History of the Jews in Paraguay 1939, between 15,000 and 20,000 Jews from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia took advantage of Paraguay's liberal immigration laws to escape from Nazi-occupied Europe. After World War II, most Jews that arrived in Paraguay were survivors of concentration camps. Simultaneously, in the 1960s roughly 40,000 Germans and their descendants, a great many of whom were Nazi supporters and some of whom were prominent Nazi figures, were living in Paraguay. Infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele also temporary lived in the country. Today, there are 10,000 Jews mostly living in Paraguay's capital city of Asunción. The majority of the Paraguayan Jewry is of
Paraguay River the river's banks sometimes forces many thousands of displaced residents to seek temporary shelter until the waters recede from their homes. The Paraguayan military has been forced to dedicate land on one of its reserves in the capital to emergency housing for these displaced citizens. The river is a tourist attraction for its beauty. The Paraguay River is the primary waterway of the Pantanal wetlands of southern Brazil, northern Paraguay and parts of Bolivia. The Pantanal is the world's largest tropical wetland and is largely dependent upon waters provided by the Paraguay River. Owing to its importance as a navigable