- WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
Surrounded by photographers and locals, what are believed to be the bones of one of the world’s most hunted Nazis are seen being lifted from the ground.
Could Josef Mengele – the notorious ‘Angel of Death’ who performed horrific experiments on Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz extermination camp – really have been dead for years, despite a decades-long international manhunt?
That was the belief in June 1985, when intelligence provided by German police led the authorities to open a weed-covered tomb in a small cemetery in the town of Embu, 17miles from Sao Paulo.
Images that were previously unpublished in the UK showed bones and shreds of clothing being lifted out and placed on a long metal tray in front of hundreds of onlookers.
His skull was held up for all to see by Jose Antonio, the director of the mortuary where his remains were taken for tests.
Mengele was buried under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard, the identity he had been using for nearly a decade.
The images are revealed in new book Hiding Mengele: How a Nazi Network Harbored The Angel of Death, by Brazilian author Betina Anton.
It tells how Mengele fled Germany in secret four years after the Nazis’ defeat in the Second World War.
After making it to South America, he was shielded by a network of fellow European immigrants.
He spent the final two decades of his life in Brazil, where he died of a heart attack at the age of 67 in 1979 while swimming at the resort of Bertioga.
Forensic tests concluded it was highly likely that the exhumed remains were Mengele’s.
Mengele’s son, Rolf, said a few days after the exhumation that the bones were those of his father.
Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal at the time questioned why his family had not announced his death six years earlier.
Rolf Mengele said the family remained silent to avoid endangering those who had been sheltering him.
In a statement, he expressed the ‘deepest sympathy’ for his father’s victims.
DNA testing in 1992 provided definitive confirmation.
Mengele had lived the final years of his life as a quiet old man who avoided talking about the war.
He was said to have loved classical music and dined once a week at modest restaurant.
At the time of the 1985 exhumation, Nazi hunters were sceptical at the prospect that one of the biggest manhunts in history had finally come to an end.
His burial had been arranged quickly and quietly under the assumed name he had been using since 1971.
Mengele was notorious for medical experiments on twins at Auschwitz. He is alleged to have been responsible for the deaths of around 400,000 Jews.
The doctor was said to enjoy the procedures, despite the fact that he often inflicted immense pain and suffering on his victims.
He was particularly interested in twins and people with conditions such as dwarfism.
Ms Anton, who is Brazilian, reveals how Mengele was harboured by kindergarten teacher Liselotte Bossert and her husband Wolfram.
The author was herself taught by Bossert.
Mengele lived with the teacher, her husband and their two children – who called him ‘Uncle Peter’ – at their home in the Brooklin neighbourhood of São Paulo for 10 years.
The family enjoyed BBQs and visits to the beach, even as Mossad – Israel’s feared intelligence service – led international efforts to find him.
