Nazi fugitive ‘set to surrender’

Press, 29 December 1980, Page 8

Nazi fugitive ‘set to surrender’

NZPA-Reuter Tel Aviv The Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal, said yesterday that one of the most wanted war criminals still at larger Joseph Mengele, might be about to surrender. Mr Wiesenthal, head of the Vienna-based Documentation Centre which tracks former Nazis, said that the 70-year-old former Nazi doctor had been moving from country to country in South America since Paraguay withdrew his citizenship. Mr Wiesenthal, who is on a visit to Israel, told Israeli television that. nine weeks ago Mengele was seen in Rio Negro, Uruguay. He has been accused of conducting medical experiments on Jewish prisoners at the Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps during World War Two and of selecting which prisoners went to the gas chambers and which to slave labour.

Mengele was often ill and was suffering from circulation trouble, Mr Wiesenthal said. “I think he is contemplating suicide, or has decided to give himself up to a West German embassy,” he added. Mr Wiesenthal said mutal acquaintances had informed him that Mengele might decide to surrender. “From them we have learned that he has prepared his defence, He will say in court that all the Jews who came to the camps, were condemned to death, and by selecting some for labour, he prolonged their lives,” Mr Wiesenthal said. “I think, without doubt, that he can be caught within 48 hours of learning his present address,” he said. “We need him alive to testify . . . He can tell the truth against those who are today trying to claim that the Holocaust was a hoax.”