Epilogue
Feels Like Vindication
In a sprawling brick house cluttered with soccer balls and sparkly pink tutus, Lucyna Wojcik had set about raising her children. There was no extended family to speak of, no grandparents or aunts or cousins, but on birthdays and Friday night Shabbat dinners, she and Feliks would come together with other Jewish survivors, not quite family but kin, people who came from the same place, who needed what they did.
It was what Lucyna wanted for her son and daughter, a world filled with light and sweetness, kisses at bedtime, Chanukah presents wrapped in shiny gold foil, Halloween costumes carefully sewn together with bits of satin and yarn. She had gone about it in the most practical way.
Though Feliks had earned only fifteen dollars a week as a medical resident in the hospital in Rochester, New York, they took long, happy walks in the park, where they put their infant son on a blanket in the grass and munched on day-old bread that Lucyna had learned to soak in milk and bake with sugar. Before bedtime, Feliks played “The Blue Danube” on an old violin since music reminded him of his mother. Lucyna canned apples and tomatoes. When there was extra money Feliks bought his first car, a 1947 Plymouth.
The dark years, as Lucyna called them, faded ever so slightly. This is our happiness, she thought.
A baby girl came four years later. Where once there was nothing, Lucyna said at the Thanksgiving dinner table that year and every year after that, now there is a family of four. They moved to the Midwest suburbs in the early 1960s so Feliks could open a medical practice, and there they found a community of Polish survivors who hadn’t quite mastered the nuances of the English language but kept American flags firmly positioned on their front lawns.
There were no grandparents for Bar and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies, but friends and neighbors filled the seats of local synagogues for one child after the next. “You don’t have family, you make your own family,” Feliks liked to say, and instructed the children to call him uncle or papa.
Between the two of them, Feliks was decidedly more fixed in the past. He talked about the guards in Lublin. “The Ukrainians,” he said more than once, his voice rising, “were worse than the Nazis. They enjoyed it.”
He talked about how his faith in God had died in the ghettos.
“What I would give to have a picture of my sister,” he once told Lucyna.
In the early 1980s, Feliks had read newspaper stories about a man named John Demjanjuk. Somehow he had come to the United States, on a ship bound for New York. How could such men be living free? There was no good answer, of course, and soon Feliks stopped asking the question.
To spare her children, Lucyna talked about the past only on rare occasions and in a manner more matter of fact than angry. Once, on a beach vacation in 1974, she sat with her daughter and described the last days of the Lublin ghetto.
“My mother told me, ‘You must leave,’” Lucyna said. “I didn’t have the chance to say good-bye.”
In her own children, Lucyna saw compensation for what she had lost in Poland. During the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the rabbi at the family’s synagogue had once said, “God giveth and God taketh away.”
After the service ended, Lucyna pulled him into a corner. She was dressed in a suit and pearls, gold earrings neatly clipped to her ears. “Rabbi, I have to tell you, I disagree with you. You’re wrong.”
“How am I wrong?” the rabbi asked.
“You said, ‘God giveth and God taketh away.’ But in my life, God taketh away and then God giveth.” She pointed to her family. “Look what I produced.”
After Feliks’s medical practice took off, there had been extra money for the opera and a timeshare in Acapulco, where Feliks brought along a Super 8 movie camera and followed his children as they splashed in the water. On weekends at home, he put on an apron and hat and grilled steaks in a yard filled with red and white flowers. Lucyna spent time in the kitchen, grinding meat for kreplach, the small dumplings that she had eaten as a girl in Poland.
When Feliks and Lucyna’s children became parents, a family of four became a family of twelve, filling an entire row in the synagogue. Alone at home, Lucyna found herself thinking more about the war and her lost brother. What had become of him? She knew only that in Warsaw, his assumed name had been found on a list of survivors registered in January 1946 in a displaced-persons camp in the town of Neuburg, Germany, near Frankfurt.
“There was no proof that he ever died,” Lucyna told Feliks. “I need to know.”
Feliks pressed her to launch a search, to talk to the Red Cross or to return to Poland and search for his name in the telephone books. That, Lucyna said, wouldn’t do. “My foot will never step on the Polish soil under any circumstances, except if I know my brother is there.”
Together, they wrote to officials in Israel, Sweden, England, Australia, and Germany. Lucyna posted a notice on a website set up by Holocaust survivors and their families. She waited for months, but no response ever came.
When a local Holocaust educational group asked if she would be willing to describe her life in Poland during the war, Lucyna agreed to go on camera. When her children were young, she wouldn’t have considered it. But as she grew older, she felt an obligation to her family, to history, and to her parents and brother.
Lucyna put on a pink wool suit, gold earrings, and lipstick. She looked somewhere off-camera and paused. “I come from a town called Lublin,” she began.
In 2013, after fifty years as a practicing physician, ninety-two-year-old Feliks died in his armchair. Long after Lucyna’s legs had weakened, he had managed to twirl her around the dance floor at polka parties, looking, in his crisp white bow tie, every bit the boy Lucyna remembered from Poland.
“I will not live past our wedding anniversary without him,” Lucyna told her son.
True to her word, Lucyna fell into a coma and died six months later, at the age of eighty-seven, on the seventy-first anniversary of her marriage to Feliks in the Warsaw ghetto.
NO OTHER COUNTRY has more rigorously pursued Nazi war criminals in the past three decades than the United States. Since 1990, the Office of Special Investigations has denaturalized and deported more than seventy people who once assisted in Nazi persecution. That’s more than the total prosecution victories of all other countries in the world combined, including Germany, during the same period.
More than a hundred successful cases were brought by OSI after its founding in 1979. Most OSI defendants did not come from Germany and were instead collaborators who helped throughout the Holocaust.
“To be successful at preventing future genocides,” Barry White wrote in 2016, “we must…do the hard work of examining the factors and dynamics that can motivate potentially any ordinary human in potentially any country to collaborate in mass murder.”
Peter Black, who retired from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2016, is now considered the world’s foremost expert on the Trawniki training camp and the men who served there. “If legal consequences for mass murder and mass atrocity become habitual to political and judicial behavior in the twenty-first century,” he often said at conferences after his retirement, “perhaps we can prevent mass murder in the future.”
Though OSI won cases against dozens of Nazi war criminals, eight defendants under deportation orders died on US soil because their native countries and Germany refused to take them back. Reimer, the ninth, died a few months after OSI launched a deportation case against him. Germany had already declined to take him.
Over time, the lack of cooperation from other countries became the single greatest frustration faced by OSI. Eli Rosenbaum brought up deportation policies twice on trips to Germany and spent years appealing for help from members of Congress and the US State Department.
In August 2018, US authorities, working under a deal cut by the White House, removed former Trawniki man Jakiw Palij from the United States after fourteen years of unsuccessful attempts. He had lived out much of his retirement on a quiet street
in Queens, New York, perhaps the last surviving Nazi defendant ordered deported from the United States.
After receiving word that Palij had landed in Dusseldorf, Germany, Rosenbaum emailed Black.
“Hi, Chief,” Rosenbaum wrote. “He arrived in Germany a few hours ago.”
Black, surprised at the sudden turn of events, quickly responded: “How in the world did you get the Germans to agree to take him back?”
Rosenbaum also emailed White, who, after twenty-nine years at OSI, began working at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, where she became the research director of the Center for the Prevention of Genocide and, later, a historian in the Office of the Senior Historian.
“After so many managed to live out their lives here despite final removal orders,” White wrote to Rosenbaum, “this one feels like vindication.”
Despite early predictions that the work of the Office of Special Investigations would be finished in a matter of months, the unit was active for three decades. In 2010, OSI was merged with the Domestic Security Section of the US Department of Justice to form a new unit with a broader post–World War II mission. The Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section prosecutes human-rights violators and other international criminals who participated in genocide, torture, or war crimes abroad.
After spending nearly his entire legal career at OSI, Rosenbaum became a director within the unit, helping to track war criminals who slipped into the United States from new hot spots around the world, including Bosnia, Serbia, Rwanda, and Darfur.
The new unit is as busy as ever.
Acknowledgments
In February 1989, Simon Wiesenthal told the Baltimore Jewish Times, “The history of man is the history of crimes, and history can repeat.…Information is a defense. Through this we can build, we must build, a defense against repetition.”
Historians Peter Black and Barry White spent most of their professional careers at the US Department of Justice and, later, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, probing some of the darkest moments in human history. This story could not have been told without their wisdom, insight, and steadfast support. They gave generously in ways big and small, with profound patience and perspective, to further the public’s understanding of the Holocaust. I am grateful for their somber and objective counsel, and for their dedication to accuracy, from the inception of this project to the very end.
Special thanks to Eli Rosenbaum, the former director of DOJ’s Office of Special Investigations and now the Director of Human Rights Enforcement Strategy and Policy at the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section. Despite his heavy workload, he offered extensive and ongoing guidance on legal and historical matters with passion and precision. The analysis, memories, photos, and audio and video files he provided were invaluable.
Many other lawyers and historians involved in OSI’s work contributed to this project, most notably Neal Sher, Charlie Sydnor, Jonathan Drimmer, Patrick Treanor, David Rich, Allan Ryan, Ellen Chubin, David Marwell, and Todd Huebner, who provided significant historical guidance for the map created for this book.
Though I never knew Michael Bernstein or Ned Stutman, their families made me feel as though I did. Thank you for sharing time and memories. The children of Feliks and Lucyna Wojcik were incredibly supportive as I set about introducing their remarkable parents to a wider audience, and I am sincerely grateful for the guidance, photos, and generosity.
My sincere thanks to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the knowledgeable staff in the archives, particularly Vincent Slatt, Nancy Hartman, and James Gilmore. Thank you to Nicole Navas at the US Department of Justice.
Much help came from experts in Poland, including Tomasz Kranz and the staff at the Majdanek State Museum, the professionals at the Warsaw Museum of the History of the Polish Jews, and the Taube Center for Jewish Studies, particularly Helise Lieberman. Thanks also to guides Joanna Krauze in Lublin and Pawel Szczerkowski in Warsaw. In the Czech Republic, Michaela Jiroutova skillfully helped me retrace the steps of OSI historians when they mined the archives in Prague in 1990.
The painstaking and important work of other journalists also must be acknowledged, including stories, photos, and video that appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. Several books about OSI also provided compelling and detailed roadmaps, including Quiet Neighbors, by Allan A. Ryan, and The Right Wrong Man, by Lawrence Douglas.
The talented and persistent group of research assistants from George Washington University who spent many months reporting and fact checking deserve special acknowledgment: Colleen Grablick, Julia Goldman, Audrey Hickcox, Kendrick S. Chang, Kelly Del Percio, Elise Zaidi, and Nicholas Jepson.
Thank you, Joelle Delbourgo, my astute and passionate literary agent, who knew this story needed to be told. Her absolute commitment to the world of books was, as always, a great inspiration.
Every writer needs a steadfast team of editors and supporters. I am fortunate to have a stellar team at Hachette Books, which supported this writing project from day one. Paul Whitlatch’s deft editing skills were as invaluable as his guidance, wisdom, and knowledge of world history. Thank you also to gracious and talented assistant editor Mollie Weisenfeld, who stepped in to provide extensive editorial insight during production, and to managing editor Monica Oluwek, publicity manager Michael Giarratano, marketing manager Quinn Fariel, senior marketing director Michael Barrs, copy editor Kelley Blewster, and associate publisher Michelle Aielli. Mauro DiPreta greenlit the book, and Mary Ann Naples provided guidance and inspiration as it neared publication.
I am deeply indebted to my friends and colleagues, including those at the Washington Post, the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Journalist Michael Sallah as well as Michael and Pam Rubin, provided important feedback over many months. I am profoundly grateful to my mother, Renee Cenziper, the ruthless reader of rough drafts, and my husband, Jeffrey Rohrlick, the most wonderful man I know. Finally, thank you to my boys, Brett and Zack. Your generation gives me faith every day that perhaps our future won’t be as grim as our past.
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Notes
Prologue
Nazi recruit 865 ducked into the US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York: Transcript of sworn interview, Jakob Reimer, US Department of Justice, Office of Special Investigations, US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, May 1, 1992.
He was an obliging helper who had come when he was called: Eric C. Steinhart, “The Chameleon of Trawniki: Jack Reimer, Soviet Volksdeutsche, and the Holocaust,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 23, no. 2 (2009): 239–262.
Soon, the US Department of Justice would move to expose one of the most trusted and effective Nazi collaborators: Peter Black, “Lease on Life: How the Collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989–1991 Impacted U.S. Investigations of Trawniki-Trained Guards,” paper given at the 35th Annual Conference on Holocaust and Genocide: Holocaust and Genocide Trials, April 12, 2018, Millersville University, Millersville, PA.
He had lied with ease for years: Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Nazi Next Door,” New York Magazine, March 14, 1994.
…1.7 million Jews had been murdered in less than twenty months: “Operation Reinhard,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, website of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Chapter One
Go east, his father had said, since there was no place left to run: Much of Feliks’s story comes from videotaped interviews spanning a decade, conversations with family members, and on-the-ground research in Lublin, Warsaw, and Vienna.
Jews had lived in Poland since the Middle Ages: “1,000 Years of Jewish Life in Poland,” Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture, 2011, Warsaw, Poland.
…Hitler directed the German army to carry out a s
urprise attack against the Soviet Union: “Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, website of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The mobs forced Feliks into a sprawling labor camp set up in a factory on the outskirts of the city: “Janowka,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, website of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Chapter Two
War had come to Lublin from an angry night sky: Much of Lucyna’s story comes from videotaped interviews spanning a decade, conversations with family members, and on-the-ground research in Lublin, Warsaw, and Vienna.
…both of Lublin’s Yiddish newspapers, the Lublin Daily and the Lublin Voice, had stopped publishing: “Lublin, Occupation and the Ghetto,” Holocaust Education and Archive Research Team, Holocaust Research Project, www.HolocaustResearchProject.org.
The place was filthy, tens of thousands of bodies squeezed onto streets covered with a thick layer of mud: Joanna Krauze, guide, Rootka Tours, Lublin, Poland, 2017.
…past the miserable houses packed tight with miserable people: Various photos, Grodzka Gate NN Theater Centre, an activity of the NN Theater, Lublin, Poland.
The men in black uniforms and black caps seemed to appear out of nowhere: US District Court Southern District of New York, United States v. Jack Reimer, 92 Civ. 4638.
The Jewish doctors and dentists had been taken to the camp down the road, the terrifying place called Majdanek: Tomasz Kranz, “They Arrived at the Ghetto and Went into the Unknown: The Extermination of Jews in the Government General,” introduction to exhibition catalogue by Robert Kuwalek, Dariusz Libionka, State Museum at Majdanek, Lublin, Poland, 2012.
Chapter Three
The Warsaw ghetto sat behind ten-foot walls topped with barbed wire and broken glass: “Conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, website of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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