Word: braziller
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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That background supported the instinct of more and more observers last week that Mengele might have found refuge in Brazil between 1961 and 1979. Even some of the most skeptical of Nazi hunters were beginning to entertain the possibility that the exhumed body might be Mengele's. Wiesenthal, who had initially said there was a 99% chance that the affair was a hoax, had lowered his estimate to 40%. "The testimony of witnesses," said the confident Tuma, "gives certainty to the fact that we are dealing with the body of Josef Mengele...
...German investigators were careful to note that the identification of the body and the matching of documents were not necessarily related to each other -- or to the elusive doctor. The body might be Mengele's, but that would not prove that he had died six years ago or in Brazil. The letters might be his, but that did not prove that Pedro was Mengele, or that the Auschwitz doctor had ever lived among the Bosserts and the Stammers...
...would do it. I can imagine him, a lone wolf sitting in his den and laughing at how the whole world believes it." However fanciful, the point was well taken. Even a positive identification of the Embu bones and a categorical verification of Mengele's presence in Brazil would not resolve all the uncertainties. Nor would the laying to rest of the body bury memories of the deaths Mengele had caused or the evil he embodied...
...Following a tip from an unidentified informant, West German police raided the house in Gunzburg, West Germany, of Hans Sedlmeier, a former employee of the Mengele family firm who was said to have been in touch with Josef in South America. Inside, the agents discovered photographs and letters from Brazil that pointed to an elderly Austrian couple, Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert, who lived near Sao Paulo. Searching their home, Brazilian police discovered other documents apparently belonging to Mengele. The Bosserts said that they had first been introduced to Mengele in 1970 by an Austrian, Wolfgang Gerhard; that the doctor...
...Fears mounted when the experts in Sao Paulo initially declined assistance from abroad. Last week, however, the Wiesenthal Center supplied the Brazilians with the dossier it had assembled on Mengele and prevailed on them to allow three U.S. experts to observe the forensic process. "I understand that it is Brazil's national pride that is in question," said Rabbi Hier, "so it is difficult for them to say that American experts are going to be the ones at the table. But that is exactly what is going to happen." West Germany also sent over three forensic specialists to watch...