Tv. Org and click on the in depth tab near the top of the page. I didnt have to say anything. You are a welltrained bunch. It afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. That afternoon and welcome to the Illinois Holocaust Museum and education center. My name is lillian gerstner, and as director of Public Programs i get this privilege on a regular basis. We thank you so much for being here with us today. We hope you will return on other occasions. Usually i play a game with her audience and i will do it very quickly. Is this your first visit . Please raise your hand. Rate it higher so i can see. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Over here. Over there. Our presenter must thank you. In the interest of equality so that the rest of you can exercise one of your arms, if you are a regular, if you attend programs all the time, if you are one of our members please raise your hand. Thank you sos much. Thank you. The folks who raised your hand the first time around please dont take my word for it alone. Ask anyone else around you whose hand went up the second time whp do support this institution, why they come in on a regular basis, why i know many of them by their first name. To those whose first and and ie learned i will do my best to learn them. Also going to suggest for those of you who are not as a without organization to pick up one of our orderly calendar of events brochures pick youll find out on information desk and near our legacy shopping is a legend abt all of our upcoming programs. I wont steal more of the time this afternoon to list them all but i will tell you that we have a program this coming thursday evening that will be an exhibition opening for a brandnew exhibition that we just mounted, and thats on thursday the 21st, and then next sunday we have another program, we have a film and discussion in a way tangentially related to the subject matter today. We will be showing the film memories of the iceman trial which was an israeli made documentary that interviewed survivors and others who were witnesses or who attended the iceman trial. One of those witnesses was henrik ross as photographs are featured in our special exhibition right now, memory and earth. Those are just a few of the reasons for you to return and i certainly hope you will. At the conclusion of todays program our presenter will be available to sign copies of her new book, citizen 865 the hunt for hitlers hidden soldiers in america. So as occurred as i ask you to please allow her to exit the stage in the auditorium and continue your conversation with her over in the vicinity of our legacy shop. Some of you may have noticed we haded some additional apparatusi in the room today. We are very excited that this has to news program is being preserved and taped for future broadcast by cspan, cspans booktv. So, were excited to have an author whose work commands such important attention, as it should, because the subject matter will never go out of style. Let me get a little bit about our presenter. Debbie cenziper is associate professor and director of investigative reporting at the Medill School of journalism, Northwestern University she oversees Investigative Lab or investigative. She is a Pulitzer Prizewinning Investigative Reporter and Nonfiction Author writes for the Washington Post. She has spent three years at George Washington university before joining the faculty at medill. Over the years are investigative stories have expose wrongdoing, prompted congressional hearings and led to changes in federal and local laws. Inner classes at medill, she understood focus on social justice investigative reporting. Debbie has won the dozens of awards and american print journalism including the Robert F Robert f can work for reporting aboutdi human rights and the goldsmith prize for investigative reporting from Harvard University Robert Robert f. She received a pulitzer at r the miami herald for a series of stories about corrupt Affordable Housing developers who were stealing from the poor. You before that she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for stories about dangerous breakdowns in the nations are again trackingg system. Debbie is a frequent speaker at universities, writing conferences and book events. Her first book, love wins, the lover and lawyers who fought the landmark case for Marriage Equality published in 2016 was then what of the most notable books of the year by the Washington Post. Her second book, the recent release hot off the press citizenze 865 is her topic of conversation with us today. She is based on the washington d. C. Campus working with undergraduate and graduate students working on a basket of story and were delighted to present you this afternoon debbie cenziper. [applause] thank you for that lovely introduction, lillian. I very much appreciated. Im so happy to be with you here today, though i am based in washington, d. C. For this are. Scored at northwestern, i have been here at evanston for all the evanston northwestern and chicago,ca and its been a lot f fun and a so happy to be a to talk about this book project. So let me tell you where this book that started. This book actually started just in the final moments of 2016 whenmo i was at a new Years Eve Party in maryland with my friends and my husband, emma has been wanted to leave because there was very loud this can be displayed in the background ando he had had enough. But i ended up having this conversation with a woman we were having dinner with whom ive never met before. Turned out she was a lawyer from the u. S. Department of justice, and over this long unexpected conversation, robin gold started telling me about this littleknown unit deep inside the u. S. Justice department that has spent three decades hunting nazi war criminals on u. S. Soil. And though i spent a decade or so on staff at the Washington Post, i knew very little about this unit and i remember thinking two things, ask myself to questions after this twohour conversation. Number one, how was it possible that so many years after the war, what, 70 some years after the holocaust there were still nazi perpetrators and war criminals living here on u. S. Soil . I i just, i just couldnt understand that and really was fascinated by the idea that i was even happening here. And more than that, who were the men and women at the u. S. Justice department that had spent the bulk of their careers hunting for these perpetrators, and how was ableto to spend day after day, year after year inside some of the darkest moments in recent history . How was it able to do that and then go home tonight to their wives and hernd husbands . How was able to go home at night to their children, take vacations in live normal lives when, during the day, they were hearing about and reliving some of the most horrible, horrific moments in holocaust history . So i i really wanted to get to know the people behind this nazi hunting unit in the Us Department of justice. And so after i i rounded up my husband from this cocktail party, he was sitting outside hunched over his phone reading the Washington Post waiting for me for quite a long time, i knew that had the beginnings of another book. And so about a week later i called up and historian who worked in this nazi hunting unit in the u. S. Department of justice, dr. Barry white. I asked him to talk to me about what shape into here and she she recounted a story that prompted me to write this book. In 1990, soon after the collapse of communism, barry white and another historian named peter black [laughing] you already got my joke and having told you my joke yet. You already got to the punch line. They went to prague because communism had collapsed and the new that the nazis had stashed a lot of records in prague, war documents, nazi rosters. They could never get to them because the communist government would allow the inside their archives. But after the collapse of communismom in 1990, they could get in and it was a treasure trove of information for these historians. Imagine what they might find there. And so they flew into germany. They rented this little car that chugged across germany into prague in thehe middle of the night. The ended up in a little rented apartment and a russian caretaker was very upset that barry white was not there with her husband. She was, in fact, they are on the job. She was actually pregnant at the time and the russian caretaker very much wanted to feed them pork cutlets and beer for breakfast. I was not a good thing for barry who was very early t on in her pregnancy. But the ended up inside this massive archive in prague surrounded by government agents with guns and everything else. So dr. Black, peter black said im dr. Black, and this is dr. Wyatt and we were representing the u. S. Department of justice. All the government agent started to smirk and theyre probably thinking the caa has no imagination. [laughing] these must be government spies but often they go into the dusty archives in this Office Building in prague, and soon enough barry white pushes back her chair. She is looking ats this piece f paper, runs over to peter black and says i found something. Turns out they found a nazi rosterer from 1945 that listed e name of 700 men who had participated in one of the most lethal operations in occupied poland. And some off those men they knew were here in the United States living on u. S. Soil. They recognize some of the names. And that was a turning point in an investigationur that spanned about 50 years and is at the heart of this book, citizen 865. As soon as i talk to barry white i knew this was my next book. This was for sure a story i wanted to tell. And so let me give you a littlet bit of background. I focused heavily in his book on historians, the prosecutors are the heroes of thiss book as wel. I focused heavily on historians because i spent about 25 years of my life as an investigator for porter said documents intrigue me. I love documents. The historians were able toer fd documents from all over eastern europe, inside what were once communist country. They went to moscow, tf, prague, poland and they found all of f this evidence about men who were living here in the United States. And i found that absolutely intriguing as an Investigative Reporter, that there were men and women had spent their careers in this obscure outpost of the u. S. Department of justice with drop ceilings and stained carpeting and a window that faced a mcdonalds, and here they were hunting nazi war criminals in u. S. Soil. And they were absolutely determined to bring them to justice no matter how much time had passed. And i found that really inspiring as a journalist, as a mother, as a wife and as as a n being. And so these arewi the people wo in part drive this story. A little bit of background. As youas all know, poland had me jews before the war than any other country in the world, probably except the United States. It was a thriving hub for jewish life, and it was also considered a strategic stronghold for the right because there was lush farmland and a strong the economy that he wanted to turn over to ethnic german settlers. So poland was a very strategic location, a very strategic area but what do you do with the jews . What do you do with the jews . And sohe they had experimented that idea of kind of bloodless efficient mass murder was very it was very interesting and intriguing to the police later, a man known as im going to botch his last name. And so he was deciding what to do with the jews of occupied poland. Well, the aspo s was busy fightg on the soviet front and they needed manpower. He needed help to annihilate the jews of poland. And so he ended up recruiting from soviet pow camps men who were captured soviet soldiers. They were put in soviet pow camps where they likely faced death, and he actually recruited them and essentially taught them how to fight for the enemy. He also recruited lithuanians, latvians, polls and of the recruits. And he brought them to a little farming village south of warsaw, and you can see from the map whats interesting about this map is that it was an incredible location because it had rail lines that connected this village to other key points in occupied poland. He ultimately recruited about 5000 men to this camp. It became in a sense a school for mass murder. Because in this camp these men were trained in nazi t ideologyn they were armed. They were empowered. They were taught military drills, german marching commands and they were ultimately f dispatched from this school for mass murder in this little farm village to the jewish ghettos of occupied poland where they liquidated the ghettos. They were brought they participate in shooting operations throughout occupied poland, and they demand the kig centers in occupied poland, including they forced jews to the gas chambers in occupied poland. They essentially became the manpower for the ss. They were the men who did the bloodiest job in occupied poland. And the jews who survived described the men as more brutal and more vicious and more bloodthirsty that even members of the ss. These were men who essentially became the foot soldiers of the third reich, and this became their base, base camp and this is where they were armed. This is where they were trained, this is where they were issued deployment orders to go across occupied poland and help thelp s annihilate the jews. These were a the men who did the bloodiest jobs in occupied poland, and this was essentially a school for mass murder in occupied poland, set up by the ss. In fact, one of the historians in the book called the men the foot soldiers of the third reich. That is what they did. Wsey were often, they were often known by the jews as the mainwaring black coat and black cats some jewish survivors call them the ukrainians because some of the men were from ukraine or that region, but there were others, many, many others, lithuania and latvia. The ss really came up with an incredibleit system because thee men were given wages. They were given housing, they were given food, they were given Service Medals for work that was done well. They were given vacations. They were given all kinds of honors, if they died they received proper burials. M so for these men especially men who came from soviet pow camps serving the enemy seems like a decent option because in soviet pow camps they faced likely starvation or death, or some other kind of horrible death. And so this camp was set up and the first to point was to the city of which you can see on the map, which was a historical cultural and Religious Center for thousands of poland jews. More than 40,000 jews lived in poland in 1939. They held leadership positions on the town council. They were leading members of the business community. These two teenagers were pushed into the ghetto by the nazis along with their friends, their neighbors, every member of theirextended family so 40,000 jews were put into this ghetto. There wasstarvation , typhus, you name it. It was terrible. Water shortages, Food Shortages and for whatever, for all kinds of reasons, Lucyna Stryjewska and Feliks Wojcik were able to survive mass deportation. Their survival story all the survival stories ive heard in researching this book, its just absolutely astounding. It took my breath away as a writer but here they were in this ghetto in lupin and oneday men in black coats and black caps surround the perimeters of the ghetto and they put on floodlightsand demand every family come outside. And in this ghetto , 1500 jews a day were deported east for resettlement in the east. And so over a period of weeks, lucyna and feliks, everyone they knew deported. Their friends, their neighbors, their extended family. Everyone they knew they lost. Turns out they were taken to the killing center and gassed upon arrival but the people who did this were men in black coats and black caps and the jews of lupin described them as being more vicious, more violent than the ss. We went to a Jewish Hospital s. And murdered the patients and doctors and nurses. They went to a jewish orphanage and murdered the children along with the Staff Members who refuse to leave the children behind. They went into the woods and shot jews at the edge of a ravine through mass killing andshooting operations. And these men were the trawniki men who were trained at the school for mass murder. This school was so important to the ss top leadership came to visit includinghimmler. Feliks and lucyna escaped, they escaped the ghetto and under the cover of night took a train to warsaw because they didnt have any place to go, they slipped inside the jewish ghetto of warsaw because lucyna had an uncle there and they decided at the last minute they needed to get out of the ghetto and so in the weeks before the uprising with the help of the polishunderground , feliks and lucyna as gave the warsaw ghetto, probably saved their lives because it was just before the uprising. What they didnt know at the time is that the trawniki men followed and worked sidebyside with the germans to suppress the jewish uprising in the warsaw ghetto. So they survived a win, ill rent ran the men of trawniki, survived warsaw, out ran the man of trawniki and ended up at the end of the war in a small rural farming village near krakc and they essentially were hiding in plain sight and feliks became a teacher for the local children in this village, never once told anybody he was a jew and at the end of the war they heard soviet tanks rumbling towards this farm village. And feliks crawled out into the woods on his hands and knees and could see these soviet tanks coming, liberation. And a russian commander walked into the building, approached feliks and saidwho are you . Feliks said im a teacher here and the commander said okay and feliks said for the first time in many months, im also a jew and the commander said to him thats not possible, all the jews are dead. He must be a spy and feliks said no, im a jew so the commander hauled over a jewish soviet soldier and said you are a jew, hes a jew. Speak yiddish or speak hebrew to each other and feliks came from a very assimilated family in lublin, did not speak much yiddish. His father brought in a rabbi to the house to imteach him a little bit of his history and ulfeliks would wait until the rabbi does all. He would take his book, skip to the last page and when the rabbi woke up he would say here you go, i finished my study so now the faith with adhesive you have been a life or death moment toward the end of the war and somewhere in the back of his memory in the back of his mind, he remembered the shamah, the holiest prayer in jewish religion and recited it to the soviet soldier andthe soviet soldier that you really are a jew. On the cenziper feliks and this is how feliks and lucyna were able to, thats how they survive, one of the way they survived the war so on foot and went home to lublin to see if anybody was left. Only 200 survived. Including feliks and lucyna. They needed to get out of lublin because to lucyna in particular every rock had blood on it. Every neighbor was a stranger by then so they went to vienna and feliks finished his medical degree, became a doctor and in 1951 they came to the unitedstates. What they didnt know until years later and what many if not most jewish survivors didnt know until years later is that the men of trawniki followed. They slipped into the United States by lying about their and activities during the war. They came in in large part nsunder the displaced persons act which was meant to bring in war refugees, people who were escaping from communism and jewish survivors and they moved tato the United States hiding in plain sight in cities and suburbs across the country so there were trawniki men wedding in new ewyork, in florida, in ohio and even here in the chicago region and ultimately what investigators found that the us the apartment up just is that there were more than a dozen trawniki men living in the United States. Imagine knowing that the men, the very same men who persecuted and had a hand in killing everyone you ever know were living in the United States sidebyside with holocaust victims, their descendents and war veterans who had crossed an ocean to free them. Imagine what that must have felt like knowing that that was the case. When the trawniki men came here,many of them became naturalized citizens. They pledged to defend the constitution and they were living here with pensions, with Social Security benefits. They went to church, they married, they had children, they were naturalized americans living sidebyside with thesame people they had had a hand in killing. And so this people at the department of justice didnt really know very much about trawniki. It was known to the people in the east, but not necessarily the western investigators because the department of justice and western investigators did not have access to the archives in eastern veeurope for a long time, so some men were known because everyone know john, does his name ring a bell . John was a trawniki man. That is where he was trained. That was base camp so we knew , american investigators knew of trawniki but they didnt understand its role in the murder of jews, the jews occupied poland. Without the men of trawniki according to historian, no way ss 1. 2 and 20 months, the span of two polish summers. Theres no way they could have killed many quickly without brute force on the front lines of this mass murder operation. In occupied d poland. And this is one of the most interesting pictures i found of trawniki men standing over the bodies of the dead in the warsaw ghetto. Here they are as one of the Extermination Centers in occupied poland. You can see one of the guys is playing a mandolin. So one of the most trusted trawniki commanders living in the United States is Jacob Reimers citizen 865, subject of the book. Jacob reimer, every trawniki man was given a dog tag number that followed him through the war, his ss Identification Number was 86 five and this is what is s l record look like, this is his ss personnel record acquired by the department of justice in its investigation. And there john, perhaps a familiar some of you. This is also is trawniki personnel file was uncovered by us investigators. He worked for the ford motor company. I started a wise potato chip franchise in new york city. One man found in chicago years earlier works for the crackerjack company. These men were living every ordinary lives. They looked like ordinary americans. Again, with Social Security cards andpensions and retirement. Jacob reimer retired to this clapboard house on the shoreline of lake carmel in the was living there essentially undetected for years and years. The push to find these men and to bring them to justice is what drives this book. Thats the drama behind this. Dthis is the roster the historians found in product ou1990 jacobs name on it in his Identification Number. This is what led them to understand more about trawniki and more about these perpetrators. This tiny unit inside the Justice Department faced an incredible set of challenges. For one thing they were racing against time the cause witnesses were growing older. Survivors were growing older. When this unit was started by an act of congress in 1979, everyone thought they would have done their work in a handful of years, couple of years, five years tops because surely there couldnt be that many People Living here on ussoil. Their work went on for 30 years. They found concentration camp commandant living here. Other men who participated in the persecution of jews and of course a subset of the people they were looking at where the men of trawniki so the first challenge they face was just this racing against time to not only understand part of the history of the holocaust that was not well known in, but also identifying men, some of them change their names. How do you prove what they did 70 years ago, 60 years ago. How do you do that. It was a great challenge to the investigators, the historians and the prosecutors inside this unit in the Justice Department. Perhaps one of their Biggest Challenges which is explored in the book and its fascinating to me was the political pushback this unit faced by prominent people in the United States, buchanan. Repeatedly called to shutter this not the hunting unit. Whats done is done. Leave the old man alone. Youre going to send them back into the hands of the soviets. We cant trust soviet justice so pat buchanan and other prominent, some prominent people pushed to shutter this unit for years. Another challenge they face is once they found these men and they deem naturalized them and they convinced an immigration judge to order them deported, ndremoved from us soil, germany and austria would not take them back. They would not take them back. Germany in fact, theres a discussion recounted in the book where one of the heads of the unit said we dont, germany said we dont want to take your garbage back identifying and the head of this unit said wait, you are garbage. They just moved here. They could not convince germany and austria to accept thesemen , to allow the United States to remove them. We couldnt force it. M. Theres no way to do that. And so in 1988, a prosecutor in the office of special investigations, a young man named Michael Bernstein decided to fly to austria to help the austrians to convince the austrians to take back not the perpetrators. Michael bernstein and two youngchildren. Then as the maryland outside of washington and he was considered, he was a story in the. Everything is okay and is not ever the court. He was a brilliant lawyer and awfully around time for years said maybe we will take some of your defendantsback. And austria was ready to a deal with the state department to take back austrian born not the perpetrators found living in the United States. The only thing that we needed was a fixed term Michael Bernstein volunteered to go. Austria just before on in december 1988 managed to get the deal done and stayed until it was dry even though he wanted to get home to celebrate hanukkah with his children because his daughter was seven and his ldson was four years old and so off he goes and as hes about to come home because his wife and hecalls his boss inside hethe Justice Department and says i really want to get somewhere earlier. And he switched it to pan am flight 103 which was blown up by a terrorist bomb over lockerbie scotland if you remember. A bomb was wrapped in baby close and stuffed inside a samsonite suitcase so Michael Bernstein died in the line of duty from what, 40 years at that time or so after the holocaust. And so this, it was one of the most tragic situations aced by the people in this not the hunting unit and to this day, a picture of Michael Bernstein sits on the desk of Eli Rosenbaum who ran the unit for years and years as the top prosecutor but this pushback not only from people like pat buchanan but from other countries was an ongoing struggle for the people of osi. So was convincing judges to the naturalized men who looked like ordinary americans s m, jacob reimer, th subject of, thats one of the historians. Eli rosenbaum on the left n. Remember doctor black and doctor white . Theres doctor black who was the world s foremost expert on the Training Camp and theres doctor white on the front and they still joke about the doctor black, doctor white thing but one of the hardest things for the prosecutor inside this office was to convince a judge far removed from the holocaust re that men who looked rather ordinary should in fact be stripped of their citizenship. Jacob reimer, citizen 865 was taken to court in new york in 19 98 and he was wearing hightop sneakers and a sweater. And in fact, a couple of people in the courtroom said who was the survivor and who is the nazi war criminal . It was hard to tell the difference. So many years after the war had and so fighting for convincing judges that these men should not have been here in the first place was a great challenge faced by the nazi hunters in this book. In Jacob Reimers case, they knew that he was a trusted collaborator in this Training Camp. He had gone to lublin and lead a platoon of man in the violent segregation of the lublin ghetto where feliks and lucynas families lived and then he had gone on to help oppress the jewish uprising for the warsaw ghetto uprising so they knew all of those things. But the other thing they found out about jacob reimer is under questioning, he thought he could get away with his history here, his background so he showed up in new york without a lawyer. Thinking is one. He went to the Us Attorneys Office in new york. Net witha couple of prosecutors. From this not the hunting unit and under questioning, he admitted uhe had taken part in a mass shooting operation somewhere in the woods outside of trawniki where jewish men, women and children were lined up against the edge of a ravine and shot , their bodies dumped into the ravine. The next truckload came in and on and on it went. Witnesses of shootings like say there was essentially blood on the farm floor when it was done so under questioning, jacob reimer admitted to shooting at a man was in the ravine, pointing to his head. Almost as if he wanted to be shot, he was begging for mercy, he just wanted to end it and under questioning, d reimer admitted to this. Ill play for you, play a little bit of it now. It will just take a second to hear it. Etquest theres something about the man who pointed to his head youhavent told me. You finish him off. What you couldnt hear was reimers last line which is im afraid so. Quest theres something about the man who pointed to his head you havent told me. So off they go to court with jacob reimer on the witness stand but now they have all therecords including the records they found in prague. They have a bunch of other documents about reimer and they have his confession and off they go to court again, is resisted. All the time because what they were seeing was a man who looked like anybody else. It was very hard for this unit to convince judges to be naturalized these men. So to tell the, i did. I retraced his steps of the historians in this book. I was a domestic reimer as he was coming to court. I was able to go to the lublin ghetto, retrace the steps of and lucy. I was able to go to the concentration camp in trend team from cenziper died. Actually was able to see the site of a vemass shooting like the kind described by jacob reimer to us investigators and i was able to go to god and ask the original nazi record found by doctor wife and doctor black in 1992. They make you put on white gloves so that the oil from your finger doesnt see into original. Took me about three years to report and write and i really came away with a new understanding of the holocaust which i had studied in college. I had studied growing up, to my grandparents. I thought i knew a lot tabout the holocaust but a couple of things really struck me. The first is how many people it takes to kill so many so quickly. How many collaborators. People on the ground, people who are not part of the knotty party, not members of the ss. Whoprobably got away with it , many many thousands of people. The syndicated columnist george will covered the jacob reimer here in new york in 1992. He actually called them causing the wheel. Just how many takes to kill. I never ythought about that as much as i did in writing this book. I was also really, really intrigued by how easy it was to indoctrinate the enemy. The Training Camps. How easy it was to turn people around and make them loyal soldiers. Some men deserted. They desertedthe unit. Better than to die as a good person than to live as a killer. But jacob reimer and many me others stayed on. In fact, jacob was given paid vacation. He was allowed to go visit nhis family in the ukraine for the area of soviet ukraine unescorted and return he would return back to the Training Camp to continue on with his service to the ss. He was so loyal that he received citizenship in nazi germany in 1944, the end of the war. He would then retire or move into nazi germany and lived there as a decorated war hero. I was really fascinated by the idea of choice. By who stayed and who left. And how easy it was to convince the enemy to fight for you. I was also really fascinated by the germany austria resistance. The last known trawniki men ordered deported from the United States was just reported in 2018. Last year. The guy live in queens new york for 50 years. On this little class neighborhood that i visited in queens new york. The tire there, drawing attention whatever , drawing Social Security area and he had been ordered removed from the United States 14 years ago. But the department of justice and the state department did not find country willing to taken back. All refuse, austria, germany refuse to allow this man to essentially live in the. Nited states stateless but he was here. So the people in this unit desperately wanted to move t there because they didnt want to allow him to die in peace. On american soil. And so in 2018 after 14 years of pressing foreign governments to take this man back, they finally convinced germany to take this man back and he was flown back to months later at the age of 95. And so you know, i asked the people inside the Justice Department if this, was this revenge becausethis comes up a lot. Is this retribution . What is this . Their response really fascinates me. Their response is these men were never supposed to be here inthe first place. They were e not supposed to get a visa. They were not supposed to be admitted into theUnited States. So we are taking back what they shouldnt have had to begin with. They should not have been allowed to live because thats, that is our law. Were doing because on behalf of the Holocaust Survivors they were living sidebyside with four years in the United States. On behalf of the war veterans who would cross an ocean to help free them and theyre doing it on behalf of the descendents of Holocaust Survivors who were here. Why should these men be allowed to diein peace on us soil . The people inside the Justice Department dont consider it revenge. They consider it justice and that even delay justice is better than no justice atall. And that is perhaps more important now than ever, to show the rest of the world that this kind of war criminals have no place living on us soil and every time the people inside the Justice Department were questioned why are you going after the guys . Its been years, leave hethem alone, there old man, barry white would say if years later we found one of the terrorists who blew up pan am 103 , when we say well, years has passed. Lets just let him go. Of course we wouldnt. So why should it be any different perpetrators of war crimes in the holocaust t . Why should it be any different. So they reallywere doing this in the name of justice and they did it most successfully. The Justice Department, they were able to profit ymore of these men from 1990 on and any other country in the world. Including germany. And to this day they continue to do their work although the unit had expanded now to include war criminals from other parts of the world, guatemala and bosnia and other wartorn countries. And unfortunately theres still as busy as ever. As busy as ever doing their work. So for me as a writer, i was really moved and inspired by the men and women doing this work. As an Investigative Reporter ive spent so many years writing about government corruption and mismanagement. I work in miami and washington and you can imagine im never short on stories but this was a different kind of story. This was a story that even though it was about darkness and dark moments, i really found it a story about life. I found that the men and women in this book were inspiring, the story of lucyna and feliks, i remember sitting at my desk night after night listening to their accounts and adjust, i was just so moved by the will to survive and what they went through and in fact, lucyna would go to her synagogue and look at her whole family filling a few in the synagogue. And say look what i produced. Where once there was nothing, olook what i produced. Im so honored to let you guys know that their family is here today you stand up, the family of lucyna. That is why i say this is a story about darkness but also about life. And i hope you have a chance to read the book. Thanks forhaving me here and im happy. High. The nazi files that were kept in where you said, austria, prime. Why were they destroyed . Why do they keep them at all . Thats a question i get every book talk a gift. The90s did destroy a lot of records. Obviously. Th they destroyed a lot of records. The trawniki Training Camp was considered almost monday in terms of in their, it was a training so alot of the , so as the soviet coming in to poland, the men of trawniki and their leader estate e and one of the places they went to was prague so they likely to a lot of their records with them and they were stashed inprague. But the ss didnt necessarily destroy them because it was really considered a rather mundane operation. Was a Training Camp. It wasnt high, high level. High. Were these people part of the scope because they were terrorizing the jews when they came into town. These people were not part of that group. They were a Different Group is that right . These were collaborators, these were not germans. There were a number of ethnic germans but jacob reimer had been born in the ukraine in what we now know as the ukraine. His family had migrated their years and years earlier so ea even though he was ethnic german, he wasnt part of germany. He was, so there were 5000 men that they were recruits and collaborators, but they were not part ofthe ss. Tthey were not part of the nazi party. That whole age is going to show, i got the name but i was would assume, what was the story . The nazi next door and we, in this case we meeting america, we let them in willingly and how do we correlate them. I did read that book and im doing a talk in miami with the writer of that book next week. Eric stillwell is the writer so you wrote about operation secrets let which was the fact that the cia let in nazis. Because that had been extensively written about before. I didnt focus on that i. Other books have been written obviously about 90 hunting, other very goodbooks about nazi hunting. I. Focused on the men of trawniki because nothing had ever been written to this extent about that Training Camp. And i was fascinated with the idea they could recruits and army of 5000 men to do the dirtiest jobs in poland but yes, the cia as we all know it let them in because that had been covered before and written about i went a different way. High. Great talk so far. I look forward to buying your book for sure. Thanks for taking the picture with me for this. I waswondering , it would seem ive read accounts of the hunt for the remnants of nazi war criminals and other books such as hitlers furies by wendy lauer and it seems like many of these hunts were ineffectual and the judges werent interested. You think the us missed any chances by not, i mean, that the law did not permit them . As to prosecute any of these criminals themselves were you think justice was necessarily served by nearly deporting them. You think their home countries had an interest in prosecuting them or do you think this was in many cases just another way for them to die where maybe they would have wanted to live anyway if there wasnt probably backlash after the war. The question and thank you for asking. The people inside the Justice Department obviously would have liked, i mean work on war crime file would have made sense but the people inside the Justice Department it everything that was in their power to do. Everything the constitution allowed them todo. They could not drive people e for war crimes on us soil use of the supplies were committed here. Theconstitution allowed. It would have taken a long time and break political will to change the law and they didnt have the time. They were racingagainst time. People were growing older, witnesses, the tennis so they did everything they could in civil court. Each of these men and convinced judges to be naturalized them. Sstrip them of us citizenship which they shouldnt have had in the first place. And they would take the Immigration Court and convinced an immigration judge to order them deported. This process years, i mean, years to build these cases, pull everything together, waiting on judgments and even then, even when they had done all, they couldnt often remove them. A number of them were to die on us soil because no country would accept them. All of that being said, i think the people inside this unit would tell you they did everything they could and to Great Success to at least hold these men accountable. They dideverything they could under eour law. Under the law. And for the historians, it wasnt just a matter of tracking these men. Also a matter of correcting the record of history. Especially in the case of trawniki. Historians knew that trawniki existed. They didnt understand its role in the murder, the destruction of the jewsof occupied poland. They didnt understand just how it works so they were able to correct the record of history and find these men and hold them accountable as best they could. Are they still prosecuting no trawniki or other nazi refugees, former nazi ss and whatever . Known in this country . How many do they think are still in this country . Thats a great question and i wish they would tell me that they dont tell us that, especially until these cases are made public. I suspect there might be a couple cases coming up but its just a gut instinct on my part. As i said, not the hunting unit which is called the office of special investigations has become part of a bigger unit inside the Justice Department with a Broader Mission to look for war criminals in other parts of the world. But we will see if theres another one. Case in 2018 and been working on for years and suddenly erafter 14 years , overnight that trawniki man was sent back to germany. 95 years old. Ac thank you, i was wondering this whole time why they havent been tried aswar criminals. You answer that, however in my mind, im thinking of israel, how they were able to trythese people. People were sent to israel and try there. Didnt that happen in these cases . Thats the second question i get and every book talk and im glad you asked it. Mymother said the same thing. I dont , i dont think israel and raise interest. In taking back these men. There were not necessarily israeli witnesses, they did take back john demjanjuk, does everyone know the story of him a little bit . He was accused of being a man named ivan the terrible. In fact theres a series on television about it now. He was accused of being ivan the terrible of the death camps. This is man and he was found guilty in israel so israel did take him back. Found guilty in israel, its a case unraveled. He was a trawniki man and he did serve in a death camp, just not the traveling to death camp. The so before death camp in poland. Israelis knew this and declined to prosecute. And so john was allowed into the United States, return to even though serve him overboard so not the hunting unit decided to prosecute time with was read ahead of unit two attorney time and ask permission to take him about a second time. They successfully prosecuted him a second time, germany took him back and he was convicted in the murder of 27,000 or so jews. In the so the board death camp but to answer your question israel did take him back. There was not a lot of interest from israel over the years to take back more. There just wasnt. When their citizenship was taken away from them, how can theylive . Are they entitled to Social Security, to get medicare . How can they support themselves take care of themselves. They were stripped of their citizenship and eventually considered stateless men but they were still here. They were still part of the country, still living here, still drawing pensions, all of those things. All their privileges continued. Yes. As if nothing happened. Yes. Thats why it was the single greatest frustrationby the hunting unit four years. If they did all this for the prove their cases to the point where judges and in some cases these cases were appeals appellate courts, up to the Us Supreme Court so court after court would affirm these decisions, yes. This man is a nazi war criminal area and yet they couldnt remove them from us soil in msome cases and in seother cases they did in the number of cases they struggle to the point where the men were able to die here. Michigan on . Have there been any studies about each of the personalities of these men heinto the backgrounds of these men because you describe them as being brutal beyond brutal so even worse in the ss. So can you, you have a question. Thats a generalization butthese men remember, a lot of them came from Eastern European countries. Ousome of them for generations for the war. And been ingrained in their society. So yes, a lot of them were more brutal and the ss and the jews of occupied poland in large part they feared them more than the ss. They were almost fargreater in number. Ss staff the killing centers but really the trawniki men were boots on the ground. They were the ones that operated the gas chambers, the fourth jews on the trains directly into the gas chambers. At so the board d in belfast, i always mispronounced because i cant do that, they were not concentration camps. They were death camps. They were Extermination Centers. They didnt have barracks sbecause you think they live there. They were taken right from the train chambers because t the trawniki men were doing that work jacob reimer said in court that he was a victim of the nazis. That heat like so many others saidthat. That he had to fire the man in the ravine because if he didnt show loyalty to the ss he would have been the next one shot so what the department of justice argued in that case is yes, but you got for service metals. You did so well you were granted citizenship in nazi germany. He received paid vacations. You came back on your own accord to continue fighting alongside the ss. He could have deserted but you didnt. And that wastheir case , why did you dootit . Some men deserted trawniki. They did not come back but reimer and 5000 or so others date on and they served with great loyalty. I dont know. I think they did but by and large it wasnot a huge number of peoplewho deserted. Not a huge number. A lot of these men after the war because they had come from the soviet union, they were tried either soviets after the war. And convicted by the soviets fighting for the enemy. We just didnt know that because we were talking to the soviets about these things and it took years and years for american investigators to realize that the soviets themselves had prosecuted trawniki men and etwhen we were able to get our hands on those records it helped build cases here inthe United States. I forgot the name of the american nazi hunting, proper name. Office of special investigations. Its been around for a long time but do you know how manypeople were in this office of special investigations . For the work they did it was tiny. Maybe 40, 50 people or so. They started osi with investigators, more like criminal investigators, like gun and badge men worked inside the federal government and ultimately they started using historians because they realized they definitely needed that kind of contact but for many years, we didnt really do a lot of nazi hunting the United States. It took until the 70s. I think the first step no matter how many you will be stripped of your citizens war criminal so the people in the office of special investigations, especially the lawyers and said they could have gone on to more lucrative careers, not exactly fun to be a federal government service. We like rosenbaum has a law degree from harvard. These are top cop lawyers who spent their whole lives working in this drab government office. Crthey had mice crawling across the floor. These were not high profile prosecutors that were making headlines in the New York Times and Washington Post and they did this work because they were on, they felt it was the right thing to do and that there has to be a line no matter how many years have passed, were going to come after you if we find out that you have done something wrong no matter how many years have passed but i dont know about how do we prevent it in the future. One of the more depressing thoughts to me is that this unit is still just as busy as ever. I was struck by because ive listened to you twice, struck by your comments having gone back to poland how it took the country to hunt down jews, not just an army. Could you comment on that . The people. It took the people, all of poland. Im sure many of you have been to poland i would imagine many, many peoplehere have been to poland. It was my first visit to poland and i found poland to be a very wounded country. It was occupied by the germans ryand then by the soviets and there were a lot of people in poland, the polish underground that helped save jews including feliks and lucyna who i told you about so there were a lot of people who helped and a lot of people who collaborated. Really wounded country. Maybe i can shed some light about how some of these war criminals and character came into this country. Im a survivor, liberated from auschwitz and after i was liberated, i was 15 years old and i was dumped into a displaced persons camp and this camp not only had displaced people who were jewish but there were lumped together with all kinds of people who never had a country to go to or at least they declared. It took a while before the commander of the occupied voices of america finally to come to grips with this and separate the two displaced persons from the ones who tried to hide and i remember the four i was allowed to come to america, meet of betting by the cid cic. I have papers from the americans for my relatives here before i was allowed to come to america and im sure in spite [inaudible] he was saying in a displaced persons camp he was invented very carefully but you were saying that theres probably a lot of people that participated that managed to slip in. In Jacob Reimers case the bookis called citizen 865, thats Jacob Reimers id number. Jacob was invented by the military, the us army and he actually listed on his immigration papers he had served in trawniki Training Camp but we didnt know what trawniki was at the time. Us Army Investigators had no idea that trawniki was a school for mass murder in occupied poland. In fact jacob reimer was given a recommendation by a red cross supervisor. He had spent the postwar years in munich chauffeuring american gis hollywood movies. He worked for the us army. So he came in with this red cross provides a recommendation that called him Something Like a loyal and honest and hardworking man who would make a Great American or a great us citizen so to your point, youre right. They just didnt know enough hato let them in despite that kind of vetting because he was vetted and then here when he was in the United States and us investigators caught on to him, he said yes, i was at trawniki but i was just a paymaster in the camp administration. No blood on my hands. Very mundane work in the Us Department of justice just didnt know any better until they started to investigate trawniki and figured out what that camp actually was. You said that our state department was reticent about getting involved. Whats your perspective on that . What did you learn . The Justice Department necessarily through official channels go to other countries and states that youre not the. They were lying on the state department. And i dont have an opinion, i think the people inside the might say that some years the state department with higher than others but i will say from my reporting at last year 2018 the state department and the Justice Department came together to deport this nazi war criminal in queens new york. But the department of justice would tell you they didnt get as much traction and wanted to get with the state department. Can we hear the gentleman over here who was a survivor and had to wait allthese years before he could get out. He even said that our government allowed people to come here recruited governments this help in the cold war. People who were scientists aand others and they not only allowed but brought them here knowing what they had done. That is something that is unthinkable for those of you didnt hear , this woman was talking about the fact that the Us Government and cia had recruited nazi scientists to stay here after the war and hethat is incredibly outrageou. I hear what youre saying. But this book focused on a totally different thing. O i understand your point. Ladies and gentlemen, i know we could stay here for the asking any questions but some of your questions will be answered in her book and i do want to thank you for being you. Only once again thanking you. [applause] debbie would be happy to continue the conversation out in our shop to museum remains a 5 pm to take it that time to say are many exhibits
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