The FIS has until now refused such a request under Swiss declassification laws. It said it reversed course after the Swiss federal archive determined the documents were within the scope of a 2001 government decision requiring \u201cliberal access\u201d to files reviewed by the Bergier Commission, which Switzerland established in 1996 to review Swiss banks\u2019 withholding of assets that belonged to Jews killed in the Holocaust.<\/p>\n
Wettstein, who made his request in 2025, told the BBC that the Mengele files had been set to stay sealed until 2071.<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the terms<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt seemed ridiculous,\u201d he said. \u201cIt fuels conspiracy; everyone says, \u2018they must have something to hide\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n \t He expressed concern that FIS conditions could result in the documents being heavily redacted.<\/p>\n \u201cI fear we will get a file that is more black than transparent,\u201d he told the BBC.<\/p>\n Mengele, a German SS officer and physician, played a central role in determining whether victims arriving at the Auschwitz camp would be sent to death, hard labor, or \u201cexperimentation.\u201d<\/p>\n He is known as the \u201cAngel of Death\u201d for his sadistic experiments on twins, pregnant women and individuals with physical abnormalities, often without anesthesia and with lethal results.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s Yad Vashem<\/a> Holocaust museum estimates that a million Jews were murdered in Auschwitz between 1941 and 1945, when Russian forces liberated the camp toward the end of the Second World War.<\/p>\n Mengele fled to Argentina under an alias in 1949 and died in Brazil in 1979 without having ever been prosecuted for his crimes, despite Argentine authorities\u2019 knowledge<\/a> of his true identity.<\/p>\n \t It has been known since the 1980s that Mengele took a 1956 ski trip with his son in the Swiss Alps, the BBC said.<\/p>\n Historians cited by the outlet said Mengele\u2019s wife also rented an apartment in Zurich in 1959 \u2014 the year the West German government issued the first arrest warrant against him.<\/p>\n In 1961, Austrian intelligence warned Switzerland that Mengele might be traveling there under a pseudonym, and the Zurich flat was placed under surveillance, with local police noting that the tenant was seen with an unidentified man, Swiss historian Regula Bochsler told the BBC.<\/p>\n It remains unclear if the man was Mengele himself. Bochsler was turned down by the Swiss archive when she sought in 2019 to review files of the Swiss federal police, which would have been involved in the arrest of an internationally wanted war criminal, the BBC said.<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tThe entrance to the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau with the lettering \u2018Arbeit macht frei\u2019 (\u2018Work sets free\u2019) is pictured in Oswiecim, Poland, on January 25, 2015, days before the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the camp by Russian forces. (Jo\u00ebl Saget \/ AFP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AP850607041-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tA federal police agent holds two photos and the identity card found in the house in which the man believed to be Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele lived, June 7, 1985. The photo on the left shows Mengele eating. The photo on the right shows Mengele during a picnic with friends and in the middle is the identity card. (AP Photo)<\/p>\n
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