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Josef Mengele sometime
before 1945
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Josef Mengele
(German: [ˈjoːzɛf ˈmɛŋələ] (listen);
16 March 1911 – 7 February 1979) was a German Schutzstaffel (SS)
officer and physician in Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.
Mengele was a notorious member of the team of doctors responsible for the
selection of victims to be killed in the gas chambers and for performing deadly human
experiments on prisoners. Arrivals deemed able to work were admitted
into the camp, and those deemed unfit for labor were immediately killed in the
gas chambers. Mengele left Auschwitz on 17 January 1945, shortly before the
arrival of the liberating Red Army troops.
After the war, he fled to South America,
where he evaded capture for the rest of his life.
Mengele
received doctorates in anthropology and
medicine from Munich University
and began a career as a researcher. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in
1938. Initially assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of World
War II, he transferred to the concentration
camp service in early 1943 and was assigned to Auschwitz. There he
saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. His
subsequent experiments, focusing primarily on twins, had no regard for the
health or safety of the victims.
Assisted
by a network of former SS members, Mengele sailed to Argentina in July 1949. He
initially lived in and around Buenos Aires, then fled to Paraguay in 1959
and Brazil in 1960 while being sought by West Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal so that he could be brought to trial. In spite of extradition
requests by the West German government and clandestine operations by Mossad (the Israeli intelligence agency),
Mengele eluded capture. He drowned while swimming off the Brazilian coast in
1979 and was buried under a false name. His remains were disinterred and
positively identified by forensic examination
in 1985.
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