After numerous denials, the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service has decided to allow access to documents concerning Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele. Historians have long been eager to scrutinize these files to determine whether the notorious doctor from German death camps made a stop in Zurich despite having an international warrant for his arrest.
Known as the ‘Angel of Death’ for his horrific experiments on Auschwitz II-Birkenau prisoners, Mengele initially escaped to South America following the end of World War II. However, reports indicate that he might have returned to Europe as a tourist, visiting Switzerland for a ski trip with his son in 1956.
Suspicions have persisted among historians that Mengele revisited Europe, particularly Switzerland, after West Germany issued an arrest warrant for him in 1959.
Evidence suggests that his wife had rented an apartment conveniently located near Zurich’s international airport. During this time, local police documented sightings of an unidentified man entering the premises.
The recent decision to unlock these files was made public earlier this month, following a legal appeal by a historian who challenged the long-standing Swiss refusals.
No date was announced for the lifting of the restrictions.
Mengele served as chief physician at Auschwitz from 1943 to 1944, and was in charge of the camp’s selection process, choosing who would live and who would die.
He sent about 400,000 people to their deaths in the gas chambers, according to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum.
The SS captain was also responsible for the medical experiments performed on camp prisoners.
Like many other Nazi officers, Mengele initially fled Europe using Red Cross travel documents obtained under a false identity at the Swiss consulate in Genoa, Italy.
He died in Brazil in 1979, aged 67, without having ever been prosecuted for his crimes, despite Argentine authorities’ knowledge of his true identity.