Nazi Doctor Reported Hiding Out In Spain
The following Reuters News excerpt contains the story of a Nazi doctor who has apparently been living in Spain for about 20 years. The full story contains some rough images that I've chosen to edit from my excerpt.
MADRID (Reuters) - An Austrian doctor accused of killing hundreds of inmates at a Nazi concentration camp during World War Two has been hiding in Spain for the last 20 years, a Spanish newspaper reported on Sunday. German authorities have said they are hunting for Aribert Heim, 91, known as "Doctor Death."
Heim worked in Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria and killed hundreds of inmates by lethal injection and torture, according to the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center, which has also said Heim may be hiding out in Spain.
Spain's El Mundo newspaper, which has previously reported that Heim may once have lived on the Costa Brava, in northeastern Spain, said on Sunday that Heim had moved to Spain in 1985. It said he had been sheltered by Odessa, a secret group believed to have helped Nazi war criminals hide and find them new identities.
"Odessa, which has had one of its main operating bases in Spain during the 60 years of its history, has kept Doctor Aribert Heim...hidden in our country for the last 20 years," it said. The report quoted investigators as saying that Heim's most lasting hideout was near the town of Roses, on the Costa Brava.
"The police suspect that, knowing that he had been located, Heim left the Roses area in a yacht to go to the Marbella area (on the southern Spanish coast)," it said.
Some of Heim's victims were Spaniards. Many Republicans who fled to France after their defeat in the 1936-39 Spanish civil war were sent to Mauthausen after being handed over to the Nazis by the Vichy government. Some 5,000 Spaniards died there.
According to El Mundo, Heim spent only seven weeks at Mauthausen, from October 8 to November 29, 1941, but said this was enough to leave an indelible mark.
There are a few paragraphs I've omitted due to what I judge to be a particularly grisly description of the way this son of a bitch treated his prisoners. I'll provide a full story link for the curious at the end of this portion of the post.
Heim was captured by the allies after the war but was only accused of belonging to the Waffen-SS and was freed from an internment camp in 1948, the report said. When his history began to come to light, he fled in 1962.
El Mundo said he lived in Egypt until 1967, when he traveled to several other countries before setting up a clinic in Uruguay between 1979 and 1983. Two years after that, he moved to Spain, it said.
An Interior Ministry spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment on Sunday. Newspaper reports have said that police are searching for Heim in Spain but Spanish officials have made no public comment on the case.
Full Story
Just when you think all the remaining monsters in the Nazi regime have died out we get a story like this one that shows that there is no real justice in the cosmic sense. How can there be when an abomination like this man can live a full life to a ripe old age after having committed unspeakably cruel acts against countless numbers of people?
Did Comets/Supernova Effects Plague Early Americans?
A nuclear scientist has come up with a theory to explain what may have wiped out some pockets of early North American settlers, as well as many species of plants and animals roughly 13,000 years ago. AP News excerpt:
COLUMBIA, S.C. - A supernova could be the "quick and dirty" explanation for what may have happened to an early North American culture, a nuclear scientist here said Thursday.
Richard Firestone said at the "Clovis in the Southeast" conference that he thinks "impact regions" on mammoth tusks found in Gainey, Mich., were caused by magnetic particles rich in elements like titanium and uranium. This composition, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist said, resembles rocks that were discovered on the moon and have also been found in lunar meteorites that fell to Earth about 10,000 years ago.
Firestone said that, based on his discovery of similar material at Clovis sites, he estimates that comets struck the solar system during the Clovis period, which was roughly 13,000 years ago. These comets would have hit the Earth at 1,000 kilometers an hour, he said, obliterating many life forms and causing mutations in others.
Full Story
An interesting side to this story is that Firestone, whose area of expertise is nuclear physics, has brought something of value to the table in helping to describe something in the field of archeology. The geological record goes part of the way to backing the theory up in the form of impact craters throughout the southwest part of the U.S. The theory also makes sense due to the large number of comets and asteroids that have recently been discovered, and catalogued, that cross the Earth's orbit.
The supernova part is a bit harder to pin down because you need a star to have exploded that is close enough to have the magnetic effects Firestone describes, but yet far enough away so as not to have destroyed the planet outright. An interesting thing to do as a follow-up would be to examine well-established areas of human settlements in other parts of the world to see if similar patterns exist.
Al Lopez, Hall of Fame Manager, 1908-2005
Al Lopez, the last man to guide the Chicago White Sox to the World Series before this season, died Sunday at age 97. AP Wire excerpt:
MIAMI - Al Lopez, a Hall of Fame catcher and manager who led the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox to American League pennants in the 1950s, died Sunday at 97.
Lopez had been hospitalized in Tampa since Friday, when he suffered a heart attack at his son's home, Al Lopez Jr. said. Lopez was the oldest living Hall of Fame member, said Jeff Idelson, spokesman for the Hall. Lopez hit .261 with 51 homers and 652 RBIs during a 19-year career in which he was one of baseball's most durable catchers and set the record for most games caught in the major leagues at 1,918. The record was later broken by Bob Boone, then Carlton Fisk.
Lopez was best known for being the only AL manager to lead teams that finished ahead of the New York Yankees between 1949-64. He helped the Indians to the 1954 pennant and, until last week, was the last manager to lead the White Sox to the World Series — their 1959 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
"We're saddened by the news," White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said through a spokesman Sunday. "Al lived a long and good life. We're so pleased we were able to win the World Series this year and that he was able to see it before he died."
The two-time All Star's first full season in the majors was 1930, and he played 18 seasons for Brooklyn, Boston, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. He managed the Indians from 1951-56 and the White Sox from 1957-65 and 1968-69.
Under Lopez, the Cleveland Indians won a then-AL record 111 games in 1954, and his 1959 "Go-Go" White Sox won Chicago's first AL pennant since 1919. His teams finished second to the Yankees every other season that decade.
"We called him 'Senor' Lopez," said Jim Rivera, a center fielder for the '59 White Sox.
"He was very fair. If you did something good he would compliment you. If you struck out or made an error, he wouldn't say a word, as long as you hustled and worked hard," Rivera said Sunday from his home in Fort Wayne, Ind.
Lopez's second stint as manager of the White Sox ended May 2, 1969, when he resigned for health reasons with a career record of 1,422-1,026.
Lopez's record is a bit different on the baseball-reference web site (and my money is on them). It is 1,410-1,004. Lopez's worst team had a .525 winning percentage for a full season (the 1962 White Sox). In his 15 full seasons managing the Indians and White Sox his teams won 90 or more games 10 times. Unfortunately, Yankee dominance in the fifties and early sixties meant that Lopez managed a lot of very good second (ten times) or third place (once) clubs. The previously mentioned 1962 team finished fifth in the American League, Lopez's worst showing in the standings as a manager. Baseball has lost a true giant.
Lopez's B-R record
No comments:
Post a Comment