By these seemingly simple actions, Mossad agent Yitzhak Sarid (not his real name) built a foolproof cover for himself. Somewhere between Paris, Rotterdam, and Zurich, Yitzhak Sarid evaporated into thin air and a new man emerged in his stead: Anton Kunzle, an Austrian businessman, with an address in Rotterdam, bank accounts, business cards, a visa, and a plane ticket to Brazil.
Only a few days earlier, on September 1, Yitzhak Sarid had been summoned to a meeting in Paris. Sarid was a member of the Mossad operational team code-named “Caesarea.” In a safe house on Avenue de Versailles, he met with Caesarea’s commander, Yoske Yariv, a sturdy, muscular man admired by his subordinates. Yariv, a former army officer, had replaced Rafi Eitan as the head of the operational team; Eitan had been appointed head of Europe station, based in Paris.
Yariv started by saying that in a few months, the West German parliament would adopt a statute of limitations regarding war crimes, which meant that Nazi criminals—living now undercover—would be able to reemerge from hiding and resume normal lives, as if they had never committed their atrocious acts. Yariv said that many Germans wanted to turn the page and leave Germany’s horrid past behind them. Even other nations that had suffered under the Germans were not eager to keep searching for Nazi criminals. Since Eichmann’s capture four years before, awareness about Nazi crimes had diminished, as if Eichmann’s trial and execution had closed a chapter in the world’s history. It was imperative, Yariv said, to make sure that the statute of limitations on Nazi crimes did not become law. The world needed to be reminded that monsters were still at large.
“We should kill one of the greatest Nazi criminals,” Yariv said to Sarid. And a Mossad agent on a mission in South America had found the one. “The Butcher of Riga,” a Latvian Nazi, guilty of massacring thirty thousand Jews, had been positively identified. He was living in Brazil under his real name, Herberts Cukurs. The ramsad, Meir Amit, had given the green light for the operation.
Yariv now turned to Sarid. And not only because of Sarid’s record as a smart and resourceful agent, who had participated in the Eichmann operation. He also knew Sarid was born in Germany, and both his parents had died in the Holocaust. Sarid had escaped to Palestine, but had sworn to fight Hitler and had been one of the first Palestinian volunteers in the British Army during the war. Yariv did not have to worry about Sarid’s motivation.
“I want you to build yourself a cover as an Austrian businessman,” the Caesarea commander said to Sarid. “Your job will be to fly to Brazil, find Cukurs, and win his confidence. That is the first step toward his execution.” In the detailed briefing that followed, Yariv gave Sarid his new name: “Anton Kunzle.”
Ten days after the meeting in Paris, Anton Kunzle boarded a Varig plane to Rio de Janeiro. He was excited and yet troubled by his mission. He had never been in such a situation before. He had to operate, completely alone, in a foreign country, and try making friends with a monster with sharp senses who certainly expected that one day somebody would try to kill him. Kunzle knew well that a single mistake could cause the failure of the entire operation; just one misstep could cost him his life.
During the flight, Kunzle perused a voluminous file of documents, testimonies, and press cuttings about Herberts Cukurs. He had become famous in the thirties as a gifted and bold pilot, who had flown from Latvia to Gambia, in Africa, in a small plane he had built with his own hands. Overnight, the young, handsome pilot had become a national hero in Latvia. He was awarded the international Santos Dumont medal in honor of the Brazilian aviation pioneer; the press called him “the Eagle of Latvia” and “the Latvian Lindbergh.” The War Museum in Riga was assailed by multitudes eager to see Cukurs’s plane, on display there.
Cukurs was a right-wing Latvian nationalist, yet he had many Jewish friends. He even traveled to Palestine and came back deeply impressed by the Zionists’ achievements. His enthusiastic speeches about the pioneers in Palestine made him seem an ally to Latvian Jews.
Yet when World War II erupted, things suddenly changed. Latvia was first occupied by the Soviets, who quickly won the people’s hatred and who persecuted those like Cukurs. But the Red Army retreated after Hitler’s invasion of Russia—and Latvia was conquered by the German Army. Cukurs now transformed completely. As staunch nationalist and a leader of the fanatic Fascist organization Thunder Cross that volunteered to serve the Nazis, Cukurs became the most cruel and sadistic murderer of the Riga Jews. Early on, he and his soldiers herded three hundred Jews into a local synagogue and set it on fire, murdering everyone inside. He arrested Jews, beat them to death with his revolver, shot hundreds of others, humiliated and killed Orthodox Jews, smashed babies’ heads on the city walls. One night, he made a Jewish girl undress in front of a group of Jewish prisoners, then forced an old rabbi to stroke and lick her, to the drunken laughter of the Latvian guards. In the summer, he ordered the drowning of twelve hundred Jews in the Kuldiga Lake, and in November 1941, he led thirty thousand Riga Jews to the killing field in the Rumbula forests, where they were undressed by German soldiers and shot in cold blood.
Reading the depositions of some Jews who miraculously survived, Kunzle was deeply shocked. The documents in the file described Cukurs’s flight to France with forged papers at the end of the war. Posing as a “farmer,” he managed to get on a boat bound for Rio de Janeiro. He took with him a strange “insurance policy”—a young Jewish girl, Miriam Keitzner, whom he had protected during the war. Miriam, who served as his champion now, was speaking throughout Brazil about her noble “savior from Riga.”
In Rio, Cukurs quickly established warm relations with many Brazilian Jews. He loved describing to his audiences Miriam’s fascinating story. “The Nazis caught her in Latvia,” he used to say. “She was to die a horrible death, but I saved her, risking my life.” Such a valiant hero and a savior of Jews didn’t come to Rio every day, and the city Jews did their best to show the brave Latvian how much they valued his noble deeds.
Cukurs became very popular in the Jewish community—till the night when the brave Latvian had too much to drink. The alcohol loosened his tongue, and the inebriated Cukurs told now a very different story to his audience. He spoke of Jews indeed, but now he called them pigs and scum. He spoke with enthusiasm of the means he and his Nazi friends had used to slaughter the Jews of Europe, of Jews who were burned, drowned, shot, and beaten to death . . . The Latvian’s Jewish friends were stupefied; they started investigating—and the results of their research were horrifying.
When his real identity was exposed, Cukurs vanished. He didn’t leave Rio, only moved to a distant neighborhood of the sprawling city. He abandoned Miriam Keitzner, whom he didn’t need anymore. Miriam would later marry a local Jew and assimilate in the Brazilian society. As for Cukurs, he brought over his wife and three sons.
Ten years went by. Cukurs had become the respected owner of the Air Taxi company. But then, by chance, he was discovered again by the Rio Jewish community. They marched to raise public awareness. Students broke into the Air Taxi offices, smashed windows, destroyed equipment, and emptied files . . . Cukurs left Rio with his family right away and settled in São Paulo.
Even though nobody bothered him there, Cukurs felt he was still in danger. He was haunted by fears and suspected every approaching stranger. In June 1960, a few days after Eichmann’s capture, Cukurs came to police headquarters in São Paulo and asked for police protection. His request was granted—but it was also publicized in the media, and relatives of Cukurs’s victims all over the world now knew where he lived.
As years passed, Cukurs’s fears only grew. He told his wife and sons that Jewish avengers could discover his whereabouts and come to murder him at any time. He even prepared a list of his most dangerous enemies, most of them important Brazilian Jews from Rio. At the top of the list were Dr. Aharon Steinbruck, a senator; Dr. Alfredo Gartenberg; Dr. Marcus Constantino; Dr. Israel Skolnikov; Mr. Klinger; Mr. Pairitzki.
Cukurs kept his real name, but built his houses like fortresses
and apparently paid substantial bribes for protection by the police and the security services.
He launched several business ventures, but they all failed. According to Kunzle’s file, his last address was a marina on an artificial lake outside São Paulo. Cukurs used to rent a few boats, and take tourists on aerial promenades over the city in his seaplane.
Kunzle knew well that if he tried to approach Cukurs directly, he would certainly arouse his suspicions, so, first, he spent a few days in Rio. His stay in the stunning Brazilian city stood in sheer contrast to the dark mission he had undertaken. He walked on the Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, staring at mulatto beauties in minimal bikinis, gazed at the breathtaking Sugarloaf and the huge statue of Christ on top of the Corcovado, watched a Macumba (the Brazilian voodoo) ceremony, absorbed the warm sunshine and the rhythms of samba. He was a typical tourist, but he got acquainted with several senior officials and private investors in the tourism business, met with the local minister of tourism, and introduced himself as an investor interested in tourist enterprises in Brazil. He got a few letters of recommendation to major figures in the tourism business in São Paulo.
Kunzle arrived in São Paulo and immediately found Cukurs’s marina. By the pier, a little apart from the pleasure boats, he saw an old seaplane and, beside it, a tall, lean man wearing a pilot’s overalls. Herberts Cukurs.
Kunzle approached the pretty German girl who sold tickets for Cukurs’s boat excursions, and asked her for information about tourism in that area. He didn’t know then that the young woman was the wife of Cukurs’s oldest son. She admitted she didn’t know very much about tourism, but pointed at the man in the overalls. “Ask him, he will help you.”
Kunzle walked to the pilot and introduced himself as an Austrian investor. He asked a few professional questions and Cukurs reluctantly answered; but his attitude changed when Kunzle asked to hire him and his plane for a tour over the city. A few minutes later, they were high in the air. The two men had a long, friendly chat; Kunzle knew how to make friends. On their return, Cukurs invited him to his boat, for a shot of brandy.
While they were drinking, Cukurs suddenly erupted in a furious diatribe against his accusers. “I was a war criminal?” he shouted. “I saved a Jewish girl during the war.” Kunzle suspected that Cukurs’s indignation was fake and the Latvian only wanted to provoke his reaction.
“Did you serve in the war?” Cukurs asked.
“Yes,” Kunzle said, “on the Russian Front.” But the tone of his answer seemed to indicate the opposite, to imply that Kunzle had served in the army but certainly not on the Russian Front. He also unbuttoned his shirt and showed Cukurs a chest scar. “From the war,” he said, without elaborating.
Kunzle made a quick assessment of his host. Cukurs was in a bad economic situation; the frayed overalls, the ramshackle plane, the sorry state of the boats—all of which indicated a low standard of living. Kunzle realized that he had to make Cukurs believe that he, Kunzle, was his chance to overcome his troubles; he was the man who could bring him large profits. He therefore kept talking about his company and his partners, and their grandiose projects to invest a lot of money in tourism in Latin America. He hinted that Cukurs could perhaps join their group, as he knew the Brazilian tourist scene well.
Cukurs seemed interested in his guest’s words, but Kunzle suddenly got on his feet. “Well,” he said, “I shouldn’t be bothering you anymore. You must be very busy.”
“No, not at all,” Cukurs said, and suggested that Kunzle come to his home one of these days, after work, “so that we could discuss our common interests.”
The contact was established. The bait was cast. Now Cukurs should be persuaded to swallow it.
That evening, Kunzle dispatched a coded telegram to Yoske Yariv. For the first time, he used the code name that Yariv had chosen for Cukurs: “the Deceased.”
Cukurs, too, did some writing that night. He took the list of his most dangerous enemies and added another name to it.
Anton Kunzle.
A week later, a taxi stopped by a house in the Riviera neighborhood in São Paulo. The house was modest but protected like a fortress: it was surrounded by a wall and barbed wire, the entrance was barred by an iron gate, and beside it stood a young man and a fierce-looking dog.
Kunzle asked the youngster—who turned out to be one of Cukurs’s sons—to inform the pilot of his arrival. Cukurs welcomed him warmly, walked him through the house, introduced him to his wife, Milda, then pulled out a drawer and showed Kunzle about fifteen medals from the war days; many of them were adorned by a swastika.
Cukurs opened another drawer and showed the amazed Kunzle his private armory: three heavy revolvers and a semiautomatic rifle. Cukurs proudly revealed that the Brazilian secret service had given him permits for all these weapons. “I know how to defend myself,” he added.
Kunzle took Cukurs’s words as a veiled threat. If you try to hurt me, his host seemed to say, you should know that I am armed and dangerous.
Cukurs suddenly had an idea. “Why don’t you come with me on a trip to my farms? They are in the country; we can spend a night there.”
Kunzle readily agreed. But on his way to his hotel, he stopped at a hardware store and bought a switchblade. Just in case.
A few days later, the two of them got into Kunzle’s rented car and headed for the mountains.
It was an eerie, tense trip. Here was Anton Kunzle, armed only with a knife, fearing Cukurs and yet determined to tempt him with the prospects of easy money, and lead him to his death.
And sitting in the car beside him was Herberts Cukurs, strong, sober, but poor, suspicious of his new friend, armed with a heavy handgun but unable to resist the bait Kunzle was dangling before him.
Kunzle thought that perhaps he was the victim in this cat-and-mouse game; perhaps Cukurs did not believe his cover story, perhaps he was taking him to the mountains to murder him there?
Along the way, they visited a neglected farm. All of a sudden, Cukurs drew his semiautomatic rifle out of his bag. Kunzle started. Why did Cukurs bring over both a handgun and a rifle?
“What about a shooting contest?” Cukurs asked him. Kunzle understood right away: Cukurs wanted to test his abilities as a former fighter on the Russian Front and see if he knew how to shoot. The Latvian fixed a paper target to a tree, loaded his rifle, and fired ten bullets in rapid succession. The hits formed a cluster ten centimeters in diameter. Cukurs took from his bag a second paper target, loaded the rifle again, and handed it to Kunzle. A veteran of the British Army and the IDF, Kunzle was an excellent marksman. He picked up the weapon and without any delay fired ten bullets, making a cluster of three centimeters. Cukurs nodded with approval. “Excellent, Herr Anton,” he said.
The two of them got back in the car and traveled to a second farm. It was much larger, and included a dense forest and a river, where alligators lazily lingered. Cukurs led the way into the forest, and Kunzle again was assailed by fears. Was this a trap? Did Cukurs bring him here so he could murder him without leaving evidence?
He kept walking at Cukurs’s side. All of a sudden, he stepped on a rock; a nail got loose in his shoe and deeply punctured his heel. Doubling over in pain, Kunzle kneeled and removed his shoe. Blood was dripping from a wound in his heel.
Cukurs bent over him and drew his gun. Kunzle was exposed, completely defenseless. That’s it, he thought, his last moment had arrived. The Latvian would shoot him as a dog. But Cukurs handed him the gun. “Use the butt,” he said, “hammer it down.”
Kunzle took the gun. All of a sudden, the roles were reversed. They were all alone in a mountain farm. There was not a living soul for miles around. The gun was loaded. He could terminate Cukurs that very moment. Just point the gun and press the trigger.
Instead, he bent down and forcefully pounded the nail’s sharp end, then returned the gun to its owner.
At nightfall the two of them reached a ramshackle hut and improvised dinner with some food they had brought with t
hem. They spread their sleeping bags on two old iron beds. Kunzle saw Cukurs slipping his gun under his pillow. Troubled by ominous thoughts, he pulled his knife out of his pocket and held it ready, but he couldn’t sleep.
In the middle of the night, he heard a noise coming from Cukurs’s bed. The Nazi got up, took his gun, and quietly stepped out. Why? Kunzle thought. He tried to listen to the sounds outside, and suddenly he heard an easily recognizable noise. Cukurs was standing outside and urinating. There were probably wild animals prowling around.
The following day, they returned, safe and sound, to São Paulo. Kunzle let out a sigh of relief when he walked into his hotel.
During the following week, Kunzle invited Cukurs to gourmet restaurants, expensive nightclubs, and bars. He noticed Cukurs’s hungry stare and realized that it had been years since the man last tasted all those pleasures that money could buy. His next move was to ask Cukurs to join him in several domestic flights—on Kunzle’s expense account, of course. They visited some major tourist locations, and Cukurs enjoyed the best food and lodging.
Now Kunzle suggested that they flew to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. His partners, he said, wanted to establish their South American business center there and he wanted to check the availability of office buildings and other facilities. He even paid for Cukurs’s new passport.
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