When Auschwitz was liberated, Mengele was one
of the first to escape. As his crimes against humanity came out of the shadows, Menegele became a very sought-after Nazi.
The first place he went after escaping the Allies was back to his
home town of Guzenburg. For a few months he hid in the woods near town while his family provided him with all he needed. Later
he found a job at a nearby farm. He worked as a farmhand in exchange for room and board for awhile, but later decided it was
much too dangerous to stay in Europe.
Mengele escaped through Italy to an ocean liner bound for Argentina.
There were already many Nazi war criminals there, so it wasn't too hard for him to settle. He would spend the next 30 years
on run from international officials.
For the first two decades following World War II, no one put much
effort into capturing the notorios Angel of Death. This is partly because of a lack of commitment on the
part of the West German government to bring the Mengele to justice, and a similar lack of commitment on the part of the United
States Justice Department. Mengele also received much assistance from neo-Nazi groups in South America. Later, when the Israeli got close to Mengele, he seemed to drop off the radar.