Simon Wiesenthal Center

The Simon Wiesenthal Center appears in the book as an advocate and financial participant in the renewed 1985 effort to find Josef Mengele. Its release of a declassified American counter-intelligence memorandum intensified public scrutiny, while its $1 million reward added to the growing international price on Mengele’s capture. The account distinguishes that role from the work of the Office of Special Investigations, which coordinated the American investigation.

Role in the 1985 Hunt

The Center’s intervention followed a public appeal by survivors of Mengele’s experiments. At a commemoration marking forty years since the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp, survivors called on governments to capture him. Their testimonies were then heard at a mock trial at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, where witnesses described the crimes they had endured. The testimony was broadcast internationally, and the US attorney general called for a review of the complete file before the proceedings had ended.

In this climate, the Simon Wiesenthal Center released a declassified counter-intelligence memorandum indicating that American authorities had held Mengele in 1947. The information was incorrect, but its circulation provoked an uproar and raised questions about whether the United States had allowed him to escape or had used his services, as it had those of other Nazis. The book presents the memorandum as a catalyst for controversy, not proof that Mengele had been held by the Americans.

Pressure and the Reward

The Center applied pressure for renewed action and offered $1 million for Mengele’s capture. The Washington Times offered another million dollars, Germany added a million marks, and Israel announced its own $1 million bounty. These separate rewards brought the stated total value of the search to $3.4 million. The Center’s contribution thus made its response concrete: alongside public advocacy, it put substantial money behind the demand that Mengele be found.

The search involved multiple actors with distinct roles. The Office of Special Investigations coordinated the investigation with access to American agencies; Israel announced that it would resume the hunt; and the Center helped sustain pressure through its memorandum and reward. The account does not portray the Center as directing the investigation or as having verified the memorandum’s claim.

Significance in the Narrative

The Center’s actions connect survivor testimony to renewed state-level pursuit. The mock trial brought accounts of Mengele’s crimes before an international audience; the memorandum shifted attention toward the conduct of postwar American authorities; and the rewards transformed the demand for capture into a highly visible pursuit. The book notes that journalists and adventurers soon descended on Günzburg and South America, while the manhunt chased a fugitive whose death was not yet known.

Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter who sat on the mock-trial tribunal, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center are presented as distinct participants: the former appears among the presiding figures, while the latter releases the memorandum and contributes a reward. The Center’s significance here lies in its part in carrying the case from commemoration and testimony into public controversy and renewed pursuit.