ARGENTINA: GOVERNMENT UNCOVER PAPERS DOCUMENTING NAZI ARRIVALS AT END OF WORLD WAR TWO.

Record ID: 646040

  • Title: ARGENTINA: GOVERNMENT UNCOVER PAPERS DOCUMENTING NAZI ARRIVALS AT END OF WORLD WAR TWO.
  • Date: 9th August 2003
  • Summary: (U7)BARILOCHE, ARGENTINA (FILE - 1995) (REUTERS) MV/PAN; NAZI CRIMINAL ERICH PRIEBKE GETTING ONTO PLANE AS HE WAS EXTRADITED TO EUROPE IN 1995
  • Embargoed: 24th August 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BUENOS AIRES, MENDOZA, BARILOCHE AND SANTA CRUZ, ARGENTINA
  • Country: Argentina
  • Topics: Crime,History,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAA5TCDK7X7R3GMV5VGIFH8GLGK
  • Story Text: The Argentine government has uncovered papers that document the entrance into Argentina of Nazis who sought refuge in the country after WW II.
    Josef Mengele, Klaus Barbie, Walter Kutschmann and 15 Croatian Nazis are among the Nazi war criminals who sought refuge in Argentina after World War II, according to immigration documents recently uncovered by the government and shown to Reuters on Thursday (August 07).
    The documents were discovered after President Nestor Kirchner appointed a number of investigators to sort through government records in response to a request by the U.S.-based Simon Wiesenthal Center. The Jewish rights organisation, headquartered in Los Angeles with offices worldwide, hunts down Nazis globally who were perpetrators of the Holocaust.
    Thousands of Nazis or Nazi-sympathizers sought refuge in Argentina under the government of Juan Peron. The Simon Wiesenthal Center said that between 150 and 300 of them were war criminals.
    The recently released documents include arrival records for Helmut Gregor's under the pseudonym Mengele, Klaus Barbie under the pseudonym Klaus Altmann and Erich Priebke under the pseudonym Otto Pape.
    The documents also include a letter by Croatian Franciscan priests to the Argentine government requesting that they allow entrance to 30,000 of their countrymen,
    "all of whom are excellent Catholics who need to leave Croatia because of their Catholicism and anti-communism."
    At least 15,000 Croatians entered Argentina during the presidency of Juan Peron.
    Argentina's Immigration Director Jorge Rampoldi said the records, which have been kept from the public for over 50 years, should help bring to light what happened in Argentina after the second World War.
    "This is a doubt that evidently the world has, Argentina has, many people have, and it must be dispelled by the truth," said Rampoldi. "The truth is this: to look in what we have, to see what it is, and, from (the basis of) that truth, we will have a much better reality than a truth that is supported by either 'no comment,' or in a lack of comments or in a lack of assumptions."
    Mengele, known as "the Angel of Death" in Auschwitz, was a physician who experimented on thousands of children and adults by removing their organs, injecting them with germs and exposing them to chemicals. He arrived in Argentina from Genoa in 1949 under the name of Helmut Gregor. He held a passport from the International Red Cross according to Rampoldi and listed his profession as mechanic.
    Barbie was a member of the Gestapo and was known as the "Butcher of Lyon." He went from Argentina to Bolivia, from which he was extradited to France in 1983 and sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 1991.
    Kutschmann, alias Pedro Olmo, was in charge of the Polish Gestapo. He was arrested in Buenos Aires in 1985 and died in a hospital a year later awaiting extradition to West Germany.
    Wiesenthal Center Representative Sergio Widder said Argentina did not just ignore, but encouraged the presence of Nazis.
    "The Argentine role was not limited to opening the door to criminals," said Widder, "but in many cases they even went out to look for them. And there was an office dedicated to that that functioned from the Casa Rosada just steps from the office of (then President) Juan Domingo Peron."
    The opening of the archives was a victory, according to the Wiesenthal Center, which has been trying to access these papers for decades. In 1992, then-President Carlos Menem declassified a number of documents but individuals or groups requesting to see them were denied access until now.
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register