Argentina’s “Nazi Hideout” Revisited

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA—An article in The Guardian responds to reports that a Nazi hideout was excavated in northwestern Argentina by archaeologist Daniel Schavelzon, who claimed that the ruins of three stone buildings in the jungles of Teyú Cuaré National Park could have sheltered war criminals on the run after World War II. “There is no documentation, but we found German coins from the war period in the foundations,” Schavelzon told The Guardian. After the war, Argentina’s president Juan Perón did give refuge to Auschwitz doctor Josef Mengele and Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust, but they lived in suburban homes outside of Buenos Aires. And, many German immigrants arrived in Argentina in the early twentieth century, giving rise to some three million people of German descent who live in the country today. But are the coins proof of a secret Nazi enclave? “That was just speculation on my part. The press picked it up and magnified it,” Schavelzon said.