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Brazil Police Await Fingerprint Records of Dr. Mengele from Germany

January 31, 1962
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Rio police said today they were awaiting fingerprint records from West Germany of Dr; Josef Mengele, a long-sought Nazi killer, to compare with those of a man under arrest here on suspicion that he is Mengele.

The suspect, who was seized at a health resort in Pocos de Caldas last Wednesday, said his name was Koloman Schueller and that he was a Hungarian citizen. The suspect, a sales manager for a Rio firm, was described by police as having an “astonishing” resemblance to the hunted Nazi doctor.

Dr. Mengele was the “selector” of Jews in the Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen death camps to be sent to the gas chambers, permitting some healthy victims to live for forced labor purposes. He was known to have been hiding in Argentina for some time after fleeing from the collapsing Nazi regime at the end of the war. It had also been reported that he left Argentina immediately after former SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann was seized there in the spring of 1960.

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