab after fleeing Europe, newly declassified documents have revealed.
A cache of state papers released on the instruction of Argentine President Javier Milei earlier this year showed that Mengele, known for his grotesque human experimentation in concentration camps, came to the country in 1949, using an Italian passport in the name of Helmut Gregor.
By the mid-1950s, though, he was living openly under his true identity, even applying to have his official ID documents reissued in his real name, having obtained his birth certificate from the West German embassy in Buenos Aires.
Authorities were aware of his location, per the documents, and tracked his residences and investments, including his part-ownership of a medical laboratory in the suburb of Vicente López, in which he is believed to have invested over $10,000.
Argentine security forces also received testimony from a Polish-born Argentine citizen, José Furmanski, one of Mengele’s victims in the camps.
“I met Mengele. I knew him well. I saw him many times in the Auschwitz camp, with his SS colonel’s uniform and, on top of it, the white doctor’s coat,” said Furmanski in press clippings saved by local intelligence.
“He gathered twins of all ages in the camp and subjected them to experiments that always ended in death. Between the children, the elderly, and women… what horrors. I saw him separate a mother from her daughter and send one to certain death.”
Perhaps most strikingly of all, a Buenos Aires court rejected an extradition request from West Germany in 1959 on the basis that the Nazi war criminal could face “political persecution” if he returned to his home country.
Then, in 1960, he would escape to Paraguay, but a secret memo dated July 12 that year shows officials were still searching for Mengele after he had already fled.
The files also outline Mengele’s move to Brazil later in 1960, where Nazi-sympathizing German Brazilian farmers provided safehouses. He lived for years under aliases, including Peter Hochbichler, José Mengele and Wolfgang Gerhardt, before dying of a stroke while swimming in 1979.
His remains were identified by Brazilian authorities in 1985 and confirmed by DNA tests seven years later, but he never faced trial for his well-documented crimes.
The declassified materials are housed in Argentina’s General Archive of the Nation and will be made available for public and academic research.
To get more news, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.