Argentina's Role As A Nazi Haven Surfaces Again -- Case Recalls Nation's Shadowy History

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - When ABC Television aired Sam Donaldson's in-your-face interview with Erich Priebke early in May, the American network not only revealed the presence of an accused Gestapo war criminal in southern Argentina. It also put a prime-time spotlight on this country's shadowy role as a haven for World War II Nazis.

Priebke, a former German SS captain who helped execute 335 Italian civilians in 1944, has lived peacefully and quietly in Argentina since 1948. He and hundreds of other Nazis who came to South America after the war found anonymity and security, precious commodities for men who were hated and hunted elsewhere in the world.

How Third Reich killers and collaborators were able to hide out in this country is now becoming increasingly clear: In the past two years, the Argentine government has opened previously secret archives to researchers who want to trace the steps of Nazis in this country. And as the painstaking research proceeds, under the auspices of Argentina's Jewish community, it is turning up documents that detail a historical pattern of tolerance and complicity on behalf of fugitive Nazis.

`NETWORK OF PROTECTION'

"There was a network of protection - if not legal, at least bought - that made it very difficult to find them and bring them to justice," says Ruben Beraja, leader of the Delegation of Argentine Israelites Associations, which is sponsoring the research dubbed Project Testimony.

Exactly how the protective systems worked and who was involved has long been a subject of speculation. Nazi-hunters have discovered some of the puzzle's pieces over the years as they tracked down war criminals in Argentina, including the notorious Adolf Eichmann.

But important information in the form of official documents - diplomatic notes, police reports, administrative memoranda - was largely out of reach until Project Testimony.

Although the documents uncovered have yet to be catalogued and cross-referenced, researchers showed the Los Angeles Times copies of hundreds of pages containing intriguing information on notable Nazi figures.

Many of the documents show that Nazis entered Argentina with travel papers issued by the International Red Cross, reinforcing allegations of Red Cross negligence or complicity in the flight of Nazi war criminals to South America. Red Cross officials now say it was not the organization's job to investigate applicants for travel documents.

An Argentine Federal Police memorandum from 1964 notes that death-camp doctor Josef Mengele "entered the country on 20 May, 1949, carrying passport No. 100,501, issued by the International Red Cross in the name of Gregor Helmut."

That document also shows that German authorities were also careless, at the very least, in Mengele's case. "In November of 1956," the memo says, "he presented his birth certificate with his true name, certified by the Embassy of the Federal German Republic in our country, and requested the rectification of his name and surname." Argentine authorities issued him a new identification card with his real name.

Mengele was known as the "Angel of Death" for his role in the extermination of thousands of Jews at the Auschwitz death camp, where he performed experiments on prisoners.

Other documents found by Project Testimony say Mengele practiced medicine here, reportedly specializing in illegal abortions.

One paper explains Argentina's refusal to arrest Mengele for extradition because "the crimes attributed to the subject are political in nature." An order for his arrest was finally issued in 1961, but he was never found.

Mengele later lived under another name in neighboring Brazil, where he drowned at an Atlantic resort in 1979, according to Brazilian authorities and international investigators.

Another Nazi war criminal who came to Argentina was Josef Schwammberger, an SS sergeant who participated in thousands of killings as the commander of Jewish slave labor camps in southeastern Poland during the war.

THE ONLY ONE EXTRADITED

An Argentine police document says Schwammberger entered the country in 1949. The only Nazi war criminal ever extradited from Argentina, Schwammberger was convicted in Germany and sentenced to life in prison in 1992.

In several notable cases, Argentine authorities have refused to extradite Nazi war criminals. In 1947, for example, the Communist government of the former Yugoslavia requested the extradition of Ante Pavelic, a former Croatian fascist leader, for war crimes. A previously secret Argentine Foreign Ministry document recommended refusal.

"The `war crime' is what we could call a recent juridical creation . . . akin to that of political crime," the document said. "Argentine legislation only contemplates extradition for common crimes, and it prohibits it for political crimes."

Admiration for Germany was widespread in South American countries during the 1930s. President Juan Peron, who governed Argentina with an authoritarian hand from 1946 to 1955, has been accused of neo-Nazi tendencies - an accusation heatedly denied by Peronists.

Project Testimony coordinator Beatriz Gurevich emphasized that Argentina was not the only Nazi haven and not all Argentine officials were pro-Nazi.

"It would be mistaken to think that in Argentina there was a generalized anti-Jewish and pro-Nazi attitude, because it wasn't so," she said.

SOME ARGENTINES HELPED JEWS

Some documents uncovered by Project Testimony have shown that some Argentine diplomats in Europe helped protect Jews from persecution before and during the war. Others, however, denied visas to Jews and helped Nazis after the war.

Argentine diplomats in China sold visas to Jews and Nazis alike for up to $2,500, according to researchers.

In the Foreign Ministry files, researchers have discovered a 1946 note from the U.S. Embassy that speaks of large-scale efforts to sneak Nazis into Argentina.

"There exists a concerted plan to arrange the clandestine departure from Spain and entry into Argentina of former German agents," the note says. "It appears that it is becoming increasingly difficult for such German agents in Spain to remain concealed and that, as a consequence, some 150 to 200 Germans expect to come to Argentina under false identification."

So far, the archives have yielded no information on Priebke, the former Nazi now being held in southern Argentina at Italy's request. Gurevich said she had no knowledge of most other Nazis said to still be living in Argentina. Her project's purposes are historical, she said, with no priority on tracking down or gathering evidence against living war criminals.