Avenging angels of the Holocaust: Nazi hunters against the fled acolytes of the Reich

2024-01-27 03:16:07
Their names have remained on the margins of the pages of history: William Denson, Rafi Eitan, Benjamin Ferencz… The same has not happened with the Nazi leaders who were caught after the Second World War. Sad examples such as Adolf Eichmann – architect of the Final Solution – or Klaus Barbie – the ‘Butcher of Lyon’ – demonstrate this. They preferred to remain anonymous. They were the shadow justice of the Holocaust: the Nazi hunters. A group of improvised detectives, experienced prosecutors and officers eager to bring to justice those who had played a role, however small, in the perfidious machinery of the concentration camps. But there is always someone willing to shine a light on the forgotten heroes. And, in this case, it has first and last names: Andrew Nagorski. The veteran writer and correspondent published an intense essay in 2017 in which he recovered the misadventures of this hidden legion illuminated after the Holocaust: ‘Nazi Hunters’ (Turner, 2017). A documented work in which he recalled the exploits of the persecutors and the atrocities of the persecuted, but in which he also narrated the difficulties that these shadowy detectives had to overcome to carry out their work. And there were not a few, since they ranged from the confrontation with his companions to the benevolence of the West towards some of the hierarchs. On the hunt In the work, Nagorski analyzed why the hunters dedicated their efforts to capturing the Germans. He did not have a difficult time with characters like Tuvia Friedman, one of the most stubborn Nazi persecutors of World War II. This Jew managed to escape from a concentration camp in his youth and, from then on, his goal was to capture those murderers. “He couldn’t stop thinking about the day when the Jews would give her back to the Nazis, an eye for an eye,” he used to say. After freeing himself from him, he joined a group of partisans with whom he searched for prominent war criminals. Related News Jewish secret service report Yes Kidon Unit: Israel’s secret weapon to take revenge on its enemies Manuel P. Villatoro The death of Saleh al Arouri represents the culmination of a persecution that the Jewish state began in 1960, when its commandos captured Adolf Eichmann , and which continued in the seventies with the terrorists of the Black September group. Thus, he captured, for example, an officer named Shronski, “who had tortured more Jews than he could remember.” Friedman never felt sorry for his enemies, whether they were mere soldiers or Holocaust instigators, and often took out his fury against them during interrogations. “The butchers had asked for it,” he pointed out. Years later, he hung up his uniform and founded an institute to gather information against members of the SS. Simon Wiesenthal’s beginnings were similar. This architect was a prisoner of the Mauthausen camp until, on May 5, 1945, he was released. The brutalities that he had to endure in that hell made him present himself to an American lieutenant shortly after and offer his services. Thus he began a work that would make him famous at the time. In addition to helping those affected by the conflict, both he and Friedman were decisive in capturing in the 60s the man who had organized the Final Solution, the extermination of millions of Jews: Adolf Eichmann. The German officer had managed to escape from Allied justice in Nuremberg and flee to Argentina, but he was arrested and tried thanks to them. Because of the trials, Nagorski also had a place for another type of hunter: those who made an effort to ensure that, once captured, the Nazis did not evade justice. One of the most prominent was William Denson, the US military’s chief prosecutor in charge of the Dachau trials. Legal processes that, although they have been relegated from the main pages of History, judged the responsibility of some of the most prominent “second line” war criminals of the Second World War. “Denson acted as a prosecutor in 177 cases against concentration camp guards, officers and doctors, which is a record number,” the author highlights in his work. A total of 97 of them ended up hanging. Denson’s work almost cost him his health. Not in vain did he lose almost 20 kilos during the processes. “They said I was the one who looked like I had just come out of the fields,” he once explained. In 1947 he fainted from exhaustion and was bedridden for two weeks. However, he managed to lock up such cruel characters as Ilse Koch, the widow of the first commander of Buchenwald. This cruel woman became famous for sexually provoking prisoners before ending her own life. Another of the dozens of hunters referred to in the work is Benjamin Ferencz, the chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials. This young man of just 27 years old had to process hundreds of Nazi documents that talked about torture, executions and the use of the gas chambers in Auschwitz. He also had to make a count, calculator in hand, of the dead in the field. As he said, “when I went over a million, I stopped counting, it was too much for me.” Ferencz blamed the Nazis for “the deliberate killing of innocent and defenseless men, women and children” in his opening statement and was one of the first to use the term genocide. He managed to have the accused convicted, and 12 of them were sentenced to death. Other hunters Efraim Zuroff, 1948-XXXX. Zuroff has been directing the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem for more than 35 years. He is considered the last Nazi hunter, although in some interviews he states that he is also called “Mr. Holocaust.” Always involved in controversy, he has led campaigns against the last concentration camp guards still alive. Simon Wiesenthal, 1908-2005. The media star of this select group. The former Mauthausen survivor created a Documentation Center in Vienna and became the most famous Nazi hunter in history. He helped catch characters like Eichmann, but he also had confrontations with his colleagues, as many accused him of exaggerating his exploits. Fritz Bauer, 1903-1968. Bauer was a German born into a non-practicing Jewish family. In 1922 he was sent to a concentration camp for opposing National Socialism. He spent WWII in exile. Back in his country, he collaborated in the capture of Adolf Eichmann and was one of the promoters of the Auschwitz trials. Isser Harel, 1912-2003. The Russian Isser Harel was responsible for Israel’s foreign espionage service (better known as the Mossad) since 1952. In 1960 he led the command that kidnapped Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. Thanks to this, the German was tried for his crimes in Jerusalem. The words he addressed to his Prime Minister after the operation will never be forgotten: “I brought you a gift.” Elizabeth Holtzman, 1941-XXXX. This American became a congresswoman in 1973. From then on she made an effort to investigate accusations that a multitude of Nazis were living in exile in the United States. After months of political struggles, she managed to create an organization in 1979 (the OSI, Office of Special Investigations) that was in charge of hunting down these war criminals and deporting them. Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, 1939-XXXX and 1935-XXXX. Husband and wife, this Franco-German couple dedicated their lives to persecuting the Nazis who, during the war, had deported thousands of Jews from France to Auschwitz. Their work was not official, so they were in charge of finding the culprits and revealing their atrocities to the press. Both managed to catch criminals like Klaus Barbie (the “Butcher of Lyon”). Related News report Yes The nightmare of fighting in a WWII superbomber: “The urine froze up there” Manuel P. Villatoro standard No Spanish women forced to prostitute themselves with Nazis: “They used them to cure homosexuals” Manuel P. Villatoro Eli Rosenbaum, 1955-XXXX. Rosembaum was the director of the US Office of Special Investigations from 1995 to 2010. In 1968, as general counsel of the World Jewish Congress, he accused former United Nations Secretary Kurt Waldheim of his Nazi past. He had severe clashes with his famous partner, Simon Wiesenthal, whom he said “failed in all the big cases in the post-war era” and whom he called “incompetent and egomaniacal.” Jan Sehn, 1909-1965. The great forgotten of the Nazi hunters. This Pole was the first to investigate in detail the atrocities committed at Auschwitz. Furthermore, he managed to get the director of this camp, Rudof Höss, to write his memoirs. He was always especially kind to the survivors of the camps, whom he tried to help from his position.
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