For the first time, the public will be granted a detailed view of Israel’s hunt for the infamous Nazi doctor known as the “Angel of Death,” Josef Mengele.
Mengele, responsible for selecting which Jews would be sent to the gas chambers of Auschwitz - and which would be slaveworkers or the subjects of his horrific “medical” experiments - became a prime target of the Mossad after the 1960 capture of Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires.
Yediot Ahronot reported that this Friday it will release the details of the Mossad’s hitherto classified “Meltzer File,” which contains numerous documents, pictures, and maps, dating back to the end of the 1950s and spanning the course of decades, on the subject of the Mossad’s hunt for Mengele.
According to the report, the Meltzer File will reveal the gamut of daring operations conducted by the Mossad - including break-ins, tracking, and other ingenious methods of obtaining information - to capture Mengele, and why those operations ultimately failed.
In 1985, it was confirmed that Mengele had drowned off the coast of Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1979, having evaded capture until his death.
In March 2016, it was reported that Dr. Daniel Romero Muniz, the professor of medicine at University of Sao Paulo behind the identification of Mengele’s remains, had won a lawsuit permitting him to hand over the remains for scientific research.
“[Mengele’s] bones will be a really good example for our students to learn from. They will be used to help train new doctors and will be particularly good for those students who are studying post-mortem examinations,” Muniz said at the time.