The Hunt For the Last Nazi War Criminals

Back before I was mature enough to fully comprehend what they had done, I was fascinated with stories about tracking down Nazis who had fled to South America. Even when I understood their atrocities, which included gassing several relatives in Hitler's death camps, I remained fascinated.

And so I read with interest the launch this week of Operation Last Chance, an effort to find the remaining Nazi war criminals who took refuge there. Most would be in their late 80s or 90s if they are still alive.

The number one target is former SS medical officer Aribert Heim (photo), who has a $448,000 bounty on his head.

Heim would be 93 years old, but his age is not deterring Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff, who has vowed to find the Austrian-born physician, who is said to have murdered hundreds of inmates while serving as a doctor at Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, where he earned the nickname "Dr Death."

He is accused of killing Jews using exceptionally cruel methods, including performing operations and amputations without anaesthetic to see how much pain his victims could endure.

After World War II, Heim practiced medicine in the German town of Baden-Baden until 1962, when he was indicted as a war criminal and fled the country. Over the years there have been alleged sightings of him in Egypt, Uruguay, Chile and more recently in Spain.

More here.