“Mengele: Unmasking the Angel of Death” Book Talk

This program’s original recording transcript is below. This transcription was created automatically during a live program so may contain inaccurate transcriptions of some words.

Ari Goldstein: i'm Ari Goldstein Senior Public programs producer at the museum Jewish heritage, a living memorial to the Holocaust and it's a pleasure to welcome you to today's book talk on Dr David Morales book Mengele unmasking the angel of death.

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Ari Goldstein: David served as Director of the Museum of Jewish heritage for 15 years and prior to the museum was a former chief.

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Ari Goldstein: Of investigative research for the US Department of Justice office of special investigations.

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Ari Goldstein: it's that part of david's career that he draws on in this excellent new book which definitively tells the story of Josef Mengele the man Mengele the war criminal and the international hunt for Mengele after the war.

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Ari Goldstein: David is now President of the Leo back Institute and working on other projects, among them, and you book.

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Ari Goldstein: David is some conversation today with Andrew gorski and award winning journalist and author.

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Ari Goldstein: Andrew spent more than three decades as a foreign correspondent for Newsweek a foreign correspondent and editor for Newsweek working around the world, including in Berlin for Assad Moscow and grown.

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Ari Goldstein: his latest books are the Nazi hunters in 1941 year Germany lost the war.

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Ari Goldstein: If you find David and andy's discussion interesting today we hope you'll order david's book, which was just released in paperback today and it's now out in the US, Germany, Poland in Bulgaria.

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Ari Goldstein: You can order your copy at the link in the zoom chat.

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Ari Goldstein: please feel free to share questions in the zoom Q amp a box throughout the discussion and we'll get to as many as we can, towards the end of the hour, without further ado, welcome to both David congratulations on today's paperback release Andy feel free to get us started.

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Andrew Nagorski: Thank you, thank you are a it's a pleasure to see you and a pleasure to see David again, I think the first time we met was.

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Andrew Nagorski: Several years ago when I was just starting on that working research on the book the Nazi hunters and everybody I talked to in Washington or Tel Aviv or.

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Andrew Nagorski: Are in Germany said, have you spoken to David mar well and.

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Andrew Nagorski: It was because David, you had the perspective being on the inside, for so long, but then being on the outside.

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Andrew Nagorski: able to really look look at the whole picture and way that I think some people who were directly involved in various aspects of this story and related stories sometimes had a little hard time dealing with and.

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Andrew Nagorski: And, and you, I really appreciated the help you gave me then and I was, I was really intrigued when already, then you were talking about writing this book.

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Andrew Nagorski: The the study of Mengele he is a character, who, I think we all know, in so many ways and there's a lot of mythology there's a lot of a lot of reality there's a lot of strange twists and turns the story and you've done an outstanding job in the book in capturing all that.

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Andrew Nagorski: Now the when I first picked up the book, I was struck by the fact that, of course, you start in 1985 which was when Israel, the United States and Germany to renew if pledged to work together to renew their hunt for for Mengele and to cooperate.

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Andrew Nagorski: Coincidentally, I happen to go to arrive and bond as the Newsweek correspondent they are in 1985.

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Andrew Nagorski: And that was one of the first stories, I was assigned to you are remember We convened a number of European correspondence in my office and bond on a conference call with New York.

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Andrew Nagorski: In which they said, well, we know these three countries are all looking for mandalay.

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Andrew Nagorski: And we want to cover this story and we divvied out assignments who's going where and who's doing what and I remember what am I editor is saying well, of course, we've got the massage we got.

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Andrew Nagorski: The osi the office of special investigations others really you know they've got the all the resources were just a bunch of reporters but this editor said wouldn't it be great if we found mangling answer is yeah well let's say the chutzpah factor, there was off the charts.

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Andrew Nagorski: And of course the irony being that, as we all facts you found out soon enough that he had already been dead for since 1979 but that's the story that you tell and that's part of the whole.

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Andrew Nagorski: Whole narrative here so before we get into the into his personality into the hunt, can you give David a little more background for everyone here on the call about how you got into this line of work as a historian investigator, a German specialist.

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David Marwell: Short short thanks very much and before I before I answer that question I want to thank the museum and thank you for is kind of introduction, and thank you Andy for.

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David Marwell: The Green to do this talk i've always admired your work and and I appreciate your taking the time today I, I have to say that as a as a academically trained historian.

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David Marwell: i've had a unusual and very blessed career in that it was, unlike anything I could have imagined.

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David Marwell: While I was in graduate school, but I.

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David Marwell: I applied for a job at the newly formed office of special investigations in.

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David Marwell: I applied actually I think in the the very end of 1979 and was hired in March of 1980 and became the third historian to join the staff at the office.

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David Marwell: The Office had hired a bunch of history graduate students to translate German records and we were essentially at the beginning kind of like.

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David Marwell: kind of helping out in the office, the office was staffed with 10 professional criminal investigators, who carried badges and guns and they were initially assigned to do the investigation support the prosecution of Nazi work on those living in the United States.

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David Marwell: But it soon turned out, because the crimes that we that the office was involved in happened and ocean away and they involve the kind of history that was very complicated and.

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David Marwell: really not well remembered by by people and.

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David Marwell: We, as the historians were able to kind of assume the role of what the investigator in a traditional prosecutor's office.

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David Marwell: Had and we eventually surpassed in terms of numbers, the the investigators, who are assigned to the case so there were there were 1010 or 11 investigators when when I joined and I was a third story, by the time I left almost a decade later.

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David Marwell: There were 10 historians and one investigator, and we assume the role of of the investigators, we knew the languages we knew the history.

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David Marwell: I remember, at one point my my boss, the chief historian at the time, said, you know, most of the attorneys can't find Ukraine on a map and.

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David Marwell: For them to be able to to explain a complicated history to a judge and be successful prosecution that they needed help and putting the evidence into context, and so we we had.

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David Marwell: We really the first professional historians, who were were hired in full time basis to work in the prosecutor's office and we we established what i've coined some time ago that the field of forensic history in the sense and so that was very, very interesting and our normal cases involved.

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David Marwell: Usually collaborators.

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David Marwell: from Eastern Europe who worked with the the Nazis who had invaded their countries and help them.

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David Marwell: carry out their occupation roles, so they were in interpreters, they were exhilarating police officers.

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David Marwell: And when the war was over these people came in large numbers, the United States and osi was established in 1979 to to investigate them and to.

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David Marwell: Try to meet out a certain measure of justice by by D naturalized them if they were American citizens or deporting them, but in 1983 the Attorney General assigned to us a special.

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David Marwell: invest a special special investigation, which was the case of Klaus Barbie who had been accused of having worked.

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David Marwell: With the with the Americans at the end of the war and it raised the whole issue of Americans using Nazi war criminals as intelligence assets.

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David Marwell: And I was assigned to a case in 1983 and we wrote a major report that was published in the summer of 83 which in fact found that Barbie had been used as an as an intelligence asset.

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David Marwell: In 1985.

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David Marwell: There were similar allegations that were that were raised about Josef Mengele and his role visa V American institutions in American personnel and we were initially assigned to investigate that what happened to mangle at the end of the war was the in fact in US custody was the.

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David Marwell: US intelligence acid did the United States helped him to leave Europe to go to South America, and I was assigned to the small team within the office to work on that case.

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David Marwell: So that took me to the to the medical investigation and the investigation, then.

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David Marwell: Soon, was joined by other countries and our our mission was broaden to not only account for mangoes where abouts at the end of the war and the role or possible role of us.

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David Marwell: institutions or personnel, we were also charged then with trying to find Mengele and to bring them to justice, and in that effort.

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David Marwell: We were joined by another department and they in the Justice Department, the US Marshal service and by the the first the Germans, and then the Israeli governments in form of.

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David Marwell: Their judicial and police authorities and, in the case of Israel also their intelligence agency.

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Andrew Nagorski: David good, I will take a slight step back, because the hunt and then what happens, of course, is fascinating as in which is threads throughout your book.

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Andrew Nagorski: But then there is the whole question of who really was Mengele even before you get to the end of the war, what happened in terms of his kids who were he was captured where were you how he alluded everybody.

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Andrew Nagorski: You know, with iseman there was a famous, of course, the case of upon aren't talking about the banality of evil saying he was really more a bureaucrat than a monster.

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Andrew Nagorski: I found it interesting that you get into a similar discussion a little bit with Mengele thing here, on the one hand, is his first, and of course we know from fact and legend.

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Andrew Nagorski: Was did monsters things and it's hard to imagine more grotesque some other.

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Andrew Nagorski: events related to his life and yet at the same time, I found I found it really interesting to see the way you portrayed him as even at Auschwitz he's thinking about his next academic degree and how he's basically going to plot his career path based on his supposedly.

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Andrew Nagorski: Science at Auschwitz so was this again.

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Andrew Nagorski: Where you fall in kind of if you apply the the debate about on our end to Mengele where where do you come out on that and.

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Andrew Nagorski: I see.

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David Marwell: One of the challenges and writing about Mengele that's, a challenge that I didn't completely understand the dimension of until I got down to putting pen to paper at least metaphorically.

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David Marwell: And that is that.

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David Marwell: Mengele became it was a process that began after after the after the war ended.

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David Marwell: As as he left Europe and went went to South America and was relatively safe of kind of corresponding process of what I what I call I codification to place where Mengele assume the role of the icon or the symbol for for many for the Holocaust itself and certainly for Auschwitz.

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David Marwell: And that process served in some way to distort, in my view, and to mythologize.

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David Marwell: Mengele his activities and so part of my.

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David Marwell: My goal in the book was to kind of separate Mengele from the myth myths that had attach themselves to him, and this was something I didn't really realize until I.

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David Marwell: tried to figure out what what exactly did Mengele do what what motivated him and what what brought him what what kind of guided him through his life and it turns out, in my view that.

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David Marwell: That it was really his intense engagement and interest in the science that became his his his passion.

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David Marwell: Mengele came from a prominent and wealthy family in a small city of gunzburg in in Bavaria, which gunzburg one could say was a company town in Mengele.

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David Marwell: mango his father owned the company they made farm manufacturing equipment and Mengele grew up in a prosperous family as the third son, the oldest of three sons.

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David Marwell: But showed no no real signs of the man, he was to become as a child, he was you don't see the stories of him, you know going in the backyard and and torturing the the families pet or anything like that he had an unremarkable childhood marked by serious illness but beyond that.

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David Marwell: A warm family, which was described by its by people who knew them as conservative and Catholic those two those two adjectives certainly stand out, none of the kind of.

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David Marwell: Radical politics that would engage him, later on, none of the.

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David Marwell: kind of.

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David Marwell: Significant anti semitism that certainly would be part of his life, later on, it really wasn't until he got to the university when he became engaged in in the study of both medicine and anthropology he earned advanced degrees in both disciplines.

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David Marwell: And he earned those degrees, at a time when those sciences.

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David Marwell: form to kind of one historians call that a symbiotic relationship with the Nazi state they the science of racial racial hygiene racial science.

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David Marwell: Actually form media logical basis for much of Nazi politics and that synergistic relationship.

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David Marwell: benefited both the state and the science and those who practice it by elevating the status of the science through funding and through through promotion and elevating the people practice it through their own personal status and their sense of.

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David Marwell: making a difference and Mengele had an elite education, beginning in 1930 University of Munich and that studying throughout the great universities in Germany.

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David Marwell: had no Nobel Prize laureates as his teachers people who had already earned the Nobel Prize and those who would later.

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David Marwell: Later in their careers and Mengele was a was a very promising prospects and he could look forward to a career in science, he not only have his PhD in anthropology which in.

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David Marwell: In the Nazi period, it was mainly what we would call to the physical anthropology and and with a with a hard focus on on on racial science his mentor was a man named Taylor morrison, who was a.

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David Marwell: real leader in the field.

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David Marwell: He got his medical license meaning medical practice medicine as an md but he went beyond that to get a PhD in medicine which allowed him to pursue an academic career to become a university professor, or the head of a of an institute or a laboratory.

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David Marwell: His mentor there was a man named Akbar fun for sure who was one of the leading geneticists in Germany and the head of the Institute in Frankfurt, where Mengele went to become an assistant, so he had all the components of.

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David Marwell: Really.

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David Marwell: First rate education and chose a field that was benefited greatly by the political and cultural changes that took place in Germany at the time.

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David Marwell: And he was well set up for a pretty bright future in the field of study that he had chosen, and you know within the society that he thought that the Nazi state would would create.

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David Marwell: And that's that's where that's how that's how we got started.

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Andrew Nagorski: And, and I guess, I mean what I take away from them from your book is that he saw I mean he was basically you careerist.

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Andrew Nagorski: And you saw his his life in that field, and if some if the ideology i've been somewhat different if the.

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Andrew Nagorski: target of that ideology of some one on different and it hit advanced his career he might have chosen, you know, not so much anti semitism as another ideology hating another group and.

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Andrew Nagorski: I mean it's interesting I brought this up, I remember with rafi I Tom the guy, who was the head of the commando unit that took it that that kidnapped.

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Andrew Nagorski: Eichmann and he said, you know if.

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Andrew Nagorski: He felt with Eichmann it was the same thing that yes, he was.

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Andrew Nagorski: Yes, he was anti Semite Semite, but that was not enough to explain his behavior if the system, he was serving had other goals he might very well have directed himself elsewhere, but he was primary trying to please his superiors into rise up the ladder, as it were, as gruesome I sounds.

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David Marwell: I think that's true I think clearly ambition was it a tremendous motive force for for Mengele its desire to excel in the field, but I wouldn't discount his his kind of ideological connected, he was by no means an early Nazi he joined the party.

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David Marwell: I think in 1938.

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David Marwell: He wasn't driven.

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David Marwell: primarily by kind of ideological motives, but he did believe in it, it wasn't as if he this was a kind of a jacket he put on because it was the fashion, at the time, and he would have taken it off, I think he really was committed and and I think.

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David Marwell: As I as I went through his life and in trying to figure him out one of the most telling things was that his lack of remorse at the end, which was.

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David Marwell: The lack of remorse of someone who was committed and the testimony of people who served with him was talking about is not talking about his victims.

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David Marwell: But his colleagues, they they marveled at his at his commitment to the to the ideology and I think that's that's true and that's that's I think an important.

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David Marwell: factor to keep in mind about Mengele.

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David Marwell: Although ambition.

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David Marwell: which, of course, can be seen by many as a positive thing it's, certainly in the case of someone who was.

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David Marwell: Pursuing science and the science that Mengele did it, it was a.

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David Marwell: pretty clear path to to accesses and and.

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David Marwell: Overcoming what should have been a moral and human values yeah.

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Andrew Nagorski: Certainly, those did not impede them in any way yeah, but I think it again gets saved just not to draw too much on.

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Andrew Nagorski: On all right, but I mean her argument on Iceland was if you consider him a monster, in a way it gets everybody else off the hook yeah these are real people with their own motives that mixed in with the ideology.

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David Marwell: But let's get I think i'm yeah I just have one more word on that, I think that it is in fact more comforting in a way to relegate Mengele to the to the world of monsters of.

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David Marwell: And and more difficult and challenging to consider him to be as I saying the book The both the product and the promise of a much more comprehensive system.

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David Marwell: And I think I think that's important to keep in mind.

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David Marwell: I think it replaces what is a kind of grotesque caricature with something that's even more unsettling which was that he was he was a human being right right.

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Andrew Nagorski: Now I know there's it's a very complex tale I don't don't need to have you go through all of it, but I think it's worth can you set the stage here.

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Andrew Nagorski: At the end of the war, how Mengele eludes capture how he's briefly captured but not recognize and I think a lot of people today don't.

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Andrew Nagorski: don't understand the dynamics of that and not just in English case but in other cases, which were fairly well known figures.

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Andrew Nagorski: what was going on how could they allude capture, then what was his path and the ratlines to get to Latin America and and also what was the role of his family, and all this.

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David Marwell: i'll do my best to be brief here, but it is a complicated story, I think the first thing to to remember and I reminded myself, where I.

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David Marwell: recognize this fact when we started in 1985 in 1985 Mengele was a far more notorious figure.

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David Marwell: than he was in 1945 except, of course, for those who had encountered in personally, but he was, although we knew him as the icon the symbol of the Holocaust, the symbol of our shirts.

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David Marwell: In 1945 at the end of the war, he was no such thing the fact that the first thing I did was to try to figure out whether.

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David Marwell: The name itself was anything remarkable and I discovered that there were 17 other Josef Mengele is who were active in the German armed forces.

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David Marwell: Someone the SS one of them was born in Mengele his own town of gunzburg so that if you consider the the the challenge of trying to find someone named Joseph mango when there wasn't an unusual name and listen in that context.

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David Marwell: The other it's true, though, that mega was wanted, he was in the original UN war crimes.

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David Marwell: Commission list, which was, which was incorporated into the Google chromecast lists, so he was on unwanted list, but we found in my investigation back in in.

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David Marwell: When I was with the Justice Department is that these lists were not efficiently.

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David Marwell: distributed and we, we found that that in many cases, although the list may be dated early summer 1945 they weren't they didn't find their way to the pow and closures until much, much later, sometimes even toward the end of the year.

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David Marwell: We know that Mengele left Auschwitz in January mid January of 1945 before the Soviets liberated the camp.

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David Marwell: He made his way it's a I won't go into all the details, but he found himself, at the very end of the war in early May 1945.

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David Marwell: headed back toward Germany and he was in what was then Czechoslovakia near the town of carlsbad and he found he kind of stumbled upon a military field hospital.

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David Marwell: And, as luck would have it, for him, he knew, one of the physicians in this field hospital, it was a very markfield hospital.

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David Marwell: Mengele asked whether he could join this field hospital and the commander said yes, he shed his SS uniform and assume the identity of a Wehrmacht.

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David Marwell: physician this particular field hospital found its way northward up to the hearts mountains and was in this area, which was called the no man's land when the war ended, they were in an unoccupied area between the advancing Soviets and the advancing Western allies in this case the Americans.

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David Marwell: And mingle was able to stay with this unit for about six weeks build a good cover story and at some point they decided wisely to to surrender to the Americans and not to the Soviets, and so they went.

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David Marwell: West where they ended up near near home in Germany, and they surrendered to the Americans that were there, they were taken to a pow pow camp, they were in that camp, they were one other camp, which, to which they were transferred and in August at 45 they were released.

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David Marwell: They were Mengele I believe was released under his own name, although there's some question about that.

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David Marwell: But Mengele didn't have, first of all, the wanted list on which his name appeared hadn't been distributed to the camps where where he had been, in turn, and secondly, more important.

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David Marwell: He didn't have the blood type tattoo under his left arm, which marked every SS were should have marked every SS.

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David Marwell: Man Mengele as the medical officer in the unit that he was assigned to before he went to Auschwitz was responsible for having everyone tattooed with their blood type and He threw vanity according to his his wife first wife, he didn't have the.

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David Marwell: That telltale marker and so when when the US released.

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David Marwell: captured soldiers soldiers from the pow camps, they haven't taken off the shirts and raised their hands and the kind of.

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David Marwell: me kind of selection process, they went through and anyone with this telltale mark of the SS on their arm, they would be shut that aside and interrogated more carefully Mengele was not he was released.

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David Marwell: And he found his way eventually to a farm in Bavaria, where he did for three years or so, as a farm Labor under an assumed name.

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David Marwell: His wife would visit him occasionally he was able to connect with his son was in a toddler but by 1948 with the doctors trial in Nuremberg.

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David Marwell: It became difficult, in his view, for him to think about building a life again in Germany, so he, with the help of his family's wealth, he was able to make his way.

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David Marwell: overland through to Austria through the Brenner pass into Italy and eventually to Genoa, he was able to get Red Cross Red Cross passport and manny permit for Argentina and made his way, then in the end of May 1949 sailed to Buenos Aires, where he where he commanded sometime in June right.

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Andrew Nagorski: That was a well trodden path and.

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David Marwell: yeah well.

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David Marwell: Although we didn't find any US or allied connection in in his escape he used the same kind of infrastructures and there were a number of people who it was it was a whole.

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David Marwell: As you say, a whole kind of river of refugees, not all of them war criminals some simply people who wanted to go back home or wanted to get away from where they were and and he joined in that flow of humanity and ended up in South America yeah.

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Andrew Nagorski: And then I mean he gets to the point.

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Andrew Nagorski: which a lot of people assume well, of course, everybody was looking for the Mossad of us have been looking for him, but we know, in reality, the situation was quite different than the sun had other priorities.

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Andrew Nagorski: As as these really state have just been created, the USA, a cold war has started, so what was the attitude I mean how much was even on the radar screen at first, once again, you got to.

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David Marwell: Also, have Oh, he arrived under a false name and kept a false name and was nervous there was really no reason to be at the beginning, and he did find Buenos Aires a very benign environment, first of all, one person, provided that, in terms of political environment where he welcomed.

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David Marwell: Nazi emigres and it also was a you know after three years or so, as a farm Labor doing you know really hard manual Labor.

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David Marwell: mango was able again to kind of feed the life of the mind you know there were theaters in libraries and bookstores in in Buenos Aires, there was a large German emigrate community which he connected with including having met.

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David Marwell: I met a couple of times so that they were really from a different social background and didn't really like each other, reportedly or didn't really hit it off, but Mengele did did have lots of German friends, including Hans rodel who was.

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David Marwell: An important figure for his later success in hiding, but he really wasn't being looked for in the 50s it was like a desert in terms of the prosecution Nazi war criminals or investigation, both in Germany itself and and around the world, it really wasn't until.

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David Marwell: 1958.

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David Marwell: When.

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David Marwell: it's also a long, complicated story, but when mangle His name was was became to emerge as someone of of investigative interest and.

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David Marwell: The German prosecutor near where mangle family lived began investigation, there was a criminal complaint.

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David Marwell: And they said some police officers to mangle this town remember the company town and start asking questions where's where's young Josef Mengele and the family heard of this and they got word to Mengele in South America that.

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David Marwell: That there was investigative interest in him and Mengele then almost immediately decided that he had to leave Argentina, because Argentina had a.

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David Marwell: extradition treaty with Germany, although it was a very difficult process and not terribly successful when it was attempted it still was theoretically possible for him to be.

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David Marwell: To be.

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David Marwell: extradited so beginning in the in the fall of 1958 Mengele began to scout out another possibility and he had some connections in Paraguay.

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David Marwell: and decided to go there and by the spring of 1959 he was already living in in Paraguay and was God gotcha citizenship there through fraud was able to be naturalized as a.

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David Marwell: paraguayans citizen, and the reason that was important, is under Paraguayan law you couldn't be extradited if you were a citizen of paradise.

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David Marwell: So Mengele felt pretty good so good that he kept his name Jose Mengele and lived in Paraguay, his family, visited him is his wife, when we get married in a second wife for me and married in 1958.

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David Marwell: Who was still living in in in point is ours after he left would visit him his father, I think, or his brother visited him, and some people from the family firm visited him.

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David Marwell: He felt very, very comfortable until a particular event happened in May of 1960, which was the Israeli capture of Eichmann which showed I can imagine the Aha moment that Mengele had when he learned about eichmann's capture was that.

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David Marwell: It doesn't matter if there's an extradition treaty or not with Paraguay if the Israelis are willing to snatch someone.

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David Marwell: off the streets in Buenos Aires, they can do the same to me here so at that point he decided to go to go underground really underground new name new country which, for which he had never visited, at least not in any significant way, and he went he went in the fall of 1962.

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David Marwell: to Brazil, where it's got this last 719 years of his life yeah.

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Andrew Nagorski: yeah well, one of the great ironies of course is that he did get away but and and that he, but he thought the Israelis or visa or some combination of.

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Andrew Nagorski: folks aren't were after him all the way, which, as we now know and as you right he's really did.

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Andrew Nagorski: have some discussions when they went after I mean if they thought Mengele might still be in in Buenos iris but they didn't but they weren't sure, and then they were afraid of diluting their efforts.

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Andrew Nagorski: But until the last didn't he you right and i'll just probably just make this the last question that i'd like to open up to the audience that he he wrote basically a what he called.

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Andrew Nagorski: An auto fiction about his life as an account of his life.

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Andrew Nagorski: And, and he wrote letters do I think it to his family, which it indicates that he was he was obsessed for the rest, and for that last period of his life, about being about being captured so at least he did not.

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Andrew Nagorski: Let us say die in peace, even though he alluded everybody and then managed to even his family, even managed to keep it quiet that he had died yeah.

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David Marwell: So he.

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David Marwell: You know.

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David Marwell: In I was almost finished with the first draft of the book when in September 2017 the Israelis released declassified and major report several hundred pages, based on their mega file and I learned through that something I didn't know before a number of things, but one was how.

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David Marwell: How.

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David Marwell: focused, they were for a period of time in finding Mengele beginning after the iPad kidnapping where they they had tried to you know they'd send a team.

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David Marwell: After I Quinn was safely in the safe house they went out to his last known address and they couldn't find him but they recruited a very effective agent and then men in villain sawsan in in Buenos Aires who eventually led them to Brazil and they were within.

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David Marwell: Pretty likely and we can't be 100% sure, but I believe, but in the in the summer of 1962 they were.

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David Marwell: You know 20 or 30 meters away from from Mengele when he was on this farm near some power and they were quite close to cracking cracking the whole the whole structure that was established to protect Mengele in South America and Brazil, specifically.

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David Marwell: They didn't get there, but but by all reports Mengele was looking over his shoulder all the time, because he was certain that they were going to get him so his last year's were not the kind of.

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David Marwell: You know comfortable life, you know, on the plantation near the River with dogs and cigarette boats in the river that one imagined that we imagined, he was living when when we were looking for him in 85 he lived a pretty first of and and sparse life.

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David Marwell: In in a suburb of San Paolo where he ended up dying in 1979 now.

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Andrew Nagorski: Surely did.

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Andrew Nagorski: My apologies one second I just I managed to hit something wrong again and just wanted and I lost, I wanted to start getting back get to the questions sorry if you hear me, can you just email me the questions because.

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Andrew Nagorski: I think I may have just closed something by mistake, my apologies hold on.

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i'm going to.

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David Marwell: Do the Q amp a button on the bottom there there's a.

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Andrew Nagorski: yeah I just seem to have let me skip back in blocked me, for some reason, maybe yeah I mean OK OK i'm back there okay all right so got got it okay.

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Andrew Nagorski: All right, why don't we just go through some of these questions.

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Andrew Nagorski: Sure, and let's see.

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Andrew Nagorski: So there's there's a question we get back to the underground railroad to Latin America Nazi sympathizers.

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Andrew Nagorski: And the question is how much blame should be cast on South American dictators for for that railroad who really was responsible for it.

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David Marwell: Well i'm not I won't claim to be an expert on on this, but I can tell you that certainly want perowne in Argentina, he was in in power until 1955 I believe.

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David Marwell: When he left the atmosphere changed drastically and it was no longer such a benign haven for Nazis power by emerged as as an attractive place to go, because of the President of Paraguay afraid or Stroessner who who whose father I believe was from Bavaria and he offered.

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David Marwell: Another haven for them, so what what's the role of the responsibility, certainly.

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David Marwell: They bear a huge responsibility for the welcoming the kind of the welcome environment that they provided and.

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David Marwell: and probably also for their having not.

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David Marwell: You know.

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David Marwell: effectively.

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David Marwell: search stories ever aided the search of other countries who are looking within their borders.

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Andrew Nagorski: And there's a question about what happened to his family members, I mean you had Rolf his son, who was for all and and the obvious question, I think, for a lot of people I remember that intrigued.

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Andrew Nagorski: us when we were covering this story is why the family maintained the fiction that he was alive for so long and just I don't think i'm giving anything away here, he died in 1979, as you say, probably at a heart attack, I gather, while he was swimming.

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David Marwell: or stroke, probably was our.

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stroke.

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Andrew Nagorski: And yet here we were in 85 and the hunter hunter was still allegedly on and.

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Andrew Nagorski: And no one would.

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Andrew Nagorski: would confirm that that he had died.

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Andrew Nagorski: So what wasn't here.

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David Marwell: yeah so that we have, we have a little bit of a of a hint as to why.

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David Marwell: The family didn't cooperate there's a letter that the letter from the family in Brazil, that was shielding Mengele and providing them with with comfort and companionship.

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David Marwell: When they reported his death to to his son to mangle his son, they said we're going to keep this quiet and there's a there's a implication in the letter that.

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David Marwell: That that'll just keep them looking as if it were kind of mischievous you know they should waste their time looking for me, even though he's dead, so that was in the family didn't want to bring attention to themselves, it really until.

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David Marwell: You know, there were there was a kind of background noise about where Mengele was but it wasn't until 1985 when when this really erupted actually in 84 when when there was a movement.

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David Marwell: in Paraguay that because everyone believed he was in Paraguay, to try to get him to try to get stressed, or to to cough up Mengele and some of the family.

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David Marwell: Family just didn't want to didn't want to help, they didn't want to participate, and I think they felt that they would remain less than the public eye, if they if they simply didn't do anything.

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David Marwell: That change of course the calculus change once the investigation began in terms of their own legal liability under German Criminal Law there's a criminal procedure there's no.

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David Marwell: way that a family can be obliged to testify against the family member there's no obligation for them to have.

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David Marwell: offered up the information that Mengele was living in South America, there was no question that could be charged with obstruction of justice.

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David Marwell: Other Members, you know people in the firm who were supporting it and other people who assisted in kind of mangle is communication system that they established they wouldn't been guilty of could have been guilty of obstruction of justice, but not the family.

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Andrew Nagorski: Another question from an audience Member what happened to the other leading Nazi you genesis and you know ratio of quote unquote racial scientists can I mean, of course, there are many, many cases, but any anywhere anything at nearly as prominent as Mengele and you know what.

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Andrew Nagorski: The fate of others.

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David Marwell: Again there's mangoes became much more famous after after he did what he did.

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David Marwell: It wasn't so famous at the time, I guess the the, the issue of mangoes mentor who was really one of the leading rachael Ray scientism.

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David Marwell: geneticist in Germany at the time was the founder of the of the at the time leading Journal in in terms of.

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David Marwell: Re science guy named fanfare sure.

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David Marwell: He survived the war.

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David Marwell: And he ended up having quite a career at the University of monster as a as a chairman geneticists.

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David Marwell: When Mengele was at Auschwitz it's it's absolutely clear that he had an ongoing relationship with the fisher, who was the head of Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin.

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David Marwell: That he would be he would send samples of kind of growth and anomalies or unusual specimens from from the camp, to the Institute, he was the experiments, he did with with the eichler.

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David Marwell: He was doing on behalf of in consultation with a woman named current magnuson know was a ophthalmologist who studied I color and the.

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David Marwell: phenomenon of hetero chromium, which is when one person has two different color eyes, he was sending the the harvested eyes of people with this condition to her in Berlin for her further study.

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David Marwell: He sent 200 blood samples from the whole variety of people from different ethnic and racial backgrounds from Berlin to for sure in Berlin, so that, for sure could.

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David Marwell: proceed with a study of what what what was then known as specific proteins, which was an attempt to find a racial.

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David Marwell: diagnosis, the ability to diagnose race, by looking at blood in certain proteins.

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David Marwell: So in for sure ended up without being prosecuted and had a substantial career in post war Germany he he clearly destroyed all the correspondence that he had had with with Mengele, although some of his correspondence with the.

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David Marwell: With the.

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David Marwell: German foundation that supported research research scientific research, he included he talked about Mengele in those in some of those reports but that's I think the most prominent of the racial scientists yeah.

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Andrew Nagorski: And a question related question from from for another audience Member ID any of important scientific insights come from from these.

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Andrew Nagorski: His Mengele his experiments on twins I color Can anything, be said, said about that it's interesting that occasionally there's still stories that come out saying you know, drawing on such experiments and discussion was was there anything that could be could say was was.

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David Marwell: Your sadism right, so that the answer that question is I don't know because if the answer is no, but the reason why the answer is no way that.

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David Marwell: We don't really know the nature of megaliths experiments at Auschwitz with with a few exceptions, we know a little bit about the eye color experiments which were not, by the way to.

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David Marwell: Change the color of eyes to make them more arian in appearance, it really had to do with a much more serious undertaking, which was to try to understand.

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David Marwell: What what the structures and and perhaps genetics involved in eichler are the the production of pigment and the structure of the eye.

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David Marwell: So we we know the nature of those experiments where Mengele was was putting certain hormones probably adrenaline in the eyes of some subjects and then recording things.

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David Marwell: With the specific protein experiments, we know a little bit because of progress reports that were filed with the foundation that was supportive and research there's only one situation where I think what could make the argument that the research that was done there.

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David Marwell: had some impact, at least, it was in the hands of people and could be used, and that is there was a disease called noma, which is an oral cancer, which had essentially disappeared from the developed world.

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David Marwell: By the time by the middle part of the 20th century, there was a huge outbreak in in in Auschwitz when Mengele arrived and Mengele decided he wanted to find.

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David Marwell: An effective treatment for this this this disease, which was quite alarming because it ate away at the the soft tissue around the mouth and created some eventually lead to death, but also people's kind of chicks would would would fall away.

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David Marwell: So Mengele decided in trying to find a treatment for this disease, he recruited a use air quotes.

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David Marwell: A very prominent check physician named bechtold Epstein it was in another part of the Auschwitz complex and brought Epstein to the gypsy camp or Mengele was the the camp physician, and they set up a kind of Ward and one of the barracks and a even increased some of the nutritional.

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David Marwell: Nutrition that the the young kids were were getting and Epstein experiment with different types of drugs and different drug combinations and.

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David Marwell: We know this because there was another inmate physician may Lucy Adams burger from Berlin, who in 1946 wrote an article for Lancet the medical British Medical Journal about epstein's work under Mengele at Auschwitz to to cure the case of the disease of noma.

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David Marwell: A couple of ironies here one is that the cause of the disease was the camp itself was poor nutrition and poor sanitary conditions.

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David Marwell: And the other irony, which is, which is terribly tragic is that no child who was cured by Dr Epstein of the disease of know survived the camp because.

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David Marwell: They were they were then liquidated or murdered at the when the camp, the gypsy so called gypsy camp was was was liquidated were murdered, so that you end up with this one example where at least the work that was done there was.

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David Marwell: Although this wasn't mangle his own science, but it was science that he brought under his the structure of his research at Auschwitz.

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David Marwell: and ended up in a very prestigious Journal in.

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David Marwell: 1946 now.

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Andrew Nagorski: we're getting close to time so but I and a number of people have asked questions related to Nazi war criminals in the US, so this is not direct Mengele obviously you've dealt with the issue of whether the US was involved in in his case it actually looks like it wasn't.

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Andrew Nagorski: But they were of course Nazi war criminals and and and people are.

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Andrew Nagorski: There was a question whether to what extent at the Department of Justice were you involved investigating these cases and and the whole issue of some of them collecting us, social security and so forth.

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Andrew Nagorski: I it's I know it's a it's a complicated legal, moral, political issue, but briefly, can you just explain.

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Andrew Nagorski: The situation, the office of special investigations was in in investigating such cases.

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David Marwell: Sure, so, in most cases, of course, there there wasn't any allegation that the people who are the subjects of our investigations had been.

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David Marwell: assisting the US Government anyway, they were they were people who had assisted the.

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David Marwell: The Nazis and found their way found themselves in this kind of see of displaced humanity, at the end of the war and.

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David Marwell: They lied about the past, to get to the United States, by having glossed over their their work for the Nazis, there were there were people who who who worked for the Allies cross Barbie is probably the poster boy.

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David Marwell: For them, we found in our investigation of class Barbie that the people who recruited him at the time again context is so important, what did people know at the time when they recruit him it's unlikely that they knew of his.

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David Marwell: War crimes at some point they did know that he was accused of workarounds because the French had requested is extradition for to stand trial and the friend zone.

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David Marwell: And the Americans decided, because they suspected, the French of being infiltrated by by the Soviets the French intelligence services they decided.

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David Marwell: That they would get get.

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David Marwell: Barbie out of Europe to South America and they use them, the so called ratlines a similar path to which Mengele took but with, with the help of US intelligence.

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David Marwell: So that's the most famous one, but there are other examples of there are examples of i'd always say we had subjects who were involved in the so called project paperclip who were.

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David Marwell: had been.

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David Marwell: involved in the persecution of individuals during the war and then.

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David Marwell: kind of linked their stars to the Americans by by helping us in our space program and in things like arrow medical research and and other.

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David Marwell: Other factors and there were there are a few kind of other examples that that have been written about of people who, who had been at the end of the war.

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David Marwell: During the Cold War had been recruited it's impossible to understand that whole concept of Americans using Nazis, without understanding the the timing and the context of the Cold War and how.

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David Marwell: One enemy when perceived enemy replaced another enemy in the US intelligence, who was responsible and was passionate and effective in the early days in the post war period in going after Nazi war criminals when their mission shifted to.

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David Marwell: Going after and protecting against the Soviets, then the Germans became Nazis became.

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David Marwell: Perfect allies in that because they had such experience in combating the Soviets you know, the German army fought, the Red Army on the ground for four years.

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David Marwell: And they knew a lot about German military tactics every map in the backpack of our of a company commander in the early post war period was made from the falafel photographs that aerial photographs that had been captured and.

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David Marwell: Translated to Qatar tog rafi into detailed maps so in a way.

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David Marwell: One can understand, but not really.

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David Marwell: there's no way my condoning this but one can understand the, the reason why some Nazis were attractive targets of recruitment by by American intelligence.

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Andrew Nagorski: Well, of course, by also by Soviet intelligence and yes.

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Andrew Nagorski: And, of course, the whole.

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Andrew Nagorski: race to who grab which rocket scientists was so.

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David Marwell: In a way, where those programs were in as much denial programs, as they were exploitation programs to keep keep these valuable people out of the hands of the other side.

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Andrew Nagorski: Oh yes, yeah yeah the kidnapping and mutual kidnap and yeah and I think, then the other note again is.

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Andrew Nagorski: Maybe you could also address this a little more how much did you have contact with the Israelis involved in this, and again they.

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Andrew Nagorski: That the myth that they were going after Nazis, from the very beginning was was clearly overblown although, then they got serious with iseman and then, as you say, they they were probably at least more serious for a bit longer than was generally perceived about mingling.

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David Marwell: So they did I.

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David Marwell: write in the book about how.

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David Marwell: They were quite effective and very creative in their attempts to get mangle until until.

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David Marwell: The late mid 6067 or so, when they actually stopped the they they stopped looking for Nazi war criminals, because they believe.

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David Marwell: Probably correctly that that current threats to the security of Israel were loomed much larger than than the the threat of kind of old enemies and.

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David Marwell: It wasn't until monogamy begun became Prime Minister in 1977 I think when he called them, the head of Mossad and said let's let's go after I want to read recommends the search for Nazi war criminals and.

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David Marwell: The head of the Mossad at that point was was really argued against it, but they agreed compromised on that they would pick a small number that they would focus on one of them was Mengele.

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David Marwell: So we work closely with the Israelis both the these really established a a Interagency working group with the police, justice, people and I found out later that because they never introduced themselves that way but and the massage massage actually led led the effort i'm told.

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David Marwell: And that's why the the release of this report in 19 in 2017 was so revealing because I realized.

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David Marwell: What the people I was sitting across from the table knew about Mengele knew about their past efforts to find him and some of it would have been helpful to know what, when we were involved in the investigation.

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Andrew Nagorski: And it's interesting that, even in some of the memoirs of some of the Mossad agents involved in the ultimate case, who were involved in in in that one for Mengele some of them recall specific moment when they're basically told drop this we've got other priorities and.

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Andrew Nagorski: yeah and one case it was it was involved finding I think a child from family in brooklyn who there was.

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Andrew Nagorski: A complicated my family custody case and and the this agent was just fuming how am I, being called off the hunt for Mengele for for basically a family custody case but but that's a whole whole nother saga yeah.

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Andrew Nagorski: Did you I think we're almost out of time already or did you want to add anything here, but I wanted, thank you, David that's you know it's been a terrific to hear your your take on this, and please do read the book, there is a lot more there.

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Ari Goldstein: Thank you, thank you so much, since we do two minutes, I guess, I might turn it back to both of you and ask just in a couple sentences, what do you think we should take from Angola story, what do you want to leave with the audience today.

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Andrew Nagorski: defer to David here first well.

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David Marwell: I think these days and it's been I think underscored by the by the in some ways by the covert.

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David Marwell: pandemic and and all the issues of medical ethics that have that have been raised through it.

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David Marwell: That you know with with modern medical technology you don't have to be a Nobel Prize winner or a millionaire to to.

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David Marwell: be involved in research that Mengele could only have dreamt about the ability to to.

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David Marwell: to shape and guide you know the the particular.

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David Marwell: Genetic makeup of an individual and the rest of their line.

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David Marwell: You know Mengele.

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David Marwell: gave into whatever motives, they were.

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David Marwell: ambition.

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David Marwell: sadism whatever whatever drove and, but I would argue that was mainly ambition.

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David Marwell: Cross or whatever boundaries had been established and had been accepted by the profession that he had joined.

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David Marwell: and

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David Marwell: I think it's an that's an important lesson for us, especially now, when the power that that science has.

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David Marwell: Is exponentially greater than it wasn't even in his time.

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Andrew Nagorski: I just very briefly, and I think, as I alluded to the fact that.

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Andrew Nagorski: The fact that Mengele as David explains for the at the end of his life for many years was really worried about being hunted down, you can say the Mengele was the great great one who got away.

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Andrew Nagorski: Great and obviously not in a positive sense but but a failure, but the fact that he was always felt wanted.

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Andrew Nagorski: When this whole business of Nazi hunting with such as it was hit our midst, and there were many failures, but they're also the successes were enough that it put the pressure on and I think it showed that.

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Andrew Nagorski: Eventually, you pay a price in some way, even if you are not physically captured the way I was.

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Ari Goldstein: A polygamist with Andy and David learn more about Mengele his life his death his capture in manual unmasking the angel of death, the link is in the zoom chat.

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Ari Goldstein: And it's terrific to learn from you both today, the story is so endlessly terrible and intriguing and interesting so we're grateful for your time and your insights.

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Ari Goldstein: To all of you, joining us today, thank you for tuning in everything we do at the museum is made possible through donor support, so thank you to those of you who are donors and Members.

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Ari Goldstein: On on the zoom call today if you're not in April we hope you'll consider supporting the museum work at the link in the zoom chat and joining us for our upcoming programs and events we wish everyone a great afternoon take care and and David.

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Thank you