In April 1979, Gregory Peck was nominated for an Oscar for his powerful portrayal of the sadistic Nazi criminal, Dr. Josef Mengele Peck’s performance in The Boys from Brazil transformed Mengele from a cruel doctor in black and white photos known for his horrifying experiments on twins in the Auschwitz death camp into a fugitive who captured the public’s imagination He was now a man in an immaculate white suit and a Panama hat who lived in a jungle mansion somewhere in Brazil Two months prior to the Oscar ceremony in Hollywood the world’s most sought-after Nazi perished at the age of 67 on Bertioga beach Mengele was enjoying an outing with close friends Their children — Andreas and Sabine — didn’t know Mengele was a notorious Nazi doctor This intimate circle of trusted friends played a crucial role in hiding the fugitive from the relentless Nazi hunters who pursued him then moving through Argentina and Paraguay a journalist and international news editor for the Globo TV network thoroughly covers Mengele’s time in Brazil His initial contact was an Austrian man named Wolfgang Gerhard who let Mengele use his name and Brazilian documentation that was the name on Mengele’s death certificate and tombstone in the Embu das Artes cemetery near São Paulo “Gerhard was a fervent Nazi who placed swastikas atop the family’s Christmas trees He introduced Mengele to other sympathetic families in the area,” said Anton “Mengele lived here for almost 20 years because he was protected by friends There was an Austrian couple [the Bosserts] and a Hungarian couple [the Stammers]… They all spoke German so [Mengele] could converse with them in his own language He didn’t end up in some remote corner of the world and lose touch with his culture he lived in a tropical Bavaria where he listened to classical music and had a library of up-to-date German books.” He also corresponded regularly with his only son And his family never stopped sending him money from home she met one of the people from Mengele’s close circle of friends Liselotte Bossert was a teacher at Anton’s school for the German community in São Paulo she disappeared from school and never came back The serious expressions and hushed conversations of the adults told Anton that something serious had happened This was Anton’s first encounter with the chilling story that she spent six years investigating conducting interviews and immersing herself in the Nazi doctor’s letters Gerhard protected Mengele for ideological reasons they actually came to Brazil to escape communism The Federal Police found out that they had some kind of business with Mengele who even helped them buy a farm [where they all lived together] Gitta Stammer was the one who brought him money every week,” said Anton Liselotte Bossert’s husband had been a corporal in the German army and had enormous admiration for Mengele “I think she acted out of friendship and didn’t want to believe the crimes he committed And her children became very attached to Mengele.” Bossert’s children refused to be interviewed for Anton’s book That’s when they discovered a clue that led Israeli Nazi hunters to São Paulo “Rafi Eitan told me that he once met Mengele face to face but they couldn’t grab him right then.” Soon after Israel became embroiled in a crisis with Egypt so Mossad’s pursuit of Nazis had to take a backseat Cyrla Gewertz was a victim of the Angel of Death’s experiments in Auschwitz He would immerse the young Polish girl in very hot water for 15 minutes and then dunk her for 15 minutes in ice water When she cried out that the water was burning her the Nazi snapped: “Put your head under or I’ll kill you.” Another human guinea pig died right next to her Many years later, Gewertz was married to another Holocaust survivor and living in São Paulo when someone approached her at a hotel in the nearby city of Serra Negra “She packed her things and left immediately,” said Anton “She was so traumatized that she didn’t ask questions or call the police she told me she still had trouble sleeping and cried easily.” during the 40th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Mengele’s victims reminded the world about his cruel crimes they conducted a symbolic trial in Jerusalem where numerous twins shared testimonies of the atrocities These testimonies were televised worldwide resulting in joint efforts by West Germany Israel and the United States to locate Mengele The crucial clue came from a German who told the police about a drunk guy who boasted that he was sending money to the Angel of Death in South America The drunk turned out to be a Mengele family courier they learned that the world’s most-wanted Nazi had drowned six years earlier in Brazil who confessed their roles under interrogation Liselotte Bossert was fired from the school where she taught while Brazil and the world watched as Mengele’s body was exhumed and tested to confirm his identity Mengele’s victims found some relief in knowing that their torturer was finally dead No documentation of his experiments has ever been found to help doctors treat the never-ending health problems of the victims who survived The remains of the infamous and sadistic Nazi doctor ended up in the University of São Paulo’s medical school as educational material for students Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition ¿Quieres añadir otro usuario a tu suscripción ¿Por qué estás viendo esto? cambia tu suscripción a la modalidad Premium Cada uno accederá con su propia cuenta de email lo que os permitirá personalizar vuestra experiencia en EL PAÍS ¿Tienes una suscripción de empresa? 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You don't have permission to access the page you requested What is this page?The website you are visiting is protected.For security reasons this page cannot be displayed 30% of them infected with the protozoan that causes Chagas disease teams from the Endemic Diseases Oversight Office (SUCEN) have found 135 insects in the municipalities of Greater São Paulo that are carriers of the protozoan that causes Chagas disease While there are no cases of the disease reported in humans yet laboratory analyses at SUCEN indicate that the captured insects had been feeding on the blood of humans and animals “We need to be careful to avoid transmission to people,” warns biologist Rubens Antonio da Silva a scientific researcher and technical coordinator for the Chagas disease control program at the oversight agency When a kissing bug was identified in 2015 in Pirapora do Bom Jesus Silva and his team thought they might be simply sporadic events That conclusion fell apart when they received calls from residents of Taboão da Serra in the following years and also received notifications from Carapicuíba and neighborhoods in the western districts of São Paulo Juquitiba and Santana de Parnaíba were added to the list of municipalities reporting kissing bugs researchers identified colonies with 57 insects living in possum nests under the tile roofs of three houses in a subdivision surrounded by forest 47% of the kissing bugs were infected with Trypanosoma cruzi females with eggs were found under the mattress on which the residents slept While on the rise for the first time in the São Paulo Metropolitan Region the kissing bug population has fallen in other parts of the state The total number of insects captured has decreased from about 6,000 in 2007 to about 2,000 in 2018 as Silva describes in an article published in April 2019 in the Brazilian Journal of Health Review the state of São Paulo reported only one new case of Chagas disease in 2016 and two in 2017 During the same two years the number of new cases went from 20 to 320 in Pará and from 3 to 24 in Amapá states with the majority of new case reports Brazil received international certification from the World Health Organization (WHO) for practically eliminating the kissing bug Triatoma infestans the principal species transmitting the disease which today is restricted to regions of Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul as a result of the high infection rates prevalent through the mid-twentieth century it’s estimated that 1.2 million to 4.6 million people in Brazil have the chronic form of Chagas disease responsible for approximately 6,000 deaths per year which affects about 30% of people with the parasite according to the WHO Currently the species of kissing bug that causes the most concern is Panstrongylus megistus since it is capable of living in both forests and domestic spaces Megistus has a brown body with red spots and is 2.5 to 4 centimeters in length the insect may enter homes through open doors or windows cruzi by feeding on the blood of animals that harbor it—without themselves developing the disease—called natural reservoirs megistus in the metropolitan region of São Paulo have been sparse 15 specimens were captured in the city of São Paulo Only two insects were examined: one collected in 2011 in Jabaquara but the specimen collected in 2014 in Sacomã This is according to a survey by biologist Walter Ceretti Junior published in July 2018 in the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo rodents and possums approach houses for shelter and food,” says Ceretti Júnior “The possibility of parasite transmission leaving the sylvatic [wildlife] cycle and expanding into urban areas is at the very least worrying,” says epidemiologist Guilherme Werneck a professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) megistus in areas close to forests in four neighborhoods in the western districts of São Paulo: Jardim Amaralina Examining the locations of kissing bug reports in recent years they concluded that the insects may be on the move taking advantage of parks and forest corridors starting from the region between the Régis Bittencourt and Raposo Tavares highways “If in fact there is a territorial expansion of the carrier insects the situation tends to worsen,” Silva observes He believes that if the hypothesis is correct then since the insects reproduce more intensely in the summer residents of northern neighborhoods such as Tucuruvi will likely find the insects nearby or inside their homes by late 2019 SUCEN’s action plan includes communicating with the residents of Cotia The parasite is transmitted mainly through food or beverages contaminated with feces from kissing bugs “We have to avoid letting them form colonies 565 adults and 1,183 kissing bug nymphs of the species Rhodnius neglectus were collected from dozens of palm trees in the streets and squares of the northwestern city of Araçatuba in São Paulo State He states that although these kissing bugs weren’t infected the concern is that a contaminated possum might climb the palm trees in search of parrot eggs and transmit the parasite to the insects “The identification of kissing bugs in urban areas reinforces the need to warn of the risks of transmission to humans,” says biologist José Eduardo Tolezano director of the Center for Parasitology at the Adolfo Lutz Institute (IAL) today accounts for 9% of the human cases recorded in Brazil by the Ministry of Health the means by which the parasite was transmitted is not identified Currently the leading cause is oral transmission (72%) through the consumption of food or drink containing feces from insects contaminated with the parasite a study by the Tropical Medicine Foundation reported ten cases of people who presented with the initial symptoms of Chagas disease—fever and weakness—after drinking acai juice contaminated with T a transmission event of still uncertain origin was reported In a group of 77 people who attended a religious retreat during Holy Week in Ibimirim possibly contracted from contaminated food or drink Their treatment was initiated with benznidazole which is effective in controlling the acute phase of the disease but has strong side effects such as allergic skin reactions © Revista Pesquisa FAPESP - All rights reserved Brazil’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the federal highway police to immediately clear hundreds of roads across the country blocked by truck drivers protesting President Jair Bolsonaro’s loss in the October 30 election A majority of the court’s justices backed the decision which accuses the highway police of “omission and inertia” Failure to comply will mean its director can be fined up to 100,000 reais (more than US$19,000) per hour Federal prosecutors in Sao Paulo and Goias states said they had opened investigations into the blockades highway police said they had removed 306 blockades Bolsonaro hasn’t spoken publicly since official electoral results were released on Sunday night nor has he phoned Lula da Silva to concede even though he might not be directly responsible for these actions everything he has done as president stoked this especially questioning the electoral process and the ballots,” said Williams Gonçalves a political science professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro Bolsonaro has repeatedly questioned the reliability of the country’s electoral system claiming electronic voting machines are prone to fraud even when ordered to do so by the electoral court Everyone responsible for other institutions has already recognised the election’s results,” Gonçalves said garnering 49.1 per cent of the vote to da Silva’s 50.9 per cent It was the tightest presidential race since Brazil’s return to democracy in 1985 In Sao Paulo – Brazil’s most populous state and largest economy – traffic jams around the international airport led to dozens of flight cancellations with videos on social media showing travellers rolling their suitcases along the highway in the dark trying to catch their flights The highways had been cleared by Tuesday morning but airport officials said access remained difficult as traffic was still backed up Several demonstrators were wrapped in the Brazilian flag which has been co-opted by the nation’s conservative movement for demonstrations Huge lines of cars could be seen snaking along the highway a video on social media showed a protester telling a reporter from the O Tempo news outlet that the election was “fraudulent” and warned of future protests “We won’t stop as long as we don’t have a response from our president,” he said “We want Bolsonaro in 2023 and for the years to come.” an Associated Press reporter saw truck drivers kneeling in front of police officers and refusing to evacuate including in multiple Telegram and WhatsApp chat groups with names like ‘Paralysation’ shared demands that the military take the streets or that Congress and the Supreme Court be disbanded and the president remain in office the electoral authority blocked two dozen Telegram groups that defended a military coup and called on their more than 150,000 followers to organise demonstrations The Supreme Court’s decision on Tuesday permits regular state police forces to reinforce federal highway police and the governors of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo states ordered them to deploy when an 11-day trucker strike brought Brazil to a halt Bolsonaro commands wide support from the police forces’ rank and file and it wasn’t clear how effective their involvement would be Lula’s Workers’ Party had accused Bolsonaro’s campaign of deploying law enforcement to create traffic jams and deter people from voting on election day and video footage shared on social media showed officials stopping buses who presides over the nation’s electoral authority but didn’t stop them from reaching the polls The 2018 stoppage caused food prices to spike and left supermarket shelves without products as gas stations ran out of fuel It caused billions in losses and revealed the vast power that truckers possess particularly when they organise through social media platforms a lawmaker at the time and months away from winning that year’s presidential election was an outspoken supporter of the truckers his administration limited interstate fuel taxes to help bring down prices and launched a financial aid programme for truckers just months before the election dozens of journalists from both national and international news outlets remained camped outside the presidential residence in the capital awaiting any sign that Bolsonaro might speak about the election or the highway blockades seems to be strategic ambiguity,” said Robert Muggah a Rio de Janeiro-based think tank focused on security There is a real risk that police inaction could ignite simmering tensions between the militant wings of the far left and far right.” View the discussion thread.