The real Odessa : how Perón brought the Nazi war criminals to Argentina / Uki Goñi

Includes bibliographical references (p. [390]-400) and index.

It has long been known that after the Second World War Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele, Erich Priebke and many other Nazi war criminals found refuge in Argentina. Now, for the first time, a courageous Argentine writer reveals exactly how they got there, and how their postwar escapes from Europe were organized with the enthusiastic support of President Juan Peron. Drawing on American intelligence reports and previously unreleased documents from European archives, Uki Goni shows how beginning in 1946 a covert operation based in the Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires smuggled fugitive Nazis to South America. Its network reached into Scandinavia, Switzerland and Italy and relied on the complicity of the Vatican, the Argentine Catholic Church and the Swiss authorities. Nearly six decades later, the revelations in this fascinating, meticulously researched book still have the power to shock. On May 14, 2003, the US Congress introduced a resolution urging the government of Argentina to "release all official records pertaining to the relocation to Argentina of Nazis and other war criminals." The resolution supports an appeal by the Wiesenthal Center, based on revelations in The Real Odessa, for Argentina to open its Nazi records. Book jacket.