WIESENTHAL CENTER REGARDING NEW MENGELE REVELATION:“IT WAS A JUSTIFIED BUT TRAGIC DECISION”

Israeli agents held up simultaneous operation to nab “Angel of Death” during capture of Adolf Eichmann

The Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a statement regarding the revelation that the Israeli Mossad made the decision not to launch an operation to capture infamous Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele in 1960, at the same time it was capturing Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi official who engineered the Holocaust. Intelligence reports at the time located both top Nazis in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center said that the decision to forgo the Mengele capture was, “a justified but tragic decision. The operational decision on the ground was understandable because of fear that it could have botched the Eichmann capture."

“However,” said Hier, “once the plane carrying Eichmann landed in Israel, it is difficult to understand why the Israeli government did not immediately give the information on Mengele, Auschwitz’s ‘Angel of Death’ who was responsible for the murder of 400,000 people, half of them children, to Nazi-hunters like Simon Wiesenthal or friendly governments like the United States, urging them to act immediately.”

Eichmann was convicted of crimes against humanity and executed in 1962. Mengele eluded capture for decades and his remains were found in 1984. Forensic experts, including a team sponsored by the Wiesenthal Center, determined that he had indeed drowned in Brazil in 1979.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe.

For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036.