Mengele’s Searchers Skeptical About Reports Nazi Drowned in Brazil in 1979

Searchers for Josef Mengele, the notorious Auschwitz death camp doctor, have expressed strong skepticism over reports from Brazil today that he died there six years ago accidentally by drowning.

There have been other reports, over the years, that Mengele, known as the “angel of death” because he selected inmates for the gas chambers and performed fatal or crippling medical experiments on others, was dead. This time, however, reports of his demise seem to be taken seriously by officials in Brazil and West Germany. The latter country has been participating in an international search for the wanted Nazi war criminal and has offered a reward for information leading to his capture.

The German newspaper Die Welt reported today that officials of the Federal Criminal Office were in Brazil examining evidence that Mengele drowned in 1979 while swimming off Berrioga, 60 miles northeast of Sao. Paulo. Sao Paulo Police Chief Roneu Tuna told reporters he has asked the Justice Ministry for permission to exhume the body of a man buried at Enbu, 20 miles west of the Brazilian metropolis and that he was 90 percent certain that the body was Mengele.

But Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld said here today, “I don’t believe Mengele is dead and I don’t believe the German judicial system believes it.” Klarsfeld’s wife, Beate Klarsfeld, returned this week from Paraguay where she tried, unsuccessfully to obtain Mengele’s extradition. Mengele who would be 74, had been reported living for years in Paraguay, under the protection of its German-born President, Alfredo Stroessner and his rightwing military junta. Stroessner’s office denied any knowledge of Mengele’s whereabouts and denounced the Klarsfelds as “dangerous agitators.”

FAMILY WOULD HAVE KNOWN

Klarsfeld, a lawyer, said he and his wife have numerous reports that “Mengele is in fact alive.” He noted also that Mengele’s grisly reputation weighs heavily on his family’s business in Guenzburg, 100 miles northwest of Munich in Bavaria. Two of his nephews run the family’s agricultural machinery factory there.

According to Klarsfeld, “Had Mengele really died, his relatives would have been the first to want to announce it.”

(In New York, Abraham Foxman, associate national director and head of the international affairs divis- ion of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, noted that “This is not the first time there have been reports of the death of Josef Mengele nor it is surprising that they are surfacing today at a time when there is a concerted international effort by the United States, Germany and Israel to find him.”

(Foxman, himself a Holocaust survivor, said “What is surprising is why if the body really is Dr. Mengele and he drowned in 1979, that nobody came forward in the last six years to confirm it. Certainly, no lives would have been in danger by making the news of his death public.” Foxman added, “If the body in Brazil is indeed that of Dr. Mengele it closes one of the ugliest chapters in the tragedy of the Holocaust.

HOLTZMAN ALSO SKEPTICAL

(Brooklyn District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman, who as a member of Congress was instrumental in moving the Justice Department to search for alleged Nazis living in the United States, was also skeptical. “But, it (the report) should be thoroughly examined. U.S. Justice Department officials are doing this right now,” she said.

(Holtzman noted the coincidence that “the report of Mengele’s supposed death should be made shortly after the start of the most intensive and coordinated international search for Mengele ever mounted.” She also noted that if he had died six years ago his family would have made it public.)

Sao Paulo police chief Tuna acknowledged that West German police were in Brazil to help with the investigation. He said three West German agents arrived on Tuesday when Brazilian police interrogated an elderly couple living in Santo Amaro in the southern part of the Sao Paulo district, who appeared to be of German origin.

DOCUMENT FOUND IN HOUSE

He said that documents, including a dairy found in the couple’s home, indicated that Mengele had most certainly lived there for a time. The couple apparently provided the information of Mengele’s alleged drowning.

Die Welt reported today that security experts have X-rays of Mengele’s teeth which should be able to determine whether or not the body to be exhumed is indeed Mengele.