bild

Josef Mengele, German SS officer, physician and war criminal, 20th century. Mengele (1911-1979) was notorious for his work as a doctor in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. He initially was one of the doctors who, when prisoners arrived at the camp, made the selection between those who could perform forced labour and those who would be exterminated in the gas chambers. Mengele went on to perform grisly, perverted medical experiments on camp inmates, earning himself the nickname 'Angel of Death'. He was captured by the Americans at the end of the war, but not realising his true identity, they released him. His name was mentioned several times at the Nuremberg Trials, but the Allied authorities apparently believed at the time that he was no longer alive. In 1949 he escaped to South America, where he eluded capture for the rest of his life. (KEYSTONE/HERITAGE IMAGES/KEYSTONE ARCHIVES)