Brazil’s deputy police chief, Joao Amoroso Netto, today ordered the release of a man held at Campo Grante, on the border of Paraguay, who had been suspected of being the missing ex-Nazi, Dr. Josef Mengele. The man insisted his name was Dr. Joseph Kanat, and not Mengele. Mr. Netto ruled there was no proof that he is the missing Mengele.
Mengele had been hunted here for many months, after his disappearance from his former hideout in Argentina. Mengele, known as the Auschwitz “Angel of Death,” was the physician who had acted as the selector for the Nazis at Auschwitz. His job was to select from among the Jewish victims at the death factory those to be sent to the gas chambers, while others were designated by the physician for labor in the work camps.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.