Eva Peron ‘kept Nazi treasure taken from Jews’
Eva Peron, the former Argentine first lady, is believed to have kept Nazi treasures taken from wealthy Jewish families killed in concentration camps, according to a new book.
‘The Politically Incorrect Guide to Latin America’ aims to highlight a series of little known controversies about leading leftist figures in the history of the continent.
It claims that Simon Bolivar, the hero of Latin America’s independence wars, was scared that blacks and indigenous Indians would seize power and that Salvador Allende, the Marxist Chilean president of the 1970s, considered a Nazi-inspired policy of sterilisation.
Its authors, the Brazilian journalists Leandro Narloch and Duda Teixeira, said the book is intended to generate discussion about issues airbrushed from history books.
Eva Peron, known as Evita, was the second wife of President Juan Peron, and remains a national heroine almost 60 years after she died from cancer.
Hospitals, schools and orphanages were built in poor areas through a foundation she established and she was crucial to her husband’s popularity with the masses.
However, Mr Peron helped many Nazis fleeing Europe after the Second World War to find a safe haven in Argentina, including Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele.
According to the new book: “It is still suspected that among her [Eva Peron’s] possessions, there were pieces of Nazi treasure, that came from rich Jewish families killed in concentration camps.
“Peron himself even spoke of goods of ‘German and Japanese origin’ that the Argentine government had appropriated.” Looking further back in history, the authors write of Bolivar: “His greatest fear was that blacks, Indians and those of mixed race would take power and install a government.” Allende, who killed himself in 1973 during a coup which saw General Augusto Pinochet depose him, is accused of having “stifled the media”.
The book adds that he started “a project of socialist doctrination in schools and almost installed a law of sterilisation, inspired by a Nazi law” aimed at reducing genetic illnesses.
The book has triggered a wave of controversy, winning praise from some historians for stimulating debate but attracting strong criticism from others for a lack of historical context.
“It is not a historical guide. It is politically incorrect. We only show the unpleasant side of history’s heroes,” said Narloch, who is now planning a follow-up work about global historical figures.
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