Switzerland will open secret files on Auschwitz's “

Mengele left Europe after World War II, but for years there have been rumors that he spent time in Switzerland, even though an international warrant had been issued for her, reports the report. BBCPeriscope broadcast.

Historians have repeatedly sought access to the file, but so far the Swiss authorities have refused.

Mengele was a doctor who served in Germany's Waffen SS. He was sent to Auschwitz's extermination camp in Nazi - occupied Poland, where he tracked those sent to gas chambers - some 1.1 million people died, including about one million Jews.

Known as the angel of death, he also selected prisoners, mainly children and twins, for sadistic medical experiments before sending them to death.

After the war, Mengele, like many high - ranking Nazi people, quickly changed both his uniform and his name.

With the help of his false identity, he was given Red Cross travel documents at the Swiss consulate in Genoa, northern Italy, and used them to flee to South America.

The Red Cross intended that documents were given to thousands of people throughout Europe who had been displaced or left without citizenship from war, but the Nazis seeking to escape prosecution managed to provide what the Red Cross later apologized for.

So, what does Mengele have to do with Switzerland?

Although he left Europe in 1949, Mengele spent a ski vacation in the Swiss Alps with his son Rolf in 1956. This information has been known since the 1980s.

Officially, after that, he spent the rest of his life in South America.

But Swiss historian Regula Bocsler always wondered whether Mengell would return, and most importantly, after an international warrant for his arrest had been issued in 1959.

Bocsler, while investigating Switzerland's possible role as a transit country for the fleeing Nazis, found that in June 1961 the Austrian intelligence service warned the Swiss that Mengele was traveling with a false name and could be located on Swiss territory.

Meanwhile, Mengeles' wife had rented an apartment in Zurich and applied for permanent residence permits.

The"seems to have evidence that Mengele was planning a trip to Europe in 1959", the BBC historian said. - Why? Mengele rented an apartment in Zurich?

The apartment was in a modest suburbs, and the Mengele family had the wealth of something much more expensive. But it was near the international airport.

Bocsler managed to see Cyril's police files proving that the apartment had been placed under surveillance in 1961; police even noticed that Mrs. Mengele was driving her Volkswagen, accompanied by an unidentified man.

But was it her husband?

Universal History Archive Three men in Nazi SS uniform in a black and white photograph of Universal History

Mengele (right) is seen here in 1944 with Auschwitz's commander, Richard Baer (left), and former Commander Rudolf Hös.

The arrest of a wanted war criminal, such as Mengele in 1961, would have involved Swiss federal police. In 2019, Bocsler applied his files to the Swiss Federal Archive.

She was rejected. The files remained sealed until 2071 for national security reasons and for protecting the extended family.

Bocsler was neither the first nor the last to be rejected. In 2025 the other historian Gérard Wetstein tried again. He too was rejected.

I found it ridiculous", he told the BBC. "As long as they're closed until 2071, it promotes conspiracy, everyone says 'must have something to hide'. "

Wetstein rejected the decision by taking Swiss authorities to court -- an expensive process for which he sought fund collection from the public. We collected 18,000 Swiss francs (17000 pounds; $23,000) in just a few days. "

And that was when the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service finally changed its mind. In a statement this month, which suggests that full transparency may still take some time, she said: "Appeals will be given access to the file, depending on conditions and requirements that have not yet been defined. "

Not all are sure that the files will reveal a lot about Mengeles himself.

Sacha Zala, president of the Swiss History Society, is"ably sure there is nothing relevant about Mengeles", but she thinks there may be references to a foreign intelligence service or foreign informants.

But is Mossad's simple mention of their popular hunting for the Nazis 70 years ago really so sensitive?

This shows the stupidity of the declassification process without historical knowledge", Zala believes. "That way, the administration promoted conspiracy theories. "

Other historians, such as Jacob Tanner, say that the secret to files reveals more about Switzerland than they may ever discover about Mengeles. The"is a conflict between national security and historical transparency, and the first often prevails in Switzerland. "

Tanner served at the Berger Commission in the 1990s, which examined neutral Switzerland's relations with Nazi Germany, in particular the role of Swiss banks.

He is well - known with Switzerland's sensitivity and shame for its role in World War II, when Jewish refugees returned to the border, while Swiss banks kept money from Jewish families who later died in Nazi concentration camps. "It is a problem for a democratic state that these files are still closed", Tanner argues.

However, he believes that Mengele was in Switzerland in 1961.

The fugitive Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, was arrested by Mossad in Argentina in 1960, and there is evidence that other Nazis who fled to South America thought that they too were in danger there and that Europe, where friends and relatives remained, could be safer.

Tanner points out that Walter Rauff, another wanted Nazi war criminal who fled to Chile, spent time in Germany in 1960.

A historian at the Bergier Commission was briefly allowed to see some of Mengeles ' files in 1999 and concluded that it was impossible to prove or reject his presence in Swiss territory. But these were just a few lines in a 24 - volume report to the entire war. The files were again sealed; the historian died seven years ago.

Meanwhile, a date for publishing files has not yet been set, and statements from the Federal Intelligence Service about"conditions and demands"sound ominous to Wetstein. "I'm afraid we'll get a file that's more black than transparent", he says.

Bocsler also worries that the files will be very edited. I don't trust [authorities] at all. I'm afraid they'll look like Epstein's files. Why have these Mengele files been closed for so long?

Mengele has been the subject of mystery, gossip and conspiracy for decades.

He was never arrested, let alone punished for his terrible crimes. When he died in Brazil in 1979, he was buried with a false name.

But the rumors continued to circulate. In 1985, his body was exhumed and finally in 1992, DNA tests confirmed his body was.

Auschwitz's terrible physician was dead.

But had he ever been to Switzerland? Had not the Swiss noticed?

Did they close their eyes to a potentially embarrassing presence to avoid the unwanted attention that would have caused an arrest? Or, like many other things about Mengeles, is it all just a rumor?

Maybe we'll never find out the truth", says Wetstein. "We'll never know if he was here or not... But maybe we can have at least one more idea. "