Word: pedro
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...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...
...introduced at a social function to Wolfgang Gerhard. Gerhard, an Austrian living in Brazil, asked the Stammers if they could take in a Swiss friend of his named Peter Hochbichlet. The friend, Gerhard said, would be able to help out around the farm. Agreeing to put up Peter, or "Pedro," in a separate house on their property, the family found him to be as good as Gerhard's word: the man paid the Stammers a nominal rent and "mended fences, vaccinated cows, picked fruit...
When, later that year, the Stammers moved to a farm in Serra Negra, 100 miles north of Sao Paulo, their lodger went along, taking a room in their new home. One day, about two years after Pedro joined the household, a visitor left a newspaper in the house that featured a picture of Dr. Josef Mengele as he looked at Auschwitz. Despite the 20-year interval, said Stammer, she recognized in the picture the gap between Pedro's top front teeth, and the bent head with which he gave his one-sided smile. Later that day, she said, she showed...
...that point, the Stammers asked Gerhard to find another home for his friend. He promised to do so, but nothing happened. Weeks turned into months, months into years. Pedro stayed. Why did the Stammers not report their guest to the police? Because, said Gitta, Gerhard told them their lives would be in danger if they talked. Even after Gerhard had left Brazil, and died in Austria in 1978, said Stammer, she feared retribution from his "friends" if ever she went to the authorities. Throughout, Pedro never once threatened her family; he even went so far as to chide Gerhard...
...Pedro had the rough, callused hands of a seasoned laborer, Stammer remembered, but he was also a person of some refinement. He enjoyed having her play the piano for him, and he liked reading books on history and philosophy, metaphysics and chemistry. Among his favorites was The Decline of the West, written by Oswald Spengler. For the most part, Stammer reported, her guest remained quiet. "Sometimes," she recalled, "he went out of the house for six, seven hours at a time. I think he just went walking." The Stammers finally separated themselves from their increasingly unwanted guest in 1974. Moving...