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40 Fascinating Facts About the Relatives of Nazis After WWII

Khalid Elhassan March 14, 2019 24 min

34. Josef Mengele, the “Angel of Death”

Dr. Josef Mengele, center, at Auschwitz. Wikimedia

Josef Mengele, AKA the “Angel of Death“, was an SS doctor at Auschwitz, who greeted new arrivals at the camp, cursorily sorting out those who got to live as slave laborers from those to be sent immediately to the gas chambers. He was also a sadist who conducted deadly human experiments upon prisoners. He was captured after the war, but he hid his true identity with an assumed name and avoided prosecution. After his release, he moved to Argentina, where he resumed living under his real name. He was never brought to account for his crimes and died from a stroke in 1979. He was survived by a son, Rolf.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.