14
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, June 21, 1985
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Washington area artist Ken
Krafcheck produced this week's
cover illustration, depicting Josef
Mengele, the infamous "Angel of
Death" of Auschwitz, as the focal
point of a search by Gerald L.
Posner, a young New York
attorney, for information about the
fugitive doctor. In the illustration,
Posner appears as Mengele's
relentless shadow at right.
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A 051 FRANCE
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The Search For
The 'Angel of Death'
The exclusive, first-hand account of a Nazi
hunter's adventures in tracking Mengele,
from Germany to Paraguay to Brazil.
BY GERALD POSNER
Special to The Jewish News
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL — It has
been a long search. Apparently Josef
Mengele, The "Angel of Death" of
Auschwitz, murderer of 400,000
Jews and fugitive from justice for the
last 40 years, is dead.
Of course, there will always be a
lingering doubt, as there always is
when evil goes to ground, that
Mengele actually drowned six years
ago near this cosmopolitan city on
South America's eastern coast.
The word that Mengele was living
in Brazil, rather than in Paraguay,
where most Nazi hunters believed
him to be, is indicative of the wildly
conflicting tangle of rumor, lies and
fact that have swirled around the
fugitive SS doctor since the end of
World War II. I know first hand how
confusing the trail has become, and
how difficult it has been to separate
fact from fiction.
In December of 1982, six months
after I had celebrated my 28th birth-
day, I was completing a week of
research into Mengele's post-war
existence at the German government
archives in Frankfurt.
Near the end of my stay, one of the
assistant clerks in the section de-
voted to World War II arranged a
meeting for me with a man whom he
said would be able to provide impor-
tant information about the sadistic
doctor from Gunzburg.
The next night I met with a former
SS corporal in the lounge bar of the
Frankfurt Intercontinental Hotel. A
wizened little man with thinning hair,
he could have been a grocery checker
in any American supermarket, ex-
cept for the furtive way he glanced
around the room and the SS tattoo
I knew he carried on his arm.
The corporal asked me what kind
of documents I was looking for. I told
him that I wanted anything related
to Mengele.
"You must be more specific," he
said. "Otherwise I will not know
what type of documents to make for
you."
"Make for me?" I asked. The cor-
poral's statement was confusing.
"Yes," said the former SS soldier
matter-of-factly. "I can make any-
thing you want. I can obtain originals
of government stationary and forms
and turn out whatever you want. If
you would like to see the quality of
my work, I will make you a sample.
Of course, you will have to pay for it.
In fact, for $50 I can get you an
original German birth certificate that
will make you Josef Mengele's
cousin. It's a wonderful souvenir.
Only $50."
I finished my drink, thanked the
corporal and left. I had been through
similar routines many times before.
in fact, the meeting with the former
SS man is not unusual in the world
of researching and tracking ex-Nazis.
The people are strange, the circum-
stances usually bizarre and the
results, more often than not, are