SAO PAULO, Brazil -- A woman who says she sheltered Nazi concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele for more than a decade described Wednesday how the Auschwitz 'Angel of Death' became 'cold' at the mention of Jews.
'We did not talk much about Jews, but when we did he would not fly into a rage,' Gitta Stammer said in a interview on Brazilian television. 'He just went totally cold, he said they were a people that had no reason to be in Germany.'
Stammer said that Mengele, who participated in the murder of 400,000 people, most of them Jews, at the Auchswitz concentration camp, was 'not a fanatic.'
'He always said that he had never done any harm,' she said.
Stammer said she and her husband, Geza, met Mengele as Peter Hochbichlet in 1961 and hired him as unpaid live-in manager of their farm outside Sao Paulo city.
Shortly after, she said, she saw his picture in a paper and confronted him: 'This looks like you, doesnt it?' she recalled saying. 'He went white and left the room. After dinner he asked to speak to me and admitted his real name was Josef Mengele.'
She said she told Mengele he had to leave. After a few days she repeated the request to Wolfgang Gerhard, the man who had originally introduced Mengele.
'He (Gerhard) said we had such a peaceful life, away from the world, and that it was a difficult matter, he would have to consult with Germany,' Stammer said.
After about three weeks Gerhard reappeared with a man called Hans, Stammer said, who repeated it was a serious matter that concerned lots of people.
'Then there was the first threat,' Stammer said. 'He (Gerhard) said we knew too much, said we were implicated, said our children would suffer.'
Asked if Gerhard or 'Hans' had offered the Stammers money to shelter the man, she said: 'Yes they offered, but we did not take it.'
Stammer said Mengele had been virtually ignored by his family in Germany through the years.
'The most he ever got was a couple of letters a year, that was the most,' she said.
Stammer denied she or her family were part of a Naziring protecting war criminals, and said her only contact was through Gerhard and Hans.
Brazilian newspapers also published interviews Wednesday with an employee of the Stammers who said Gitta Stammer and Mengele were having an affair.
Ferdinando Beletatti, 74, said he worked for the Stammers during the period they sheltered the man thought to be Mengele under the name Peter Gerhard.
'Their children told me Peter and Gitta (Mrs. Stammer) used to lock themselves in the bedroom so that they could be alone, leaving it clear they were having an affair,' Beletatti said.
