1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,723 This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. 2 00:00:06,723 --> 00:00:17,732 The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones to the mysteries we will examine. 3 00:00:17,732 --> 00:00:26,739 World War II is not just a memory in the coastal mountains of Brazil. 4 00:00:26,739 --> 00:00:31,743 The date is April 22, 1978. 5 00:00:31,743 --> 00:00:36,748 The place is a small hotel outside Rio de Janeiro. 6 00:00:36,748 --> 00:00:45,755 A noisy party at the hotel till is broken up by police who discover the people are celebrating something odd. 7 00:00:45,755 --> 00:00:50,759 The 89th anniversary of the birthday of Adolf Hitler. 8 00:00:50,759 --> 00:00:55,763 The raid resulted in the capture of a wanted Nazi named Gustav Wagner. 9 00:00:55,763 --> 00:01:06,772 The capture was made possible by Simon Wiesenthal, who is known as the Hunter, for he has brought more than 1,100 Nazi criminals to justice. 10 00:01:06,772 --> 00:01:12,777 World War II 11 00:01:12,777 --> 00:01:19,783 In Vienna today, World War II is not just history. 12 00:01:19,783 --> 00:01:28,791 Every corner of the city holds memories of the war, especially for those who cannot forget. 13 00:01:28,791 --> 00:01:33,795 World War II 14 00:01:33,795 --> 00:01:38,799 Simon Wiesenthal cannot forget. 15 00:01:38,799 --> 00:01:45,805 It would be easy to say that what motivates Wiesenthal are his nightmare memories of the war. 16 00:01:45,805 --> 00:01:49,808 But many others have vivid memories of the Holocaust. 17 00:01:49,808 --> 00:01:54,812 Yet Wiesenthal is the only man who remains as a Nazi hunter. 18 00:01:54,812 --> 00:02:00,817 From the beginning, what drove Wiesenthal was his will to impose justice. 19 00:02:00,817 --> 00:02:10,825 And from the beginning, Wiesenthal's will for justice has been matched against Joseph Mengele's will to escape it. 20 00:02:10,825 --> 00:02:21,834 Joseph Mengele was a doctor of philosophy and medicine who performed horrifying experiments on humans and was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. 21 00:02:21,834 --> 00:02:28,840 Simon Wiesenthal's training as an architect would have little bearing on his life's work as an international detective. 22 00:02:28,840 --> 00:02:36,847 Joseph Mengele allowed himself to be caught up in the Nazi tide. Simon Wiesenthal had no choice. 23 00:02:36,847 --> 00:02:42,852 Mengele's life as a Nazi criminal began at Auschwitz. 24 00:02:42,852 --> 00:02:46,855 Five million people died here. 25 00:02:46,855 --> 00:02:52,860 Every day, train loads of men, women and children arrived at this train siding. 26 00:02:52,860 --> 00:02:59,866 When people stepped off the train, the man they were most likely to see was Joseph Mengele. 27 00:02:59,866 --> 00:03:09,874 He was always immaculate in his sharply pressed uniform and he was always unruffled as he decided each person's fate. 28 00:03:09,874 --> 00:03:14,878 If he would nod to the left, it meant hard work and starvation. 29 00:03:14,878 --> 00:03:21,884 If he would nod to the right, it meant a brief walk to what people believed were showers. 30 00:03:21,884 --> 00:03:26,888 Either way, the results were the same. 31 00:03:26,888 --> 00:03:36,897 Today, in a quiet corner of Vienna, there is a woman who remembers the totally unemotional character of the angel of death. 32 00:03:36,897 --> 00:03:44,903 Dr. Ella Lingens was a prisoner and physician at Auschwitz who was forced to work as an assistant to Joseph Mengele. 33 00:03:44,903 --> 00:03:50,908 Well, you might say he was especially bad because you felt that he was a cynic, 34 00:03:50,908 --> 00:03:59,916 had he didn't believe at all in the idea behind this extermination of Jews in the way they always did. 35 00:03:59,916 --> 00:04:07,922 Somebody told that he had once said he didn't despise the Jews, he didn't think they were inferior, 36 00:04:07,922 --> 00:04:10,925 what all the others really believed. 37 00:04:10,925 --> 00:04:14,928 But he said, no, there are two gifted people in the world, the Germans and the Jews, 38 00:04:14,928 --> 00:04:20,933 and it's just a struggle for world domination and one of them will win. 39 00:04:20,933 --> 00:04:25,937 The Germans did not win and Mengele saw it coming. 40 00:04:25,937 --> 00:04:30,941 He realized that the Russians would soon reach Auschwitz from the east, 41 00:04:30,941 --> 00:04:38,948 so he headed west towards the allies who were liberating Europe and towards his home. 42 00:04:38,948 --> 00:04:48,956 While the entire continent was reeling from the shocks of war, Mengele actually had his Auschwitz chauffeur drive him home. 43 00:04:48,956 --> 00:05:00,966 Home was near Munich in the Bavarian town of Gunsburg, with a Mengele family owned a large factory and was the largest employer in town. 44 00:05:00,966 --> 00:05:09,973 Even today, in search of crews encountered outright hostility when trying to film there. 45 00:05:09,973 --> 00:05:17,980 Mengele would remain in Gunsburg totally free for almost six years. 46 00:05:19,982 --> 00:05:25,987 Just after the war, Mengele went largely unnoticed in the crowd of Nazi criminals, 47 00:05:25,987 --> 00:05:31,992 and it was not until 1950 that his name came to prominence in connection with Auschwitz. 48 00:05:31,992 --> 00:05:40,999 Mengele then fled Gunsburg with the aid of Odessa, the secret SS organization that helped its members escape Germany. 49 00:05:40,999 --> 00:05:49,006 He went to Italy, making the border crossing at Ration Pass, near the northern Italian town of Murano. 50 00:05:49,006 --> 00:05:54,010 From Italy, Mengele sailed to Buenos Aires, Argentina. 51 00:05:54,010 --> 00:05:59,014 He arrived here sometime in 1952. 52 00:05:59,014 --> 00:06:04,018 Mengele found it easy to hide in Buenos Aires. 53 00:06:04,018 --> 00:06:12,025 Large German migrations in the last century created what are now substantial German colonies in South America. 54 00:06:12,025 --> 00:06:19,031 These colonies were natural havens for Nazis on the run at the end of the war. 55 00:06:19,031 --> 00:06:29,039 Mengele not only lived here on Sormeento Street as a free man, but actually practiced medicine without a license in this house. 56 00:06:29,039 --> 00:06:37,045 He is reported to have met in this palace with Argentina's then president Juan Domingo Perón. 57 00:06:37,045 --> 00:06:47,054 With this kind of protection, Mengele felt completely safe, but he could not know that his safety was only temporary. 58 00:06:47,054 --> 00:06:56,061 In Vienna, Mengele's movements had been carefully reconstructed at a place called the Center for Documentation. 59 00:07:00,064 --> 00:07:08,071 The patient years of tracking Mengele finally paid off for Simon Wiesenthal in 1957. 60 00:07:08,071 --> 00:07:15,077 I find Mengele in Buenos Aires as a practicing doctor. 61 00:07:15,077 --> 00:07:23,083 I give the information to the German to the court in Freiburg and Breisgau, 62 00:07:23,083 --> 00:07:32,091 and through Bonn, through the German ambassador in Argentina they asked for his tradition. 63 00:07:32,091 --> 00:07:40,098 Berti's 968 was the address of the house where Wiesenthal found Mengele. 64 00:07:40,098 --> 00:07:51,107 It would take almost two years until 1959, before Argentina replied to Germany's request for Mengele's extradition. 65 00:07:51,107 --> 00:07:54,109 Argentina's answer came as a shock. 66 00:07:54,109 --> 00:08:03,117 The Procurator de la Nation gave the answer that crimes of Mengele are political and not criminal. 67 00:08:03,117 --> 00:08:13,125 And I think this was the green light for Eichmann, because if they don't ask the right man who was in charge of field operations 68 00:08:13,125 --> 00:08:21,131 to send hundreds of thousands of people to the gas chamber and they see in this crime a political crime, 69 00:08:21,131 --> 00:08:25,135 they would not ask for Eichmann. 70 00:08:25,135 --> 00:08:30,139 Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped in Buenos Aires in 1960. 71 00:08:30,139 --> 00:08:38,146 His capture was the direct result of information supplied by Wiesenthal to Israeli agents. 72 00:08:39,146 --> 00:08:49,155 Eichmann's trial lasted nine months, and as Wiesenthal had hoped, it reminded the entire world of the Holocaust. 73 00:08:49,155 --> 00:08:54,159 But Eichmann's capture also had another effect. 74 00:08:54,159 --> 00:09:02,165 Joseph Mengele vanished from Buenos Aires. 75 00:09:02,165 --> 00:09:07,170 At the very moment that Germany was trying to extradite Mengele from Argentina, 76 00:09:07,170 --> 00:09:15,176 he actually returned home to German soil for his father's funeral. 77 00:09:15,176 --> 00:09:18,179 He stood on this spot for the funeral service. 78 00:09:18,179 --> 00:09:22,182 Although he was widely known as a wanted man in Germany, 79 00:09:22,182 --> 00:09:31,189 no one in Gensburg reported his presence to the authorities, even though he stayed here for six weeks. 80 00:09:31,189 --> 00:09:42,198 Later, Germany's public prosecutor would say that the people of Gensburg had acted like a group of conspirators to help the Mengele family. 81 00:09:42,198 --> 00:09:50,205 Mengele helped himself after Eichmann's capture by going to Egypt, where there was a large German community. 82 00:09:50,205 --> 00:09:55,209 Unfortunately for Mengele, the Egyptian government did not want him. 83 00:09:55,209 --> 00:10:00,213 The Eichmann trial had created a strong anti-Nazi sentiment throughout the world, 84 00:10:00,213 --> 00:10:08,220 and the Egyptians did not want to antagonize the Americans or the Russians. 85 00:10:08,220 --> 00:10:16,227 Mengele's German comrades in Egypt chartered a yacht to take him to the remote Greek island of Kipnos. 86 00:10:16,227 --> 00:10:21,231 These photographs were taken by a reporter hired by Wiesenthal. 87 00:10:21,231 --> 00:10:27,236 The reporter was part of a group sent by Wiesenthal when he discovered Mengele was on the island. 88 00:10:27,236 --> 00:10:36,243 But it was too late. Mengele had sailed away two days before the group arrived. 89 00:10:36,243 --> 00:10:45,251 South America had kept him safe for most of the last ten years, so he went to the heart of the continent. 90 00:10:45,251 --> 00:10:52,256 Joseph Mengele, now Jose Mengele, openly became a citizen of Paraguay in 1960. 91 00:10:52,256 --> 00:10:56,260 He could not have picked a safer place. 92 00:10:56,260 --> 00:11:05,267 A big number of Germans emigrated after the war to Paraguay, after this war to Paraguay, 93 00:11:05,267 --> 00:11:09,270 and they reorganized the police. 94 00:11:09,270 --> 00:11:15,275 Today, many of the children of the SS are members of the police in Paraguay. 95 00:11:15,275 --> 00:11:21,280 In the small Jewish colony in Paraguay, they receive every week threats from the Germans. 96 00:11:21,280 --> 00:11:26,285 When something will happen to Mengele, they will kill them. 97 00:11:26,285 --> 00:11:32,290 I had here in my office a delegation of this Jewish community from Paraguay, 98 00:11:32,290 --> 00:11:40,296 and they asked me to promise them to do nothing against Mengele and Paraguay because their life is in danger. 99 00:11:40,296 --> 00:11:43,299 And this is, and I believe them. 100 00:11:43,299 --> 00:11:48,303 Even so, Mengele did not feel entirely safe in Paraguay. 101 00:11:48,303 --> 00:11:55,309 During his first years here, he kept moving from place to place in the capital city of Asuncion. 102 00:11:56,309 --> 00:12:03,315 He is known to have stayed at the Hotel Colonial, which is now a bank. 103 00:12:03,315 --> 00:12:11,322 His neighbors at the Hotel Ostra would hear him in this corner room screaming in the night. 104 00:12:11,322 --> 00:12:18,328 Number 508 on this street was probably his last residence in the city. 105 00:12:18,328 --> 00:12:25,333 Even though Mengele is never sure about his own safety, he is legally free in Paraguay. 106 00:12:25,333 --> 00:12:29,337 The fact is, however, he is wanted by several countries. 107 00:12:29,337 --> 00:12:32,339 One of these is the Federal Republic of Germany. 108 00:12:32,339 --> 00:12:39,345 Its ambassador to the United States, the honorable Bernd von Staden. 109 00:12:39,345 --> 00:12:52,356 Joseph Mengele continues to be a wanted man and will continue to be a wanted man until he is put on trial or until he dies. 110 00:12:52,356 --> 00:13:06,367 It has been our policy from the very beginning to prosecute and to put to trial these criminals ourselves, wherever we could. 111 00:13:06,367 --> 00:13:16,376 And it is in line with this policy that whenever we find out that a criminal is abroad in a third country 112 00:13:16,376 --> 00:13:31,388 and we have sufficient certainty of a crime committed to extradition, it is a policy consequent to ask for extradition. 113 00:13:31,388 --> 00:13:39,395 But Paraguay's President Stroesner, who is himself of German descent, has always refused to give up Mengele. 114 00:13:39,395 --> 00:13:50,404 On Washington's Embassy Row, diplomacy calls for polite language, even in the most strained circumstances. 115 00:13:50,404 --> 00:13:55,408 The Minister of the Embassy of Israel, the Honorable Hanan Baron. 116 00:13:55,408 --> 00:14:07,418 I certainly would very much hope indeed that if Joseph Mengele or any other Nazi criminal would be discovered in court in any country, 117 00:14:07,418 --> 00:14:17,426 that this country would find it in its own ways and means to bring the person to justice 118 00:14:17,426 --> 00:14:28,435 and if it cannot do so to extradite him as quickly as possible to either Israel or to a country in which he can be brought to justice. 119 00:14:28,435 --> 00:14:38,443 I cannot perceive and conceive of a responsible government in the world which would not want to have Nazi criminals brought to justice. 120 00:14:38,443 --> 00:14:42,447 The efforts to obtain Mengele's extradition proved to be fruitless. 121 00:14:42,447 --> 00:14:49,452 Nevertheless, Mengele's fear of capture drove him deeper into the heartland of Paraguay. 122 00:14:49,452 --> 00:14:56,458 His destination was the remote eastern part of the country near the Piranha River. 123 00:14:56,458 --> 00:15:04,465 Very few outsiders are seen here and those that come to look for Joseph Mengele do so at their own risk. 124 00:15:05,466 --> 00:15:15,474 Just before in search of arrived, two film crews, one British and one Belgian, had their film destroyed and were expelled from the country. 125 00:15:15,474 --> 00:15:21,479 In search of could only film using a camera hidden inside a car. 126 00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:27,484 Mengele spent a lot of time in the Piranha region on the estate of Albun Krug, 127 00:15:27,484 --> 00:15:32,488 a wealthy German industrialist who surrounded him with four bodyguards. 128 00:15:33,489 --> 00:15:39,494 But what protects Mengele more than anything else is his uncanny ability to avoid capture. 129 00:15:40,495 --> 00:15:45,499 This is the German-style resort town of Hornau in central Paraguay. 130 00:15:45,499 --> 00:15:51,504 It was here in 1964 that Mengele came closest to being apprehended. 131 00:15:51,504 --> 00:15:57,509 A group of survivors of Auschwitz learned that Mengele was staying at the hotel to roll. 132 00:15:58,510 --> 00:16:03,514 They came here and rushed up to his room only to find it empty. 133 00:16:04,515 --> 00:16:10,519 Mengele had left just ten minutes earlier after receiving a warning phone call. 134 00:16:10,519 --> 00:16:14,523 He was in such a hurry that he left in his pajamas. 135 00:16:18,526 --> 00:16:26,533 There are times when Mengele ventures outside Paraguay, but these times are rare because they involve a higher risk. 136 00:16:27,534 --> 00:16:33,539 One such occasion was in 1968 when Mengele went to Bermuda to meet some relatives. 137 00:16:33,539 --> 00:16:40,544 Wiesenthal learned about the trip and immediately sent a man to verify Mengele's identity. 138 00:16:41,545 --> 00:16:45,548 But once again Mengele was already gone. 139 00:16:46,549 --> 00:16:50,553 The closer one gets to Mengele, the more elusive he seems to become. 140 00:16:50,553 --> 00:16:54,556 In Paraguay today he is wrapped in legend. 141 00:16:54,556 --> 00:16:59,560 Wiesenthal must constantly guard against false rumors and mistaken identities. 142 00:16:59,560 --> 00:17:05,565 Wherever Mengele is in Paraguay, he has the protection of the Strosna regime. 143 00:17:06,566 --> 00:17:11,570 There are times when even the remote Paraguay region does not seem safe enough. 144 00:17:12,571 --> 00:17:17,575 Mengele then takes refuge in a large military zone in central Paraguay. 145 00:17:17,575 --> 00:17:22,579 It is a place so secure that even the Paraguayan police cannot enter it. 146 00:17:23,580 --> 00:17:30,586 In 1977, two events involving Mengele took place that are here reenacted for in search of. 147 00:17:30,586 --> 00:17:40,594 One of the last times Mengele was reliably spotted was when he was seen talking to two unidentified men on the Brazilian side of the Paranya River. 148 00:17:42,596 --> 00:17:48,601 Border checkpoints are few and far between here and there is no record of his having made a border crossing. 149 00:17:49,601 --> 00:18:01,611 The most recent attempt to capture Mengele was made in that same year when it was discovered that he was due to cross the border from Paraguay to Argentina at a given place and time. 150 00:18:01,611 --> 00:18:07,616 On that day several agents were placed on the Argentine side of the border. 151 00:18:08,617 --> 00:18:14,622 Mengele's car was spotted and the license plate noted some five miles from the crossing. 152 00:18:25,631 --> 00:18:31,636 But at the last minute, the car turned around and headed back into the Paraguayan interior. 153 00:18:32,637 --> 00:18:40,644 Today Mengele's whereabouts can only be pinpointed by checking the most reliable sources in Paraguay itself. 154 00:18:41,644 --> 00:18:51,653 In search of made contact with members of Paraguay's opposition party who verified that this hardware store belongs to Joseph Mengele. 155 00:18:52,654 --> 00:18:56,657 Those same sources brought us to the small town of Altos. 156 00:18:57,658 --> 00:19:12,670 This road, which leads to a well guarded gate which we were unable to photograph, is the access to a hacienda named Campo Condesta de Queue where Mengele lives today. 157 00:19:13,671 --> 00:19:20,677 33 years is a long time and the Holocaust seems far away. 158 00:19:21,678 --> 00:19:26,682 Now there are two men who remain as living symbols of that moment in history. 159 00:19:27,682 --> 00:19:32,687 The hunted is 67. The hunter is 69. 160 00:19:33,687 --> 00:19:41,694 Look, if she will die before me, he will not die in peace because I am a man of the heart. 161 00:19:42,695 --> 00:19:48,700 Because he has no rest, he is going from place to place. And this is also a part of a sentence. 162 00:19:49,701 --> 00:19:55,706 And you cannot make a deal with the Lord that I must survive Mengele. 163 00:19:56,706 --> 00:20:02,711 My last wish will be in this case to get Mengele, but nobody knows. 164 00:20:02,711 --> 00:20:14,721 I hope always there is no perfect crime and even the biggest criminal and the best criminal make a mistake and I am waiting for his mistakes. 165 00:20:19,725 --> 00:20:25,730 There was once a world in Europe that no longer exists, but it left behind an echo. 166 00:20:33,737 --> 00:20:42,745 The history of man is a history of crimes and a special. The Jewish history is a history of full of repetitions. 167 00:20:43,745 --> 00:20:47,749 It's only the technology is changing, but the hatred remains the same. 168 00:20:48,749 --> 00:20:57,757 We need Mengele before a trial as a witness of the history. The trial is a bigger importance than the sentence. 169 00:20:57,757 --> 00:21:09,767 Justice is a funny thing. No matter how man tries to impose himself, it follows its own course. 170 00:21:15,772 --> 00:21:23,778 Coming up next in search of continues with an investigation of the theory that the destruction of the airship Hindenburg was the work of saboteurs. 171 00:21:23,778 --> 00:21:30,784 Then 20th century with Mike Wallace puts perspective on the 1970 killing of four Kent State students by the National Guard. 172 00:21:31,785 --> 00:21:42,794 And later tonight, 100 vintage cars, 300 adventurous drivers, 14 lazy hazy summer days and 3,900 miles of prime U.S. roadway. 173 00:21:43,795 --> 00:21:49,800 It's the great race, the ultimate road trip at eight here on the History Channel where the past comes alive. 174 00:21:53,803 --> 00:21:58,807 The History Channel