Josef Mengele (; 16 March 19117 February 1979) was a German
Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and physician in
Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. Mengele was a notorious member of the team of doctors responsible for the selection of victims to be killed in the
gas chambers and for performing deadly
human experiments on prisoners. Arrivals deemed able to work were admitted into the camp, and those deemed unfit for labor were immediately killed in the gas chambers. Mengele left Auschwitz on 17 January 1945, shortly before the arrival of the liberating
Red Army troops. After the war, he fled to
South America, where he evaded capture for the rest of his life.