Nazi war criminal Dr Josef Mengele carried out gruesome experiments on Jews and sent thousands of them to their death at Auschwitz. On Tuesday, a former Mossad agent said the spy agency missed at least two chances to capture him
Mossad reveals missed opportunities
Israel’s spy agency recently declassified its file on operations against the man known to prisoners as the ‘Angel of Death’. Rafi Eitan, who commanded the audacious capture in 1960 of top Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina, said that during the hunt he and his team discovered Mengele’s hideout
Eitan, 90, said that while the Mossad had Eichmann in a safe house ahead of smuggling him out of Buenos Aires, the agency’s chief, Isser Harel, wanted them to move against Mengele as well, according to AFP. But Eitan argued against the plan
Eichmann is captured, but Mengele escapes
“I didn’t want to carry out two operations at the same time because we had one operation in the bag, and ... if you try to carry out another one you put them both at risk,” Eitan said. So he stayed back to keep tabs on Mengele while his team took back the Holocaust architect Eichmann to Israel. But Mengele wasn’t home. While they waited for a week, Eichmann’s capture was made public and Mengele never returned
Second-time unlucky
Mengele was later spotted in Brazil. But Mossad missed him again. By 1962 they identified Mengele at a farm near Sao Paulo. But Mossad chief Harel resigned early the next year and his successors did not approve an operation against Mengele as they had other priorities around the world, Eitan said. Mengele died in an accident—drowning while swimming off the coast of Brazil in 1979