Josef Mengele

Mengele, Josef (1911–79?), Nazi war criminal. A doctor who conducted often inhuman medical experiments on inmates of Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp. Mengele is believed responsible for 400,000 deaths there. Captured by the Allies at the end of World War II, he was inadvertently released and fled to South America. Charged with war crimes by West Germany (1959), Mengele eluded capture for 20 years before dying in Brazil. Remains believed to be his were unearthed in a Brazilian cemetery in 1985.

See also: Auschwitz; Nazism.