Josef Mengele: Switzerland finally to open secret files on Nazis' Auschwitz 'Angel of Death'

Mengele fled Europe after the war but for years there were rumours he spent time in Switzerland.

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Mengele fled Europe after World War Two, but for years there have been rumours that he spent time in Switzerland, even though an international warrant was out for his arrest.

Historians have repeatedly requested access to the files, but until now the Swiss authorities have refused.

Mengele was a doctor who served in Germany's Waffen SS. He was posted to the Auschwitz extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, where he selected those to be sent to the gas chambers – an estimated 1.1 million people died, including about a million Jews.

Known as the Angel of Death, he also selected prisoners, primarily children and twins, for sadistic medical experiments, before sending them to their deaths as well.