MENGELE The Complete Story

2 1 0 MENGELE
easily identifiable symbol of the Allies' betrayed pledge to pursue
Nazis wherever they fled. But these movies also created a mood
of despair: Mengele was simply too powerful, he was too clever,
he was "bionic," he would never be caught. And yet . . he was
here, he was there, he was everywhere, said Wiesenthal. He had
been seen: he really could be found.
Wiesenthal's information was right on target sometimes, as when
he pinpointed Hans Sedlmeier as a key figure in the Mengele conspiracy,
as early as 1964. But often Wiesenthal's pronouncements
raised the public's expectations, only to dash their hopes each time.
But he was not alone. Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, in Paris, once
claimed that Mengele was within their grasp. Tuvia Friedman, in
Haifa, said his network of informants "provided definite and precise
information by which to identify him [Mengelert"
And there were many others, quite independent of the fulltime
Nazi-hunters, who claimed to have seen Mengele. They seem
to fall into three categories. The first consists of those people who
were thirsting for what American artist Andy Warhol once called
"the fifteen minutes of fame to which everyone is entitled in their
lives." The second category was made up of Fascists who got a sick
satisfaction from disseminating false information to throw legitimate
hunters off the track. This role was best exemplified by Wolfram
Bossert, Mengele's protector in Brazil for the last four years of his
life. When Bossert wrote to the Gunzburg clan informing them of
Mengele's death in 1979, he suggested that it should not be announced
so that "the opposing side waste time and money." The
third category of Mengele "witnesses" were those who reported in
all good faith that they had caught a glimpse of the world's most
elusive Nazi criminal.
Sonia Tauber, a survivor from Auschwitz-Birkenau, was a witness
whose sincerity was not in doubt. She claimed she saw Mengele
in April 1965, when he walked into her jewelry shop in the Casa
Inolvidable in Asuncion. She said she was paralyzed when she realized
that the customer browsing through her showcase diamonds
was the man who had spared her life with one flick of his thumb.
' Both Wiesenthal and Friedman claim to have found Adolf Eichmann. Wiesenthal
says he proved that Eichmann was still alive; Friedman says that Eichmann's first words
to his Israeli kidnappers were: "Which of you is Friedman?" Isser Hare!, chief of the
Mossad ream that captured Eichmann, denies that either Nazi-hunter played any role
in finding Eichmann.
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