[2019] Citizen 865
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After Warsaw’s four hundred thousand Jews were forced into the ghetto: Pawel Szczerkowski, guide, Warsaw, Poland, 2017.
In the frigid early months of 1943, the ghetto’s young Jewish leaders were forging plans to fight back: “Warsaw Ghetto Uprising,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, website of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The German commander in charge of the operation would soon send a detailed report to SS chief Heinrich Himmler: “The Stroop Collection,” Yad Vashem, World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Jerusalem, Israel.
Chapter Four
“Are you Peter Black?” the voice on the other end of the line inquired: Peter Black, conversation recounted in an interview with author, 2017.
In 1942, Maikovskis, a police precinct commander in German-occupied Latvia, had carried out orders: Robert McG. Thomas Jr., “Boleslavs Maikovskis, 92; Fled War-Crimes Investigation,” New York Times, May 8, 1996.
Black had heard whispers for years about Nazi perpetrators who had made their way to the United States: Allan A. Ryan Jr., Quiet Neighbors: Prosecuting Nazi War Criminals in America, San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1984.
…a housewife in Queens who had used the soles of her jackboots to beat and torment prisoners: Douglas Martin, “A Nazi Past, a Queens Home Life, an Overlooked Death,” New York Times, December 2, 2005.
A Cleveland autoworker stood accused of terrorizing and torturing doomed prisoners: “John Demjanjuk: Prosecution of Nazi Collaborator,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, website of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
“Half-hearted, dilatory investigations,” berated Brooklyn congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman: “INS Accused of Conducting Dilatory Probe of More than 60 War Criminals,” Daily News Bulletin, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 21, 1974.
…Holtzman had helped pass legislation: Joseph Polakoff, “U.S. Immigration Agency Lists 37 in Inquiry on Nazi War Crimes,” New York Times, December 2, 2005.
She had also pushed to create a new unit within INS singularly focused: Theresa M. Beiner, “Due Process for All: Due Process, the Eighth Amendment and Nazi War Criminals,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 90, no. 1 (1989).
Despite the nature of the work ahead, OSI had opened with little fanfare: A. O. Sulzberger Jr., “Agency Studying Nazis Is Upgraded,” New York Times, March 29, 1979.
It seemed a scolding, not a question, and Black hesitated: Peter Black, conversation recounted in interviews with author, 2017, 2018.
Tens of thousands of German documents were stashed behind the Iron Curtain: Elizabeth B. White, “History in the Courthouse: The Presentation of World War II Crimes in U.S. Courts Sixty Years Later,” in Nazi Crimes and the Law, eds. Nathan Stoltzfus and Henry Friedlander, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
History needed to have a place in the deliberations: Benjamin Guterman, “The History Professional: An Interview with Elizabeth B. White,” Federal History 8 (2016): 14–25.
“Don’t be nervous,” Marwell quipped, flashing his Department of Justice credentials: Charles Sydnor, conversation recounted in interview with author, 2017.
Chapter Five
…when he had been a prominent leader of the Romanian Iron Guard: Peter Black, “Viorel Trifa and the Iron Guard,” Office of Special Investigations, 1982, Peter Black files, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.
…the federal government eventually filed a complaint against him, repeatedly pressed by a Jewish Holocaust survivor from Romania: Ralph Blumenthal, “Dr. Charles Kremer, 89, Dies; Pressed Trifa War Crime Case,” New York Times, May 28, 1987.
The deportation hearing for an archbishop: Ari L. Goldman, “Valerian Trifa, an Archbishop with a Fascist Past, Dies at 72,” New York Times, January 29, 1987.
Immigration judge Bellino D’Ambrosio called the Trifa hearing to order: Trial transcript, United States of America in the Matter of Valerian Trifa, 1982, US Department of Justice Immigration and Naturalization Service, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
He gradually reduced the number of criminal investigators and hired more historians: Ryan, Quiet Neighbors.
The archbishop, Ryan said, would admit that he had been a member of the Iron Guard: Thomas O’Toole, “U.S. Deports Romanian as War Criminal,” Washington Post, August 15, 1984.
The next morning, the Chicago Tribune reported: “Archbishop in Nazi Case Will Leave,” Chicago Tribune, October 1982.
Years earlier, an article in a Soviet Lithuanian newspaper had alerted the Justice Department to a sixty-two-year-old Chicago man: United States v. Liudas Kairys, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, CA 80 C 4302.
He found work at the Cracker Jack Company, married another Lithuanian immigrant: Andrew Gottesman, “U.S. Still Pressing Fight on War Criminals,” Chicago Tribune, February 8, 1993.
On his visa application, Kairys claimed that he had worked on his father’s farm: Cameron McWhiter, “Accused Nazi Guard Loses Court Bid,” Chicago Tribune, April 6, 1993.
But in less than twenty months, the Germans had wiped out 1.7 million Jews: “Operation Reinhard,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, website of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Back in the 1970s, federal prosecutors in Florida had pursued another man: Feodor Fedorenko, record of sworn statement, United States v. Fedorenko, District Court Southern District of Florida, Fort Lauderdale Division, Immigration and Naturalization Services, 1976, 77-2668-Civ-NCR.
Chapter Six
…Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland, headquartered in a sprawling behemoth of stone and brick: Aleksandra M. Sajdak, senior program manager and genealogist, Taube Center for the Renewal of Jewish Life in Poland Foundation, Warsaw, Poland.
…Czeslaw Pilichowski, a noted scholar and author: “Czeslaw Pilichowski,” New York Times, October 25, 1984.
…fought in the Polish Communist underground during the war: Czeslaw Pilichowski, oral history, 1981, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The sixty-nine-year-old director was in no mood for pleasantries: Peter Black, conversation recounted in interviews with author, 2017, 2018.
Few other countries, Black knew, suffered more: Museum of the History of the Polish Jews, Warsaw, Poland; “The Invasion and Occupation of Poland,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
…wiped out a people and a culture that had influenced Polish life for nearly six hundred years: “Polish Victims,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, website of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
He was looking forward to working again with Danuta, who had written to him over Christmas: Letters, Peter Black, donated files, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Please undress. Go the bath area. Shower. Relax on the straw: Robert Kuwalek, testimony of a Polish resident of the town of Belzec, Das Vernichtungslager Bełżec.
…a one-time hothead in the Austrian Nazi Party: Peter Black, “Odilo Globocnik, Nazi Eastern Policy, and the Implementation of the Final Solution,” in Forschungen zum Nationalsozialismus und dessen Nachwirkungen in Österreich. Festschrift für Brigitte Bailer, ed. Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes, Vienna: Plöchl Druck, 2012, 91–129.
…had enjoyed the confidence of top Nazi officials: Peter Black, “Rehearsal for Reinhard? Odilo Globocnik and the Lublin Selbstschutz,” Central European History 25, no. 2: 204–226.
Lublin was a blood-stained city: “Lublin: Occupation and the Ghetto,” Holocaust Education and Archive Research Team, Holocaust Research Project, www.HolocaustResearchProject.org.
…with a picture of the twenty-three-year-old ethnic Ukrainian dressed in an earth-brown uniform: John Demjanjuk, Trawniki Identification Card, United States Department of Justice, United States v. John Demjanjuk, United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division 1:99CV1193.
Black leaned over in his seat: Peter Black, conversation recounted in interviews with author, 2017, 2018.
Chapter Seven
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One of them was a sixty-seven-year-old land surveyor: “Washington Talk: Justice Department; Lobbying the Office That Hunts Nazi Suspects,” New York Times, March 3, 1987.
Sher had read the court’s damning assessment so often that he had committed key passages to memory: Karl Linnas, Petitioner v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Respondent, 790 F. 2d 1024 (2d Cir. 1986).
…where a court in 1962 had tried him in absentia and found him a traitor and a murderer: Arnold Lubasch, “Deportation of L.I. Man Is Approved,” New York Times, April 2, 1987.
...Sher had scoffed when Buchanan criticized OSI: Glen Elsasser, “Buchanan Hunts the Nazi Hunters,” Chicago Tribune, November 6, 1986.
…its pull had reached the most powerful law enforcement agent in the country: Glen Elsasser, “Panama Reversal Bars Suspected Nazi,” Chicago Tribune, April 16, 1987.
…and in this case the decision was Panama: “Striving for Accountability in the Aftermath of the Holocaust,” draft report, Judy Feigin, Office of Special Investigations, United States Department of Justice Criminal Division, December 2008.
Sher needed support, a political powerhouse with strong ties to the Jewish community: Neal Sher, conversation recounted in interviews with author, 2017, 2018.
…Buchanan, who several years later would argue that the diesel engines that pumped carbon monoxide into the gas chambers: Pat Buchanan, “Dividing Line,” New York Post, March 17, 1990.
…young Jewish girl murdered by a high-ranking member of a Ukrainian militia group: United States v. Kowalchuk, 571 F. Supp. 72 (E.D. Pa. 1983).
…he had often wondered why Pat Buchanan and others had taken such a contemptuous, public stance against OSI: Bernard Weinraub, “Buchanan Takes on an Influential Role in the White House,” New York Times, April 11, 1985.
But Buchanan, who had once chastised the Justice Department: “Conservatism Gets Soiled,” George F. Will, Newsweek, March 3, 1996.
…the lyrical voice of WQXR-FM classical-radio host: “Duncan Pirnie, 70, WQXR Announcer,” New York Times, November 16, 1993.
…NASA scientist Arthur L. H. Rudolph, who was accused of overseeing slave laborers: Wolfgang Saxon, “Arthur Rudolph, 89, Developer of Rocket in First Apollo Flight,” New York Times, January 3, 1996.
…Holtzman and Rosenbaum caught a flight to Washington: Eric Lichtblau, The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men, New York: Harcourt, 2015.
Panama was withdrawing its offer: Jay Mathews, “Agreement to Send Linnas to Panama Is Canceled,” Washington Post, April 16, 1987.
The aide shook his head, glancing outside: Eli Rosenbaum, conversation recounted in interviews with author, 2017, 2018.
He was about to be double-teamed: Crossfire, CNN, April 15, 1987, video courtesy of Eli Rosenbaum.
The Supreme Court had declined to hear the final appeal: Al Kamen and Mary Thornton, “Accused War Criminal Deported to Soviet Union,” Washington Post, April 21, 1987.
Linnas struggled at the door of the aircraft: John J. Goldman, “Appeal Fails: Nazi Suspect Deported,” Los Angeles Times, April 21, 1987.
Chapter Eight
…where he had taped an adage from a fortune cookie to the door: David Margolick, “The Law: At the Bar, Colleagues Bid Farewell to a Nazi-Hunter, His Quest Ended by Modern Murderers,” New York Times, December 30, 1988.
Bernstein and Peter Black had worked on investigations of former guards: “Mauthausen,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, website of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The only massive concentration camp on Austrian territory: Mauthausen Memorial, Mauthausen Memorial Federal Institution, Mauthausen and Vienna, Austria.
In Bonn in 1954, the Foreign Office of West Germany had signed a critical commitment: Memo, Foreign Office of West Germany, Bonn, Germany, 1954.
American diplomats also secured a nearly identical guarantee from neighboring Austria: “Declaration of Readmissibility to Austria,” United States Department of State, 1954.
…where they could step off the plane, renounce their American citizenship, and potentially continue to receive Social Security benefits: David Rising, Randy Herschaft, and Richard Lardner, “Millions in Social Security for Expelled Nazis,” Associated Press, October 20, 2014.
Rosenbaum also proposed sending defendants to the US occupation sector of West Berlin: Eli Rosenbaum, conversation recounted in interviews with author, 2017, 2018.
…the US State Department balked at the idea of agitating the Germans: “Unclassified Action Memorandum,” New Department of Justice Program on World War II War Criminals, United States Department of State, 1984.
…they had worked on the high-profile Nazi war-crimes investigation: “In the Matter of Kurt Waldheim,” Office of Special Investigations, United States Department of Justice Criminal Division, 1987.
Pan Am flight 103, just thirty-eight minutes into its route from London to New York: “Air Accidents Investigation Branch Final Report,” National Transportation Safety Board, National Transportation Safety Board Aviation Investigations, London, 1990.
Richard asked a question that Rosenbaum would remember years later: Eli Rosenbaum, conversation recounted in interviews with author, 2017, 2018.
He would deliver remarks at the memorial service on behalf of the Department of Justice: Eli Rosenbaum, remarks during memorial service for Michael S. Bernstein, 1988, courtesy of Eli Rosenbaum.
He would help write the Justice Department announcement, three months later, declaring that a California man who was once an armed SS guard at Auschwitz had been deported to his native Austria: United States Department of Justice press advisory, 1989.
…a plane with a bomb wrapped in baby clothes and tucked inside a suitcase: Auslan Cramb, “Charred Baby Suit Traced to Malta,” The Telegraph, July 12, 2000.
Chapter Nine
In the mid-1980s, two members of the Estonian émigré community secretly arranged to collect the trash from a dumpster used by the Office of Special Investigations in downtown Washington: Lawrence Douglas, The Right Wrong Man: John Demjanjuk and the Last Great Nazi War Crimes Trial, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016.
…they took heaping bags of garbage to a local garage and dumped the contents onto the floor for sorting: Tamar Lewin, “Family of War Crimes Suspect Recounts Its Trial by Ordeal,” New York Times, June 15, 1992.
Inside the packages, which were sent anonymously, the Demjanjuk family found material that appeared to undermine OSI’s case: “Striving for Accountability in the Aftermath of the Holocaust,” draft report, Office of Special Investigations, US Department of Justice.
Demjanjuk’s family accused the government of withholding critical evidence: “Demjanjuk Family Request Denied by Federal Judge,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 7, 1990.
Black was lost in thought when OSI attorney Bruce Einhorn knocked on the door, clutching a slip of paper: Peter Black, conversation recounted in interview with author, 2017.
Black had read an infamous 1944 report about the murder of Poland’s Jews: Peter Black, “Odilo Globocnik, Nazi Eastern Policy, and the Implementation of the Final Solution”; Odilo Globocnik, report to Himmler on the results of the Reinhardt Action in Poland, 1944, Nuremberg Trials Project, Harvard Law School Library, Cambridge, MA.
“The evacuation of Jews,” Globocnik reported, “has been carried out and completed”: Report of Odilo Globocnik to Heinrich Himmler, January 1944, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
…in the thousands of demonstrators who had lined the city’s grandest boulevard to greet Mikhail Gorbachev: Walter Mayr, “Cutting the Fence and Changing History,” Spiegel Online, May 29, 2009.
OSI historians had for years dug through the archives in the West and in Poland: Peter Black, “Lease on Life.”
A photo of a young Reimer, with cropped black hair, an oval face, and a smile that could have passed for a scowl: Jakob Reimer’s Trawniki identification card, United States v. Jack Reimer.
But
Reimer had said nothing about the camp: Jakob Reimer, visa application, US Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1951, US Department of Justice.
…investigators from the US Army Counterintelligence Corps found that Reimer had been granted citizenship in Nazi Germany: Investigative file, Jakob Reimer, United States Army Counterintelligence Corps, 1952, US Department of Justice.
Chapter Ten
“Fleisch,” MacQueen remarked late in the day: Elizabeth “Barry” White, conversation recounted in interviews with author, 2017, 2018.
The documents were thin, faded, and sheared at the edges: Streibel Battalion Files, batches 114-242-6, 114-242-7, Central State Archives, Prague, Czech Republic.
He studied the first page, scanning dozens of names and Erkennungsmarken, German military identification numbers: Elizabeth B. White, “History in the Courthouse.”
Chapter Eleven
In May 1945, a British armored cavalry unit had found Odilo Globocnik: “Odilo Globocnik: The Worst Man in the World,” Holocaust Education and Archive Research Team.
…Streibel had been born at the turn of the century in southern Poland: Peter Black, “Foot Soldiers of the Final Solution: The Trawniki Training Camp and Operation Reinhard,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 25, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 1–99.
Streibel worked for Globocnik in Lublin as early as 1939, mustering and training ethnic German auxiliaries: Peter Black, “Odilo Globocnik, Nazi Eastern Policy, and the Implementation of the Final Solution.”
The criminal justice system in West Germany had largely gone soft on Nazi offenders by the 1970s: Bradley Graham, “Eight Are Sentenced for Nazi Crimes,” Washington Post, July 1, 1981.
The prosecutor offered Black the criminal indictment: Karl Streibel indictment, 1970, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.