On March 23, 1961, a story was published in the Israeli press that seemed to be taken from an exaggerated and highly imaginative Hollywood movie.
"Followed Mengele in Argentina - and was murdered," cried the headlines.
"The mysterious clerk of the Israeli delegation in Cologne was apparently 'executed' by Nazi agents, after they discovered that she was one of the Israeli commandos hunting down Nazi war criminals who had found refuge in Argentina," the news adds and details.
The name of the mysterious Israeli is the late Nurit Eldad, but she was also known by the names Eldod, Eldot and Eldok - and the published news was the first clue to the unusual story of her life and death.
However, already the day after the publication of the sensational news, there were vigorous denials that Nurit was killed while fulfilling a spying mission for high-ranking Nazis.
"Nurit Eldod - the victim of an accident in the mountains of Argentina - was not murdered by Nazis," wrote the "Davar" newspaper, which stated that she "died while hiking in the mountains of southern Argentina - something that became clear beyond any shadow of a doubt already a year ago."
Screaming headlines.
Coverage of the affair in "Olam Hez", photo: from "Olam Hez"
The vigorous denials were effective.
The story of Nurit's death and the jaw-dropping news that she was murdered by the Auschwitz selection doctor has been cataloged as an urban legend.
However, a careful examination of the denial information raises questions.
In a news item from the "Davar" newspaper, which is not signed by any reporter but by "Sofer Devar", it is written that "according to the descriptions, which arrived in Israel about a year ago, Norit split, fell into a deep abyss and it was impossible to reach out for help and remove the body."
However, from the testimonies of several people who were with Nurit on the trip where she died, and revealed here for the first time, it appears that no one saw her slide to her death.
Moreover, her body was only found after four days of searching by a rescue team, and the testimony of the rescuers who first arrived at her body indicates that she was found dead and her belongings were placed neatly next to her - a far cry from what was written in the knowledge of denial.
This did not prevent the former head of the Mossad, the late Isser Harel, from publishing in June 1985 in the "Maariv" newspaper a story that flatly denied the details of the case. Whenever I was asked about it, including recently, I completely denied it.
There was not and was not created an 'Israeli agent' who was introduced, so to speak, by the Mossad into Mengele's vicinity and who was murdered, so to speak, by him."
denied the affair.
Isser Harel, photo: L.A.M
In the years that have passed, not a single historian who specializes in researching the activities of the Mossad knew the details of the exciting story about Nurit's death.
In 2007, the history department of the Mossad published a book called Eb Kars, which details the tremendous efforts of the organization's people to get their hands on Mengele.
Norit's name and the story of her death are not even mentioned, and she remains a mystery shrouded in mystery.
Who is Norit Aldot?
Nurit was born in Frankfurt on December 12, 1912 as Nora, the eldest daughter of a wealthy family of furniture manufacturers.
With the rise of the Nazis to power, her father, mother and their seven children immigrated to the village of Rivera in Argentina, and 23-year-old Nora decided to move to Israel and change her name to Nurit.
On September 2, 1934, after a training period in France, she was accepted into Kibbutz Naan and married a member of the farm, but her marriage fell apart and she divorced, left the kibbutz and moved to Tel Aviv, where she bought an apartment at 85 Sokolov St. and began working as a kindergarten teacher.
She then marries and divorces again, without having given birth to any children.
Esnat Avigdori, whose mother and Nurit were cousins, remembers the meetings with the "fair-haired" relative.
"Norit welcomed my mother in Israel after the outbreak of World War II and the relationship between them was close," she says.
"Both of them had no other family in Israel and I remember that Norit would come to us and they would talk in German. She was a beautiful woman, always very tidy."
Did you know what she did for a living? There were rumors about the Mossad, spying on Nazis.
"My mother passed away fully believing that Norit was murdered as a result of her spying on high-ranking Nazis. On her grave it is written that she died a martyr's death, why?"
"Kind, sociable and beautiful."
Nurit Eldad, photo: no credit
In 1958 Nurit starts working in the commercial department of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A few months later, she is sent to Cologne, Germany, where she works as a document translator for the delegation that deals with the issue of payments, led by the late Felix Schnaar.
A boy played a central role in the capture of Eichmann - he is the man who passed the "golden knowledge" from Fritz Bauer to Isser Harel regarding the torturer's whereabouts in Argentina.
From documents that have reached us it appears that in 1960 a boy was also involved in spying on Mengele's whereabouts.
In the telegram he sent to Jerusalem it was written that "Dr. Mangala is in Argentina and works as a doctor.
The German government has been asking for his extradition for years, but the Argentine authorities refuse to extradite him.
There is a possibility of introducing the news to the German and English press.
A little earlier, at the end of 1959, Nurit goes to Argentina for a family visit.
Her sister says in an interview conducted with her that upon her arrival in the country Norit told the family that she had started working in Buenos Aires for a Jewish lawyer named the late Jose Moskovich.
Moskovich, a well-known figure in the Jewish community in Argentina, specialized in recovering lost funds of Holocaust victims, and he also played a central role in the daring operation to capture Eichmann - the connected lawyer provided hiding apartments in Argentina for Mossad agents.
Captured in Argentina.
Adolf Eichmann, photo: no credit
death trip
At the beginning of April 1960, just one month before Eichmann's capture, Nurit joined a training trip of a youth movement of the "United Kibbutz" before they immigrated to Israel, a trip from which she never returned.
The 18 members of the group are also joined by Dov Tzin, a decent and mysterious man who is considerably younger than Menurit.
The person who asks the group of boys to join them on the journey is an Israeli emissary of the kibbutz movement who is responsible for training the youth.
The messenger explains to the youth that the couple is interested in traveling and seeing Argentina.
Melech Ziv (84 today), one of the youth who participated in the training campaign, clearly remembers the image of the participants.
"We didn't take Dov Tzin very seriously, he was introverted and not very intelligent and the guys even made fun of him," he recalled, "but Nurit was 48 years old and very handsome. She was smiling, energetic and positive. Although they were described to us as a couple, they were not They behaved as a couple. I didn't see any closeness between them."
"At first I didn't understand what the relationship was between them, whether they were relatives or friends," recalls Miriam Tzovinski (83), who also took part in the training trip and was among the last to see Nurit alive.
"For sure they were not partners," she states, "Nurit was many years older than him and there was no relationship dynamic between them."
Members of the training group on a trip to Bariloche, photo: Archive of the Ghetto Fighters House
As part of the trip, the group arrives at the picturesque town of Bariloche, which is a favorite of Israeli backpackers to this day and is also known as the town where many Germans live and as a hiding place for Nazi criminals.
"Bariloche was amazing in its beauty, but everywhere we went we saw signs of Germans. A huge farm surrounded by green fields and on the gate you see the German eagle," recalls Zubinski.
"During the trip I talked to Nourit a lot. She was very charming. Kind, sociable and beautiful. We spoke in Hebrew and I asked her about her membership in Kibbutz Naan, as I was very curious to hear what my life in Kibbutz was going to be like. We used to walk the routes together, but Nourit and Dov were separate from us In everything. They slept separately and their agenda was different."
Melech Ziv, a member of the training group: "Even though I saw no sign of injury, I had no reason to doubt the police version according to which Norit fell to her death. The face was 100 percent healthy and intact. The mouth was half open and you could see the teeth clearly. They were completely intact."
Dov and Nurit are with the group in Bariloche for about three weeks.
"It was a beautiful trip," Ziv recalled, "we settled in a place called 'Camping Argentina' and the last trip was to 'Cerro Lopez'. Two and a half days before returning to Buenos Aires we planned to climb to the top, sleep there in a hostel and return the next day.
"When we got to the top, everything was normal and relaxed, and the next morning we got ready to go back. There were three guys who wanted to go down first, to develop pictures before leaving for Buenos Aires. Nurit said belatedly that she also wanted to go down with them. She started to go down after them alone, and when we got down it turned out that she She is gone. No one saw her, not the guys who came down early and not us, who were in the group that came down after them. We were very worried and ran all the way back, but we saw no trace of the light."
A body is found
When the group's efforts to locate Nurit fail, they decide that Dev Tzin and King Ziv will stay in Brilocha to oversee the search.
"We informed the police that she was missing and local rescue teams started looking for her," says Ziv.
"Dob was with me all the time, but I didn't pay attention to him. He wasn't a function at all because he didn't know Spanish and didn't bring any benefit.
"The police said they would take care of the search, and they put us up in the most luxurious hotel in Bariloche, at their own expense. I told them I wanted to search with them and help them find Nurit, but they said it wasn't for me. That it was dangerous and that I would be more of a problem than a help. I was at the hotel Together with Deb for four days and from time to time they informed me that they were still looking for her. I did nothing but wait for the police to inform me of something.
"On the fourth day they said they found her dead. She was found with her legs bent as if she wanted to defecate. They added that her liver exploded from the fall, and when the liver explodes there is a desire to defecate and that's how they found her lifeless."
What did you do after finding the body?
"A whole mask began, a tremendous procedure. I was asked by the police to identify her body and I completely remember the process, the entrance to the morgue. There were many covered bodies and they opened the sheets. I will not forget the horrifying sight.
"They wanted to see my reaction, if I recognized her. Finally we got to her and I saw that she was well preserved. I didn't see any injury. She even had a smile and you could see her teeth. I immediately said it was her.
"Although I saw no sign of injury, I had no reason to doubt their version.
The face was one hundred percent healthy and intact.
The mouth was half open and the teeth were clearly visible.
They were absolutely perfect.
"After that it was clear to me that she should be brought to Israel's grave, but where is Israel's grave? For me it was in Buenos Aires, at the Jewish cemetery. It was clear to me that she should be brought there. I had no idea that she had a mother and sisters in Argentina."
Hiding in a town in Argentina.
A group of Nazis in Bariloche, photo: no credit
Ziv says that at a certain point, after word of Nurit's death became known, Dov Tzin disappeared.
"He simply passed away. For me it didn't change much, because even so he was marginal. I took on the task of escorting the body to the Israeli grave in Buenos Aires. It was not an easy task and the members of the Jewish community in Bariloche donated the money for the burial arrangements.
"I got on a special train to Buenos Aires with the coffin, but halfway through the police stopped us and the commander told me to leave the body with him. He said they would transfer it to the family. They took the body from my safe and I didn't know what they did with it. Later I found out that she was buried in her family's village."
Indeed, Nurit was buried in Ribera and on her grave it was written: "Died a martyr's death in Briluatshe".
Miriam Tzovinski, a member of the training group: "I remember that publications started that Nurit and Dov were members of the Mossad. We saw the Germans in Bariloche, so we did one and another, and in hindsight we understood what they wanted. At the same time, Eichmann was also captured, so everything came together."
Smuggling in the dead of night
Ziv returned to Buenos Aires, where he served as an educational director in the movement for another year.
In March 1961, news was published in the newspaper "La Razon" that the investigative authorities in Argentina were investigating the death of a woman who had been found lifeless in the Bariloche mountains a year before.
According to the report, the woman was an Israeli agent who was trying to find the traces of Dr. Josef Mengele.
The newspaper says that "Nora Alduk" is the Israeli who appeared one day at a resort in the Bariloche mountains and accepted a man's offer to go on a trip to the mountain.
The man, according to the publication, returned alone from the trip and claimed that his partner was missing.
"The guest, whose name is not specified, has disappeared," the article states.
It is further described that the woman worked as a secretary at the embassy in West Germany and that in her documents was a document from the president of Argentina, authorizing her to tour anywhere in Argentina.
"The president's office denied the existence of such a certificate," the news item states, and the newspaper believes that the woman was murdered by a Nazi group that protects war criminals who are hiding in Argentina.
"The West German embassy and the Israeli embassy refused to comment on the matter," the news concluded.
The source of the news of "La Razon" is a report of the Argentinian intelligence that was leaked to the newspaper, which contains a detailed description of the case. According to the report, Nurit was part of an Israeli commando squad that tried to track down Josef Mangala. The report describes that Nurit was found lifeless At the foot of a cliff, with her bag and shoes neatly placed next to her.
According to the report, she suffered from internal bleeding in the liver as a result of a bruise.
On top of that, the report states the names and addresses of all the members who were with Nurit on the trip, which also indicates the police searches for them.
The last trip.
"Serro Lopez" area, photo: no credit
A few days before the publication, Israeli Embassy personnel came to Ziv and begged him to come with them to the embassy urgently.
"I was at the embassy for a good few days while the whole world was looking for me," he recalled.
"The members of the kibbutz movement in the embassy hid me, and when it was published that Nurit was murdered by senior Nazis I understood the connection.
"After a few days, I was smuggled out in the middle of the night on a plane that landed in Iguazu, the town on the border between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, which is known for the beautiful waterfalls nearby. I was there for a few days and then I was transferred to Paraguay, from there to Brazil and from there to Israel. Since then I have made sure not to visit Argentina for the rest of my life and in fact I have not I returned to my homeland, until a few years ago. To this day, no one has told me why I was forced to be deported."
Tzovinski has no doubt that the true circumstances under which Dov and Nurit were included in the journey were hidden from the members of the group.
"I remember that publications and rumors started that Nurit and Dov were members of the Mossad. We saw the Germans in Bariloche, so we did one and another and in retrospect we understood what they wanted. At the same time, Eichmann was also captured, so everything came together.
"During the trip Nurit and Dov went with us, but apart from the routes they didn't eat with us, didn't sleep with us and weren't with us. They were apart almost everywhere. Before I came to Israel I saw Dov on the street in Buenos Aires, but I didn't approach him or talk to him. It was A few weeks after the trip."
After the publications, the police arrived at the home of Zovinski's parents, who had already left Argentina for Israel.
"When my parents told us that the police were looking for us, I understood that it was all a cover-up, that they belonged to the Mossad and were looking for Germans. To me personally, it is clear as day that they were on duty."
Bariloche, a favorite of Israeli backpackers to this day, was also known as a hiding place for Nazi criminals.
"Everywhere we went we saw signs of Germans. A huge farm surrounded by green fields and on the gate you see the German eagle," Zubinski recalls
Joint role or not, one of the biggest question marks regarding Nurit's activities in Argentina is her connection to Dev Tzin.
A search in the Population Authority database reveals that there is a person in Israel who goes by that name - an 85-year-old from Kibbutz Ein Gav - whose mother's name or her identity card, unusually, are not indicated.
According to the records, he was born on January 1, 1928 in Poland and immigrated to Israel as a child, in July 1935. From an inquiry we made with the Ein Gev Kibbutz Archives, it appears that no one with that name has ever lived in the Kibbutz.
Avner Avraham, a former Mossad man and an expert on the "Finale" operation to capture Eichmann, describes that the Mossad had quite a bit of help from Argentinian Jews in its operations, and even made sure to smuggle them out after their actions were exposed.
"At the end of one of my lectures on Eichmann in the USA, a lady approached me and told me that she and her family had a photo shop where Eichmann used to shop.
She said that one day a foreign man came to develop photos for them and in retrospect it turned out that it was the late Zvi Aharoni, who was sent as a vanguard to photograph Eichmann and developed the photos in her family's shop.
Avraham describes that when details of Operation Finale began to leak out, a representative of the Israeli embassy in Argentina was sent to the owner of the photo shop, and after a short time the embassy fled the woman and her family to Israel.
"There is a great deal of evidence that Issar Harel also assisted civilians who are not part of the official security system in the pursuit of high-ranking Nazis," says Avraham, and alludes to the activities of Nurit and Dov in Argentina when he adds that "Harel did not hesitate, for example, to employ two embassy employees in order to photograph Mengele , a failed attempt".
The CIA is also in the picture
Not only Argentine intelligence is interested in the story of Nurit's death.
The CIA and the BND (the West German Federal Intelligence Service) also publish news about her.
Professor Holger Madding, a professor of Latin American history at the University of Colon in Argentina, who wrote a book about German immigration to the country after World War II, was given access to the archives of German secret intelligence.
He did not know Nurit's story, but at our request he looked for details about her in the archives.
In Mengele's folder he found a document compiled in 1961 and revealed at his request for the first time.
Speaks in the news that Mengele is in Bariloche, and it states that Aldot was killed in the area under unclear circumstances.
"After the kidnapping of Eichmann, the German secret service was looking for Nazis in Latin America," Madding explains, "they were trying to figure out where Mengele was."
According to Mading, Nurit's name is also mentioned in a book authored by Alfred Yarschel, a writer who wrote a lot about high-ranking Nazis who fled after the war.
"He visited Latin America and had many sources," says Mading.
"It's a very interesting book, but it's hard to distinguish between truth and fiction. Jarschel knew a lot, but he also added a lot of details from his imagination.
"In this case, he names the man responsible for Nurit's murder and calls him Albert, without a last name. He says that Albert was a Fleming who was in contact with Nurit and in a book it is written that there was a relationship between Nurit and a senior Nazi. It is said that they went into the forest together but only Albert returned." .
Esnat Avigdori, whose mother and Nurit were cousins: "Both of them had no other family in Israel. My mother passed away with the complete belief that Nurit was murdered as a result of spying on top Nazi officials. On her grave it is written that she died a martyr's death, why?"
Another news release, published by the CIA, states that Mengele is wanted for the murder of "Muriel Eldad".
Eldad, the report says, was a Polish woman, a citizen of Israel, whose family lived in Argentina. She gained Mengele's trust with the goal of killing him, but he killed her. The source quoted in the report concluded that Eldad worked "for Israeli agents."
Israeli-Argentinian journalist Leon Schachman, who also researched Nurit's story, visited the place where her body was found and interviewed a member of the rescue team that found her.
The rescuer says that Nurit was found with her pants rolled down, her feet bare, her shoes arranged next to her and a bag laid neatly next to her.
According to him, the rock step at the bottom of which Norit was found was only a few meters high.
Another fascinating testimony about Nurit is that of the local lawyer Jose Moskovich, for whom, as I recall, she began working upon her arrival in Argentina.
Moskovic, who was born in March 1926 in Hungary, was a well-known figure among the Jewish community in Argentina.
This is a holocaust survivor whose entire family perished in the war, but he managed to escape together with Hungarian partisans.
He then immigrated to Israel, fought in the Palmach, and in 1955 immigrated to Argentina and became a prominent activist in the Jewish community in Buenos Aires. He served as the president of the organization "The Remnant of the Escape" and represented hundreds of Holocaust survivors in lawsuits to recover their stolen money. As mentioned, in 1960 he played a central role in the operation to capture Eichmann when he The squad has hiding apartments in the city. He passed away in good health in 2014.
Eva Eisenstadt and Malka Schmidtberg, long-time employees in Moskovitch's office, who served as his right-hand man for many years, confirm in their correspondence that they spoke with him about Norit.
The two state that Moskovitch told them emphatically that Norit was murdered, and did not die in an accident.
According to them, the Jewish lawyer knew that Norit came to Argentina on a mission aimed at spying on senior Nazi officials.
A member of the rescue team that found Nurit told journalist Leon Schachman that she was found with her pants rolled down, her feet bare and her old shoes arranged next to her.
According to him, the rock step at the bottom of which was found was only a few meters high
In addition to that, in April 2011 the news site "elmercurio" published a news item to mark the 50th anniversary of the capture of Eichmann.
In the news, Moskovich, then 85 years old, is interviewed, who says that "Nurit Aldot was killed before the capture of Eichmann, by Mengele's agents in Bariloche."
Also in interviews with the "desertnews" website in 1992 and the "Seattle Times" newspaper, Moskovich says that Nurit came to Argentina to follow Mengele.
When asked if there was an Israeli agent, he replied: "Don't ask."
As for Mengele, in January 1945 he escaped to Czechoslovakia, was captured by the US Army and held as a prisoner of war, but was released after they could not establish his true identity. In 1949 he managed to get out through Italy to Argentina and from the mid-1960s the most wanted Nazi criminal lived on the farm of A German couple near Sao Paulo, Brazil.He drowned in 1979, after suffering a stroke while bathing at Bartioga Beach near Sao Paulo, and was buried under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard".
Even after his death, the Mossad continued the pursuit of his body and in 1985 an American-German-Israeli team was established to locate him.
Following information that was revealed, Sao Paulo police investigators came to the couple who hid the bones of the selection doctor from Auschwitz.
At first the two denied the connection to Mangala, but later admitted everything.
The skeleton was removed from his grave and in 1992 DNA tests proved that it was indeed the body of Dr. Death, and thus the mystery of his disappearance came to an end.
Itai Amikam is a "Real Time" reporter in Han 11
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