Possible Fracture of Pelvis May Be Key Mengele Clue

Preliminary examination of a skeleton exhumed near here last week shows a possible old pelvic fracture, a Brazilian pathologist said Monday, strengthening the police belief that the remains may be that of Auschwitz death camp doctor Josef Mengele. Mengele reportedly broke his hip in 1944.

The accelerating Brazilian investigation to prove that the world’s most wanted Nazi war criminal drowned in the South Atlantic Ocean six years ago was reinforced Monday by scientists and by witnesses who claimed to have sheltered him.

A Hungarian woman who swears that Mengele lived with her family for 13 years said she had seen Paraguayan identity documents in his possession that were issued in the name “Jose Mengele.” Sao Paulo Police Chief Romeu Tuma declared: “His life here is a fact.”

A West German technician began comparing fingerprint records brought from Europe with the personal effects of a man buried in 1979 as Wolfgang Gerhard. An American handwriting expert is to arrive here today with authenticated samples of Mengele’s writing to compare against manuscript pages recovered by Brazilian police from houses where the man known as Gerhard reportedly lived.

Newspapers in West Germany reported Monday that German investigators are convinced that the Brazilians have found Mengele, known as the “Angel of Death” for sending 300,000 to 400,000 Jews to their deaths at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland during World War II.

The office of Mengele’s son, Rolf, who has been linked by police to an Austrian-born couple living here who say they were present when Mengele drowned, announced in West Germany that the son will issue a statement in the next day or two.

Brazilian pathologist Wilmes Roberto Teixeira, a member of the blue-ribbon forensic team that began an examination Monday of remains exhumed last week from the Gerhard coffin, said superficial studies showed pelvic abnormalities.

Asked whether the pelvis might have been fractured, Teixeira replied: “I think it was.”

“Something surely happened to the skeleton’s pelvis,” Teixeira said. “It is a bit abnormal but we have to check this with X-rays. If we can confirm this, we will have taken an important step.”

Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal said in New York last week that Mengele is believed to have broken his hip in 1944 and suggested that this possibility be weighed in the forensic evaluation of the skeleton. Reports from West Germany also have mentioned that Mengele may have suffered a war wound or may have been injured in an automobile accident while he served as the camp doctor at Auschwitz.

A Full Skeleton

The forensic team, chafing at West German police criticism of last week’s haphazard exhumation of the skeleton, said that all 208 bones had been recovered from the grave and that all belonged to the same body. The remains were not in good condition, the Brazilian pathologists said, reiterating that their full-dress forensic study will take about two weeks.

For his part, police chief Tuma said he would willingly wait for the scientists to decide whether they could make a positive identification. “If we have waited 40 years, we can wait another few days,” Tuma said.

That Mengele lived a long time in Brazil is beyond question, Tuma asserted. The police chief said that no important contradictions have surfaced thus far as police corroborate the testimony of Gitta Stammer, who said Mengele lived with her family from 1961 to 1974, and that of Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert, who own the house where they say Mengele lived until his death and burial as Gerhard.

Tuma said the police investigation has reached the point where it can be documented that the man using Gerhard’s identity documents was the man who drowned in 1979. That same man, who Tuma believes is Mengele, was buried under Gerhard’s name.

Posed as Swiss

According to police, Mengele came to Brazil around 1961 posing as a Swiss national. He assumed the identity of his Austrian friend and protector, Gerhard, after Gerhard returned to Europe about 1975. Austrian police say that Gerhard died and was buried there under his own name in 1978.

Tuma challenged Stammer’s assertion that Mengele was unwelcome in her home, portraying her instead as part of a successful effort to shelter him.

“She says he was only a tenant, but he acted like the landlord,” Tuma said. He said that Mengele never received any pay as the ostensible manager of the Stammer farm in Sao Paulo state and instead paid the Stammer family for his food.

“I think they were collaborators,” Tuma said when asked why Stammer and the Bosserts did not go to the authorities after the drowning. He raised the possibility that the three might be charged with “hiding a foreigner who was illegally in Brazil.”

The blue-eyed, ginger-haired, Hungarian-born Stammer, 68, met batteries of klieg lights and a barrage of reporters’ questions with great composure at a press conference Monday where she described what she called “a nightmare that may not have ended.”

Paraguayan Documents

“I saw his Paraguayan identity documents in the name ‘Jose Mengele,’ ” she asserted. “I have no doubt that the man was Mengele, and I have no doubt that he is dead.”

Stammer said that she never reported Mengele to the authorities because of threats to her children from the real Gerhard. She said that she still fears for the safety of her two sons, both now in their mid-30s and officers in the Brazilian merchant marine.

Stammer’s husband, Geza, originally reported to be in Europe, is at sea visiting with one of his sons, she said. Tuma said that the ship was off Singapore on Monday, en route to Japan.

Stammer repeated to reporters the assertions she made in a deposition to police last week that Mengele was supported financially by his family in Germany and that money arrived by a courier dispatched by the family.