In 1985, Brazilian authorities apprehended Liselotte Bossert, a kindergarten teacher in São Paulo, for allegedly using false documents to conceal the remains of Josef Mengele, the Nazi SS officer notorious for his horrific experiments at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The arrest, witnessed by six-year-ancient Betina Anton, a student at the kindergarten, initiated a complex investigation into a network that had harbored Mengele for decades after World War II. Anton, now an award-winning Brazilian author and journalist, details this story in her modern book, Hiding Mengele: How a Nazi Network Harbored the Angel of Death, published in 2024.
Mengele, known as the “Angel of Death” for his cruel and callous medical experiments – particularly on twins – evaded capture for 34 years following the end of the war. He fled to South America, eventually settling in Brazil under a false identity. The Bossert couple, Liselotte and Wolfram, were instrumental in providing him with shelter and false documentation, enabling his continued concealment.
Anton’s investigation, as described in Forbes, began with a childhood memory of her teacher’s sudden disappearance. “It’s one of my earliest memories,” Anton recounts. “I didn’t have the notion it was something with a global impact…but I knew that something very big happened. I could feel that.” The case unfolded as authorities sought to confirm the identity of remains discovered on a property linked to the Bosserts.
Hiding Mengele, translated into ten languages, unearths the details of the network that aided Mengele’s escape and subsequent life in hiding. The book has been praised as a “tremendous work of nonfiction” and a “provocative contribution to the literature of the Holocaust.” It offers a unique Brazilian perspective on the international effort to bring Mengele to justice, a pursuit that ultimately ended with his death in Brazil in 1979, before he could be apprehended.
The Simon & Schuster description of the book notes that Anton’s work is considered the definitive account of Mengele’s time in hiding and the community of sympathizers who protected him. The investigation into the network continues to be a subject of historical interest, revealing the extent to which individuals and organizations actively worked to shield a notorious war criminal from accountability.
