The President,
Republic of Argentina,
Balcarce 50,
1064 Buenos Aires,
Argentina.
12th March, 1998
Dear President Carlos Menen,
We are writing to request the help of your government to discover the fate of the Nazi doctor, Carl Værnet, who fled to Argentina after the war and was last known to be working in the Buenos Aires public health department in late 1947.
Dr. Værnet was a pro-Nazi Danish citizen who served in the SS, conducting barbaric medical experiments --including castration and forced hormonal implants-- on gay concentration camp prisoners at Buchenwald and Neuengamme.
Unlike other Nazi doctors, he was never put on trial at Nuremberg, and was allowed to flee to Argentina soon after the war was over.
Dr. Værnet's role in the medical abuse of gay prisoners is documented in the archives at the International Tracing Service at Arolsen (example: ITS Arolsen, book 36, folder 405). It is also cited in the books The Pink Triangle by Richard Plant (Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh 1987) and Hidden Holocaust? by Dr. Günter Grau (Cassell, London 1995).
It is our formal request that the Argentine government conduct an investigation to determine what happened to Dr. Værnet. Is he dead or alive? Could you please furnish us with this information? A good place to start looking would be the records of his employers, the Buenos Aires health service.
OutRage! is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of lesbian, gay and bisexual human rights worldwide.
Dr. Værnet committed acts which are, according to our understanding of international law, crimes against humanity.
We would greatly appreciate your government's assistance in discovering Dr. Værnet's fate. Thank you.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Tatchell
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