Josef Mengele (fugitive)

Josef Mengele, the SS physician who performed horrific medical experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz, fled Europe after World War II. He lived in Argentina, Paraguay, and finally Brazil under assumed names.

Despite being one of the most wanted Nazi war criminals, Mengele evaded Israeli, German, and American efforts to capture him for over three decades. His family in Germany secretly supported him financially.

On February 7, 1979, Mengele drowned while swimming at Bertioga beach near São Paulo, Brazil. He was buried under a false name.

In 1985, acting on intelligence, investigators exhumed remains from a grave in Embu, Brazil. Forensic experts—and later DNA testing in 1992—confirmed the remains were Mengele's, ending one of history's longest manhunts.