Josef Mengele was the Nazi doctor who conducted sadistic experiments on Jews at the Auschwitz death camp. After the war, Mengele, known as the "Angel of Death", managed to escape to Argentina - with the help of former comrades from the SS, the elite part of the Nazi regime. Like Mengele, thousands of others managed to reach South America - with the support of collaborators, German emigrants who sympathized with them, and in the case of Argentina - with the help of President Juan Perón, who was deeply involved in European fascism.
This is the starting point for "The Disappearance of Josef Mengele" - a dramatic film that follows the war criminal's successful escape from Buenos Aires through Brazil to Paraguay.
The German-language film by Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov premiered in May at the Cannes Film Festival. It is now showing in cinemas.
Based on the award-winning book by French journalist and writer Olivier Guez, published in 2017, the film paints a dark picture of the causes and consequences of the Nazis' ideological extremism.
One of the world's most wanted men
The film begins in 1956, when the Nazi war criminal is living in exile in Buenos Aires under the name Helmut Gregor. But Israeli agents, West German officials and Nazi hunters are on his trail.
The film shows how money, connections and a chameleon-like ability to change appearance helped one of the world's most wanted men evade international justice for decades. Mengele, played in the film by actor August Dill, eventually drowned in 1979 on a Brazilian beach after suffering a stroke.
"The Disappearance of Josef Mengele" also shows how the man who conducted brutal experiments on concentration camp inmates at Auschwitz cannot escape his past. Lonely, sick and aging, Mengele is living under a false identity in São Paulo when his son Rolf discovers him. He wants to know what really happened at Auschwitz. But while the new generation seeks the truth, Mengele can only repeat the fascist lies with which he justified his crimes.
What happens to war criminals after the war? Is there such a thing as divine justice? Will these people ever be held accountable for their actions? These are the questions that inspired Serebrennikov to adapt Gez's documentary novel. In it, the author examines the nature of evil. "The question of karma, punishment, justice - all this has always interested me," the director says in an interview with the film's distributor.
Serebrennikov, who as a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin was under house arrest in his homeland for years, consciously brings the viewer closer to Mengele in order to make his way of thinking understandable. This approach was partly inspired by the Jewish intellectual Hannah Arendt. During the trial of Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann, whom the Israeli secret services managed to find in Argentina, she develops her thesis about the "banality of evil". According to the Russian director, it states, "that monsters are no different from ordinary people".
"It's about inviting the viewer to put on the mask of Mengele in order to understand that the path from a normal person to a criminal and a sadist can be terrifyingly short", he adds. "In his eyes, he does not see himself as the embodiment of absolute evil at all. There were many other doctors in Auschwitz - why should he be held responsible?" At the same time, the director emphasizes that this approach should in no way arouse sympathy. "Sympathy for Mengele is impossible," says Serebrennikov.
He was also inspired by Jonathan Littell's 2006 novel "The Well-Wishers," in which a former SS officer, living a comfortable life in France after the war, recounts his murderous exploits on the Eastern Front.
In addition to its central character, "The Disappearance of Josef Mengele" also tells the story of the network of people in Europe and South America who protected, financed and hid Mengele until his death. "The evil is not only Mengele, but all these people," says Serebrennikov. "Many of them got away with it."
"A very painful subject"
Serebrennikov, who now lives in Berlin, says he has had to learn a lot about how generations of Germans have come to terms with history. To do this, he has interviewed actors, journalists, producers to hear stories about their grandparents and their lives before and after the war.
"Many were silent, it's a very painful subject for them. But maybe the film has the potential to spark a serious debate. That would be good," says the director. As far-right ideologies are experiencing a renaissance around the world, "The Disappearance of Josef Mengele" also wants to remind viewers of the dangers of dogma.
"We are currently surrounded by highly ideological systems," says the film's producer Felix von Böhm. "I hope that by its accurate depiction of ideological narrow-mindedness, the film will contribute to people not succumbing to ideologies of any kind," he adds.
Author: Steward Brown