ARGENTINA: Wiesenthal Center zeroes in on top Nazi criminal Albert "Dr. Death" Heim
Record ID:
1519014
ARGENTINA: Wiesenthal Center zeroes in on top Nazi criminal Albert "Dr. Death" Heim
- Title: ARGENTINA: Wiesenthal Center zeroes in on top Nazi criminal Albert "Dr. Death" Heim
- Date: 19th July 2008
- Summary: ARRIVAL OF WIESENTHAL CENTER MEMBERS TO TOWN HALL EFRAIM ZUROFF FROM WIESENTHAL CENTER WITH BARILOCHE MAYOR MARCELO CASCON
- Embargoed: 5th August 2008 09:53
- Keywords:
- Location: Argentina
- Country: Argentina
- Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,History
- Reuters ID: LVA1F3UY9U65DUZO7735SI1U2OIW
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3
- Story Text: Wiesenthal Center comes to Bariloche, Argentina, to raise awareness in search for Dr. Aribert "Dr. Death" Heim, one of the last still at-large criminals from Nazi Germany.
A team from the Simon Weisenthal Center said on July 14 that no evidence exists that the world's most wanted Nazi criminal is dead, and that he is possibly living in either Argentine or Chilean Patagonia. Dr. Albert Heim, the man known as "Dr. Death," was also once again urged to turn himself in by the Nazi hunters.
Speaking at a press conference in Bariloche in southern Argentina, the Weisenthal Center Director Efraim Zuroff asserted he has information he won't divulge that suggests that Heim is still alive. Among proof that is known to the public is that despite his daughter's claim that Heim died in 1993, two bank accounts worth roughly three million U.S. dollars under his name are still active, and can only be turned over upon the presentation of a death certificate. Zuroff did note that Heim's confirmed 62-year old daughter Waltraud Boser who lives in Port Montt, Chile, regularly makes visits to Bariloche, located just over the Argentine-Chilean border.
"First of all i think that people who are under pressure are bound to mistakes. That's precisely what we're waiting for, we're waiting for them to make a mistake," Zuroff said at the press conference.
The center is offering a 495,000 U.S. dollar reward for Heim's capture as part of it's so-called "Operation Last Chance" for the still at-large 79 or so Nazi criminals. The Austrian and German states are offering an additional 500,000 USD reward.
"A person this age cannot live on his own, only with his own help, only by his own effort. Obviously people have to help him, they have to guard him. They have to be involved in this operation."
A doctor with Adolf Hitler's SS, Heim removed organs from victims without anaesthetic and killed hundreds of inmates at Buchenwald, Mauthausen, and Sachsenhausen concentration camps with injections of poison or gasoline straight to the heart. He is also reported to have regularly boiled heads as part of his tactics.
Heim has been on the run for 46 years since evading police in Germany in 1962 prior to a planned prosecution. He would be 94 if he is alive.
Hundreds of Nazis sought refuge in Latin America after World War Two, many lured to Argentina thanks to the open-door policies of Gen. Juan Domingo Peron, as well as to Chile and Brazil.
Among the Nazis who fled to Latin America, Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death" at Auschwitz, escaped to Argentina and lived in Paraguay before he died in Brazil in 1979. From Argentina, Erich Priebke was extradited to Italy from Argentina in 1996 for the killing of over three hundred Italian citizens, which came three decades after the famous 1960 capture of Adolf Eichmann, who was the chief administrator for the Holocaust of six million Jews. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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