Documents on the Pursuit of the 'Angel of Death' of the Nazis Declassified

Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, has removed the classified stamp from important documents related to the pursuit of Nazi leaders and has made these documents, which include decades of Mossad's activities in tracking Nazi leaders, available to the public. Israeli media reported on Tuesday and Wednesday, September 14 and 15, parts of the documents related to the pursuit of Dr. Joseph Mengele, known as the 'Angel of Death,' and announced that more details from these documents will be published in the coming days. According to the Jerusalem Post, Haim Gertner, head of the archive at the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, welcomed Mossad's decision to release the classified documents related to Mengele, deeming it significant for researchers and enthusiasts in this field. At the end of World War II, during which the Holocaust claimed the lives of more than six million Jews in Europe, several Nazi leaders managed to escape to various countries, especially Latin America, and evade prosecution. Israel successfully tracked Adolf Eichmann and captured him in Argentina in 1960, bringing him to Israel for trial; Eichmann was executed in the spring of 1962 in Lod, Israel. After Eichmann's capture, Mengele became the most wanted Nazi figure. The whereabouts of Mengele and several other key leaders of the Nazi regime became unclear following Hitler's defeat and suicide, leading to conflicting reports about many of them. According to Mossad documents, Dr. Joseph Mengele, known as the 'Angel of Death,' was one of the key Nazi figures that Israel pursued from the very beginning of its establishment. All evidence indicated that Dr. Mengele had fled to Latin America. Shortly after World War II, Dr. Mengele was captured by American forces but was released due to ambiguity in his identification. In 1949, with the help of family and other agents, he first went to Argentina via Italy; a year later, he moved to Paraguay and from 1960 onwards to Brazil, where he lived in hiding until his death, likely in 1979, 19 years later. Dr. Mengele, who was appointed as the chief physician of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps at the age of 32 in 1943, was responsible for selecting a number of imprisoned Jews for horrific medical experiments. Joseph Mengele was accused of sending hundreds of thousands of Jews to gas chambers. Dr. Ronen Bergman, a journalist and Israeli intelligence expert, wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth that the details of the pursuit of Dr. Joseph Mengele by Mossad forces, titled 'Meltzer File,' is one of the most important documents to be published in the coming days. According to the Ynet website, the 'Meltzer File' includes written reports sent by Mossad forces, numerous images, and photographs of information and hideouts of Dr. Mengele that have been preserved in the most secret archives of Mossad since the 1950s and 1960s. Bergman noted that Mossad leaders ordered special teams to find Mengele by any means necessary and, if transferring him to Israel was not possible, to kill him. Bergman, who has seen the documents, added that Mossad had given its special forces free rein in any operation to discover the hideout of the 'Angel of Death,' including wiretapping, attempts to deceive Mengele's wife, Marta, into believing she had a lover, and even kidnapping the twelve-year-old son of one of Mengele's associates. Mossad documents state that in a 1962 operation, Mossad came very close to capturing Mengele; one of the Nazis hired by Mossad identified a remote farm in southern São Paulo, Brazil, as Mengele's hideout. According to Ynet, Mossad forces, including Zvi Aharoni and Zvi Melchin, who were both involved in finding and capturing Eichmann, arrived at the location. On July 23, 1962, Zvi Aharoni encountered a man who closely resembled Mengele, accompanied by several other men, during a covert intelligence operation on a dirt road around the 'Gerhard' farm. At that moment, Zvi Aharoni told Zvi Melchin in Yiddish (a language of European Jews that resembles German), 'It's him; we found him; this little filth.' According to the report, that summer night in 1963, Mossad forces sent an urgent telegram to their headquarters in Tel Aviv stating, 'We saw a person at that farm who, in terms of physique, height, age, and clothing, could very well be Mengele.' However, the necessary authorization for the intended action did not arrive from Israel, and according to Ronen Bergman, 'the opportunity for action' was lost. Israeli media reported that the 'Meltzer File' shows that the pursuit of Mengele continued for 21 years after the early 1960s; in 1983, Mossad began a new round of efforts to capture the 'Angel of Death.' In 1983, Menachem Begin was the Prime Minister of Israel, and during his tenure, Mossad received authorization to wiretap the phones of Ralph Mengele, Joseph Mengele's son living in Berlin, to understand what connection he had with his father. The birthdays of father and son were on the same day, and their birthday phone conversations were closely monitored. The 'Meltzer File' reveals that Mossad attempted to use a lure, described as 'an intelligent and attractive woman,' to gain access to Ralph Mengele's life as his secretary, hoping that Ralph would invite this woman for a private meeting. However, it later turned out that Dr. Mengele had died four years earlier. Dr. Ronen Bergman also wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth that with Mengele's death, Israel failed to 'ever settle accounts with this number one wanted Nazi.' Other investigations also agree that Dr. Mengele, who lived relatively peacefully after World War II, was never caught to face trial for his crimes. He died on February 7, 1979, while swimming on the beaches of Brazil. According to the Jerusalem Post and Reuters, Mengele's wealthy family in Germany played a significant role in actively and financially supporting his life in Latin America; they knew exactly where Mengele was and supported him until the last moment. Mengele's body was initially buried in a São Paulo cemetery under a pseudonym, but after this was revealed, exhumation took place, and for years his bones were studied by students at the medical school of the University of São Paulo.