[inaudible conversations] >> i didn't even have to say anything. you are a well-trained bunch. good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. good afternoon welcome to the illinois holocaust museum and education center. my name is lily and and is director of public programs i have the privilege on a regular basis. we thank you so much for being here with us today. we hope you'll 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. raise it higher so i can see it very thank you, thank you, thank you. over here too. thank you. in the interest of quality so 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 so much. thank you. the folks who raised her hands the first time around please don't take my word for it alone. ask anyone else around you his hand without the second time why they support this institution, why they come here on a regular basis, why i know many of them by their first name. those whose first names i haven't learned i will do my best to learn them. also may suggest those of you who are not as familiar with the organization to pick up one of her quarterly calendars and brochures. you will find among the information desk.

this will let you know about all of our upcoming programs. i won't take the time to list them all but i will tell you we have a program that's coming thursday evening. it's going to be an exhibition opening for brand-new exhibition and that's on thursday the 21st and the next sunday we have another program. we have a film and discussion in ways tangentially related to the subject matter today. we'll be showing the film the memories of the eyes and row which is a documentary of survivors and others who were witnesses or who attended the eyes and trial and one of those witnesses are featured photographs in our special exhibition memories on earth the large photograph of henry roth. there are just a few of the

reasons for you to return and i certainly hope you will. at the conclusion today's programmer presenter will be available to sign copies of her new book "citizen 865" the hunt for hitler's hidden soldiers in america so as a courtesy i ask you to please allow her to exit the stage and auditorium and continue your conversation with her in the vicinity of our legacy shop. some of you may have noticed we have additional apparat i in the room today. we are very excited that this afternoon's program is being preserved and taped for future broadcast by c-span, c-span's booktv. so we are excited to have an author whose work commands such important attention as it should because the subject matter will never go out of style. me tell you a little bit about the presenter.

debbie cenziper is associate professor and director of investigative reporting at brazil's school of journalism northwestern university she oversees the investigative tip -- investigative lab. she is the pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter and nonfiction author who writes for the "washington post". she has spent three years at george washington university before joining the faculty at mcgill. over the years her investigative stories have expose wrongdoing profit congressional hearings that led to changes in federal and local laws. in her classes at medill her students focus on social justice investigative reporting. debbie is one dozens of award and a tear rare can. journalism including the robert f. kennedy award for reporting that human rights and the prize for investigative reporting from harvard university. she received the pulitzer in

2007 at the "miami herald" for a series of stories about corrupt affordable housing developers who were stealing from the poor figure before that she was a pulitzer prize finalist for her stories about dangerous breakdowns of the nation's hurricane tracking system. debbie is a frequent speaker at universities writing conferences in both events. her first book love wins, the lovers and lawyers who fought the land marchesa on marriage equality by a million warm -- william morrow was named one of the most notable books by the "washington post." her second book hot off the presses "citizen 865" the hunt for hitler's hidden soldiers in america is a topic of conversation with us today. she is based on the medill washington d.c. campus working with students on investigative stories and we are delighted to present to you this afternoon debbie cenziper. [applause]

>> thank you for that lovely introduction. i very much appreciate it. i'm so happy to be with you here today. i'm based in washington d.c. for the first quarter at northwestern. i've been here at evanston learning about evanston northwestern in chicago and it's been a lot of fun and i'm so happy to be here to talk about this book project. let me tell you where this book got started. this book started in the final moments of 2016 when i was at a new year's eve party in maryland with my friends and my husband and my husband wanted to leave because there was very loud disco music play in the background and he had had enough. i ended up having this conversation with the woman we were having dinner with whom i had never met before. turns 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 little known unit deep inside the u.s. justice department that has spent three decades hunting nazi war criminals on u.s. soil. she spent a decade on the staff of the "washington post." i knew very little about this woman and i remember two things, asking myself two questions after this two-hour conversation. number one how was it possible that so many gears after the war 70 some years after the holocaust there was still not the perpetrators and war criminals living here on u.s. soil. i just could not understand that and i was fascinated by the idea that was even happening and more than that who were the men and

women at the u.s. justice department has spent the bulk of their careers hunting for these perpetrators and how are they able to spend day after day, year after year inside some of the darkest moments in history? how were they able to do that and then go home at night to their wives and their husbands? how were they able to go home at night to their children, take occasions and live normal lives when during the day they were hearing about in reliving some of the most horrible horrific moments in holocaust history. i really wanted to get to know the people behind this nazi hunting unit in the u.s. department of justice. after i rounded up my husband from the cocktail party, he was sitting outside hunched over reading the "washington post" waiting for me for quite a long time i knew i had the beginnings

of another book. about a week later i called up and historian who worked at in this nazi hunting unit in the u.s. department of justice dr. barry white. i asked barry to talk to me a little bit about what he had been doing here in she recounted the story that prompted me to ride this book. in 1990, soon after the collapse of communism very white another historian named peter black, hugh already got my joke and i haven't even told you my joke yet. you already got to the punchline but they went to prague because communism had collapsed and a new the nazis had daft a lot of records and more documents nazi rosters and they could never get to them because the communist government wouldn't allow them inside their archive. after the collapse of communism

in the 1990s they could get in and it was a treasure trove of information for these historians. imagine what they might find there. they flew into germany. they went to prague in the middle of the night. they ended up in a little rented apartment and the russian caretaker was very upset that barry white was not there with her husband on the job. she was actually pregnant at the time and the russian caretaker very much wanted to see the corpse for breakfast and that was not a good thing for barry who was early on in her pregnancy. they ended up inside of this massive archive in prague surrounded by government agents with guns and everything else. dr. peter black whose translator said i am dr. black and this is

dr. white and we are here representing the u.s. department of justice. all the government agents started to smirk and they are probably thinking the cia has no imagination. these must be government spies but off we go into the dusty archives in this office building in prague. soon enough she pushes back her chair and she's looking at the paper, friends over to peter black and says i found something it turns out they found the nazi roster from 1945 that listed the name of 700 men who had participated in one of the most lethal operations in occupied poland. some of those men they knew were here in the united states living on u.s. soil. they recognize some of the

names. that was a turning point in an investigation that spanned about 15 years and is at the heart of this book "citizen 865". as soon as i talked to barry white or knew that this was my next book. this was for sure a story that i wanted to tell. let me give you a little bit of background. i focused heavily in this book on historians though prosecutors are heroes of this book as well. i focused heavily on historians because i spent 25 years of my life as an investigative reporter so i love documents. historians were able to find documents from all over eastern europe inside what were once communist countries. they went to moscow they went to kiev, they went to prague and they found all of this evidence about men who were living here

in the united states. i found that absolutely intriguing as an investigative reporter that there were men and women who had spent their careers in the outpost of the u.s. department of justice with drop ceilings and stained carpeting and a window that faced mcdonald's. 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. i found that really inspiring as a journalist, as a mother, as a wife and a human being. these are the people who in part to drive the story. a little bit of background. as you all know poland had more prefer the war than any of their country in the world probably except for the united states. it was a thriving hub for jewish

people. it was also considered a strategic stronghold for their rights because there was lush farmland and the strong economy that they wanted to turn over ethnic settlers. poland was a very strategic location of the very strategic area for the right. but what do you do with the jews? they had experimented with gas in germany with mobile gas masks and that idea of the mass murder was very interesting and intriguing to the police leader a man known as ophelia to the bush neck. he was tasked with deciding what to do with the jews of occupied

poland. the ss was busy fighting on the soviet front and they needed manpower. they needed help to annihilate the jews of poland and so he ended up recruiting from soviet p.o.w. camps men who were captured soviet soldiers. they were put in soviet p.o.w. camps are they likely faced death and the actually recruited them and essentially taught them how to fight for the enemy. he also recruited lithuanians latvians poles and other recruits. he brought them to a little farming village south of warsaw. you can see from the map with censures thing about this map is 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. in this camp these men were trained in nazi ideology. they were taught military drills and marching commands and they were alternately dispatched from the school for mass murder in this little farm village known as trust mickey to the jewish ghettos of occupied poland where they liquidated together. they were brought -- they have participated in shooting operations throughout occupied poland and they manned the killing centers in occupied poland including treblinka. the men essentially became the

manpower for the ss. they were the men who did the bloodiest jobs in occupied poland and the jews who survived describes a man as more brutal and blood thirsty than members of the ss. these were men who essentially became the foot soldiers of the third reich and it became their base. this is where they were armed, this is where they were trained and this is where they were issued deployment orders to go across occupied poland and helped the ss annihilate the jews. these were the men who did the bloodiest jobs in occupied poland and trazegnies 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 of trazegnies the foot soldiers of

the third reich. they were often known by the jews as the men wearing white coats and black hats. some village survivors called them ukrainian because some of the men were from ukraine or that region but there were many many others lithuania and latvia the ss really came up with an incredible system because these 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. for these men especially men who came from soviet p.o.w. camps serving the enemy seemed like there was a decent option because the soviet p.o.w. camp space based starvation or death

or some other kind of horrible death. this camp was set up and their first deployment was a city you can see on the map. it was a historical cultural and religious center for thousands of polish jews. more than 30,000 jews lived in poland in 1939 and they held leadership positions on the town council. they were leading members of the business community. there were religious schools. there was just a thriving, thriving jewish hub in 1939 and it was here that two of the main characters in my book matt and they were just children in many ways, in every way at the time. they were born in lubilin. they were friends and their families were friends. listen this father was an

interpreter before the war and her mother was a dentist. felix's father was an architect before the war. these two teenagers were put into the lublin ghetto by the nazis along with their friends and neighbors and every member of their extended family. 40,000 jews were put into this ghetto. there was starvation, you name it. it was terrible, water shortages, food shortages and for all kinds of reasons lucinda and felix were able to survive mass deportation in this ghetto. their survival story like all the survival stories i have heard in this book are absolutely astounding. took my breath away as a writer but here they were in this ghetto in lublin and one day men

in black coats and black hats around the perimeters of the ghetto and they put on floodlights and they demanded every family come outside. in this ghetto 1600 jews a day would be deported east for resettlement in the east. over a period of weeks who send you and felix, felix was 19 or so so everyone they knew deported, their friends, their neighbors and family. everyone they knew they lost. they didn't know where they had gone and it turns out they were taken to the killing center and gas upon arrival. the people who did this were men in black coats and black hats and the jews of lublin described him them as being more vicious and violent than the dreaded s. s.. they went to a jewish hospital

and murdered physicians and doctors and nurses. they went to a jewish orphanage and murdered the children along with the staff members who refused to leave the children behind. they went into the woods and shot jews at the edge of her routine through mass killing and shooting operations. these men were the trazegnies men who were trained at the school for mass murder. the school was so important to the ss the top leadership came to visit including hitler. felix and lucy escaped to the lublin ghetto and under the cover of night took a train to warsaw because they didn't have anyplace to go. they lived inside the jewish ghetto of warsaw because lucinia had not go there and they decided that the last minute they needed to get out of the

ghetto so in the weeks before the uprising with the help of the polish underground felix and lucy escaped the warsaw ghetto and it probably saved their lives because they escaped just before the uprising. what they didn't know at the time is that the trazegnies men followed and work side-by-side with the germans to suppress the jewish uprising in the warsaw ghetto. so they survived the lublin outran the men of trazegnies. they survived warsaw outran the men of trazegnies and lucy and felix ended up at the end of the war and a small farming village near kraków. they essentially were hiding in plain sight and felix became a teacher for the local cherlin in the village. never once told anyone obviously he was a jew. the end of the war they heard tanks rumbling towards the farm village.

helix got down on his stomach and crawled out of the woods on his hands and knees and could see these soviet tanks coming, liberation, liberation and/or russian commander walked into the building and approached felix and said who are you? felix said i'm a teacher here. the commander said okay and felix said for the first time in many many months i am also a jew the commander said to him that's not possible. all the jews are dead. you must be a spy and felix said no, no i am a jew. the commander called over a jewish soviet soldier and said you are a jew, he is a jew speaking atish or hebrew to each other. felix came from a very assimilated family and lublin it did not speak much yiddish. in fact his father brought in a rabbi to the house to teach him

a little bit of this history and felix would wait until the rabbi dozed off. he would take his books get to the last page and when the rabbi woke up he would say. go i finish my studies. now he's faced with proving he is a jew in what could have been a life or death moment for the end of the war and somewhere in the back of his memory in the back of his mind he remembered the shema the holiest prayer in jewish religion and recited it in the soviet soldier said oh my god you really are a jew. and he hugged felix and that's how felix and lucinia were able to assess how they survived, one of the ways they survived the war. on foot they went home lublin to see if anyone was left there before the war there were 40,000 jews living in lublin. only 200 survived including

felix and lucinia. they need to get out of lublin because lucinia in particular every rock had a lot on it. every neighborhood was a stranger by then. they went to vienna and felix finished his medical degree and became a doctor. in 1951 they came to united states. what they didn't know years later and what many if not most jewish of vipers didn't know years later is that the men of trazegnies followed. they slipped into the united states by lying about their whereabouts and activities during the war. they came in in large part under the displaced persons act which was meant to bring in war refugees people who were escaping from communism and jewish survivors but they moved to the united states hiding in plain sight in cities and

suburbs across the country so there were trazegnies men living in new york, and florida ohio and even here in the chicago region. ultimately what investigators found at the u.s. department of justice is there were more than a dozen trazegnies men living in the united states. imagine knowing that those very same men who persecuted and had a hand in killing everyone you ever knew were living in the united states side-by-side with holocaust victims, and their descendents and war veterans who crossed an ocean to free them. imagine what that must have felt like knowing that was the case did when they trazegnies men came here many of them became naturalized citizens. they fled to defend the constitution and they were living here with pensions and

social security benefits. they went to church, they married, they had children. they were naturalized americans living side-by-side with the very same people they had been killing. people at the department of justice didn't really know very much about trazegnies. he was known to the people in the east that not necessarily the western investigators because the department of justice and western investigators did not have access to the archives in eastern europe for a long, long time. some men were known. does jon do not yell's name ring a bell? he was a trazegnies man. that is where he was trained and that was his base camp. we knew, american investigators knew of trazegnies but they

didn't understand its role in the murder of the jews of occupied poland. without the men of trazegnies according to historians there is no way the s. ask could have killed 1.7 million jews in fewer than 20 months in the span of two polish summers. there is no way they could kill that many that quick way without root force on the front lines of this mass murder operation in occupied poland. this is one of the most interesting pictures i have found of the trazegnies men standing over the bodies of the dead in the warsaw ghetto. here they are at one of the extermination centers in occupied poland. you can see one of the guys is playing a mandolin. perhaps the most trusted

trazegnies commander found living here in the united states is jacob rimer who is citizen age 65, the subject of the book. jacob rimer every time they were given a dot tag number that followed them through the war his assess identification number was 865. this is what is personnel records look like. this was the ss personnel record required by the department of justice in its investigation. there is perhaps a familiar face to some of you. this is also his trazegnies personnel file that was uncovered by u.s. investigators. he worked for the ford motor company. jacob rimer started a potato chip franchise in new york city. one trazegnies man found in

chicago years earlier worked for the crackerjack company so these men were living very ordinary lives. they look like ordinary americans again with social security cards pensions and retirement. jacob rimer retired to the little blackford house on the shoreline of lake carmel in new york and was living there essentially undetected for years and years and years. the push to find these men and to bring them to justice is what drives this book. that is the drama behind this book. this is the roster that the historians found improv in 1990 with jacob rimer's name on it and his identification number. this is what led them to understand 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 because witnesses

were growing older. survivors were growing older. when this unit was started by an act of congress in 1979 everyone thought they had done their work and a handful of years, couple of years, five years tops because surely that couldn't be that many people living here on u.s. soil. their work went on for 30 years. they found concentration camp commandant's living here and other men who participated in the persecution of the jews and of course a subset of the people they were looking out for the men of trawniki so the first challenge they faced was racing against time to not only understand the part of the history that was the holocaust not well-known in the west but to identify men and some of them have changed their names. how do you prove what they did 70 years ago, 60 years ago? how do you do that?

it was a great, great challenge to the investigators and historians and the prosecutors inside the unit of the justice department. one of the biggest challenges which is explored in the book and is fascinating to me was the political pushback the units faced by prominent people in the united states and pat buchanan who repeatedly called the shutter this nazi unit. what is done is done, leave these old men alone or you are going to them back into the hands of the soviets. we can't trust the soviet justice and so pat buchanan and other, some prominent people pushed to shutter this unit for years. another challenge they faced as once they found these men and the de-naturalized them and they convinced an immigration judge to order them deported and removed from u.s. soil germany

and austria would not take them back. they would not take them back. in fact there's a discussion recounted in the book where one of the heads of this unit says germany said we don't want to take your garbage back kind of thing. ahead of us unit said wait a minute it's your garbage. they just moved here but they could not convince germany and austria to accept these men and to allow the united states to remove them. we couldn't force it. there is no way to do that. in 1988 a prosecutor in the office of special investigations a gunman decided to fly to austria to help the austrians, to convince the austrians to take back nazi perpetrators. michael bernstein had two young

children. he lived in bethesda maryland just outside of washington and he was a storied prosecutor in this unit. he had to play a convincing ever defended on his roster to settle a case and to agree to leave this country without ever taking a guided core. he was a brilliant lawyer. austria around that time despite existing for years and you know what navy will take some of your defendants back in austria was taking back austrian born perpetrators found living in the united states. the only thing we needed was a signature so michael ernestine volunteered to go. he flew to austria just before hanukkah in december 1988 and managed to get the deal done and stayed until the ink was dry even though he wanted to get home and celebrate hanukkah with

his children. his daughter was about seven and his son was four years old. so off he goes and as he's about to come home because his wife and he calls his boss inside the justice department he said i really want to get home early. he switched it pan am flight 103 which was blown up via terrorist bomb over lockerbie scotland if you remember. a bomb was stuffed inside the samsonite suitcase. michael bernstein died in the line of duty some 40 years at that time were so after the holocaust. it was one of the most tragic situations faced by the people in this nazi 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 a top prosecutor. this pushback not only from people like pat buchanan but

from other countries was an ongoing struggle for the people of osi. so with convincing judges to be natural allies men to look like ordinary americans. jacob rimer one of the historians. there was eli rosenbaum on the left and remember dr. blacken dr. why? there is dr. black who is now the world's most foremost expert on the trawniki training camp and there is dr. white. they still joke about the doctor black dr. white thing but one of the hardest things for the prosecutors inside his office was to convince a judge far removed from the holocaust that men who look rather ordinary should in fact be stripped of their citizenship. jacob rimer citizen 865 was

taken to court in new york in 1998 and he was wearing high top sneakers and a sweater. in fact a couple of people in the courtroom said who is the survivor and who is the nazi war criminal? it was hard to tell the difference so many years after the war. 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 look. and jacob reimer's case they knew that he was a trusted collaborator in this training camp. he had gone to lublin about the tuneup man in a very violent liquidation of the lublin ghetto where felix and lucinia's family had lived. 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 comes back once we showed up in new york without a lawyer. he said he didn't need one. he went to the u.s. attorney's office in new york trading matt but a couple of prosecutors from this nazi hunting unit and under questioning he admitted he had taken part in a mass shooting operation somewhere in the woods outside of trawniki for jewish men women and children were lined up against the edge of the ravine and shots. their bodies were dumped into a ravine. the next truckload came on and on and on it went. witnesses of shootings like this said there was essentially blood on the floor when it was done. under questioning jacob reimer admitted to shooting a man who

is 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 rivered made it to print it will play a little bit of that now. it will take a second to hear it. soon after something about the man who pointed at his head you haven't told me. what you could hear was reimer's last languages i'm afraid so. senator something about the man who pointed to your head you haven't told me. >> so off they go to court with jacob reimer and the witness stand so now they have all of the records including the records they found in prague. they have a bunch of other

documents about jacob reimer and they have this confession and off they go to court. again judges 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. to tell the story i went to four countries and retrace the steps of the historians in this book. jacob reimer as he was coming to court one day but i was able to go to the lublin ghetto and retrace the steps of felix and lucy. i was able to go to the concentration camp in lublin where many people from lublin jewish people were taken to die. i was able to see the site of a

mass shooting like the kind by jacob reimer to u.s. investigators. i was able to go to prague and actually find the original nazi records bound by dr. white in dr. black in 1992. they made me put on white gloves so the oil from your finger doesn't seep into original documents. this book took me about three years to report in writing i came away with a whole new understanding of the holocaust which i had studied growing up and talk to my grandparents. i thought i knew a lot about 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 it took, people on the ground and people who are not part of the nazi party who are not members of the ss. people who probably got away

with it, many many thousands of people. the syndicated columnist george will cover the jacob reimer hearing in new york in 1992. he actually called them cops and we'll. just how many people it takes to kill. i had never really thought about that as much as they did in writing this book. i also really was intrigued by how easy it was to indoctrinate the enemy in the lublin training camp and how easy it was to turn people around and make them a loyal foot soldier. some trawniki men deserted. they deserted the unit better than to die as a good person and to live as a killer. but jacob reimer and many other state on could in fact jacob reimer was given paid vacations. he was allowed to go visit his family in ukraine or the area of

ukraine and he returned back to the trawniki training camp to continue on with this service to the ss. he was so loyal that he received citizenship in nazi germany in 1944. the end of the war he would retire and move into nazi germany and live there is a decorated war hero. i was really fascinated by the idea of choice by who stated who left and how easy it was to convince the enemy to fight for you. i was also really fascinated by this germany austria resistance. the last known trawniki men ordered deported from the united states was just deported in 2018 last year. the guy had lived in queens new york perfect ears on this

middle-class neighborhood that i visited in queens new york retired their drying up pension whatever drawing social security. he had been ordered removed from the united states 14 years ago but the department of justice and the state department could not find the country willing to take him back. they have all refused austria, germany refused which allowed the trawniki man to essentially live in the united states. he was stateless but he was hear and so the people in this unit desperately wanted to move him because they didn't want to allow him to die in peace on american soil. in 2018 after 14 years pressing the foreign government to take this man back they could finally convinced germany to take this man back and he was flown back to germany where he died a few

months later at the age of 95. so i asked the people inside the justice department is this revenge because that comes up a lot. was this revenge? was this retribution? what is this and their response fascinates me. they responded that these men were never supposed to be here in the first place. they were not supposed to get a visa. they were not supposed to -- they were not supposed to be admitted into the united states so we are taking back what they should have had to begin with. they should not have been allowed to live here and they are doing it because that is our law. they are doing it because on behalf of the holocaust survivors that they were living side-by-side with for years in the united states on behalf of the war veterans who had crossed

an ocean to help free them and they are doing it on behalf of holocaust survivors who are here. why should these men be allowed to die on u.s. soil? so the people inside the justice department don't consider revenge. they consider it justice. and even delayed justice is better than no justice at all. and that is perhaps more important now than ever to show the rest of the world that this -- the war criminals have no place living on u.s. soil and every time the people inside the justice department were questioned why are you going after these guys? it. >> years could leave them alone. they are little man. gary white would say if years later we found one of the terrorists who up pan am 103 would we say well 30 years has

passed. let's just let him go. of course we wouldn't so why would it be any different for perpetrators of war crimes in the holocaust? why should it be any different? and so they really were doing this in the name of justice and they did it successfully for the justice department were able to prosecute more of these men from 1990 on than any other country in the world including germany through to this day they continue to do their work although the unit has expanded now to include war criminals from other parts of the world.

they looked at her whole family filling the pew and a synagogue i produce. where once there was nothing like what i produced.

i'm so honored to let you guys know that their families here today. would you stand up family of felix and lucinia. [applause] that is why i say this is a story about darkness but also about light and i hope you'll have a chance to read the book. thanks for having me here and i'm happy to take your questions. [applause] >> i'm. the nazi files that were cat where you said, austria, prague.

why were they destroyed? why did they keep them at all? >> that's the question i get it every talk i give. the nazis did destroy a lot of records obviously. they destroyed a lot of records. the trawniki training camp was considered almost mundane in terms of in their eyes it was a training camp and so as the soviets were coming in to poland the men of trawniki and their leader escaped and one of the places they went to us prague. so they likely took a lot of their records with them and they were dashed in prague. the ss didn't necessarily destroy them because it was really considered a rather mundane operation by a training camp. wasn't high-level. >> i'm. i was just wondering were they part of it because they were

terrorizing the jews when they came into town. these people were not part of the brew. they were different group, is that right? >> that's right kiddies were collaborators. there were a number of ethnic germans but jacob reimer had been born in ukraine in what we now know is ukraine. the family migrated there years earlier so even though he was ethnic chairman he wasn't part of germany. there were 5000 they were recruiting collaborators but they were not part of the ss. they were not part of the nazi party. >> i forgot the name of the author but i would assume -- the nazi next-door.

we let the men willingly and how do we correlate that? >> i did read that book and in fact i'm doing a talk in miami with the writer of that book next week. he wrote about operation paperclip which was the fact that the cia led in certain nazis. because that had been extensively written about before i didn't focus on that. other books have been written about nazi hunting another very good books about nazi hunting. i focused on the men of trawniki because nothing had ever been written about that training camp or that was fascinated with the idea that they could recruit an army of 5000 men to do the dirtiest jobs in poland. the cia as we all know did let the men but because it's been

covered before in written about i went a different way. >> i'm. a great talk so far. i look forward to buying your book for sure and thanks for taking a picture with me before. i was wondering, it would seem i have read accounts of the hunt for the remnants of nazi war criminals and other books such as hitler's series and it seems like many of these funds were ineffectual and the judges weren't interested. do you think the u.s. missed any chances? the law did not. the -- permit them to prosecute these criminals or do you think

justice was necessarily serve by merely deporting them? do you think their home countries had an interest in prosecuting them or do you think this was in many cases another wave for them to die where maybe they would have wanted to live anyway if there wasn't backlash after the war. >> good question and thank you for asking it. the people inside the justice department obviously a war crimes trial would have made sense sense but the people inside the justice department did everything that was within their power to do everything the constitution allow them to do. they could not try people for war crimes in u.s. soil because the crimes weren't committed here. the constitution did allow that. it would have taken a long long time a great political will to change the law. they didn't have the time. they were racing against time.

people were growing older, witnesses, defendants, suspects so they did everything they could in civil court. they convinced judges to d natural light them to strip them of u.s. citizenship which they should have had in the first place. then they would take them to immigration court and convince an immigration judge to order them deported. this process took years to build these cases pull everything together waiting on judgment and even then, even when they had done all of that they could and often remove them. number of them were able to die in u.s. 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 integrate success to at least hold these men accountable. they did everything they could under our law.

for the historians it wasn't just a matter of tracking these men. that was often a matter of correcting the record of history especially in the case of trawniki historians knew trawniki but they didn't understand its role in the murder of the jews of occupied poland. they didn't understand just how it worked so they were able to press the record of history and find these men and hold them accountable as best that they could. >> are they still prosecuting known trawniki manner other nazi , former nazi ss or whatever , known in this country? how many do they think are still in this country? >> that's a great question and i wish they would tell me that but they don't tell us that

especially journalists until these cases are made public that i suspect there might be a couple of cases coming up but it's just a gut instinct on my part. as i said the nazi hunting unit which is called the office of special investigation has become part of a bigger unit inside the justice department with a broader mission to look for war criminals from other parts of the world. we will see if there's another one. the case of 2018 they have been working on for years and suddenly after 14 years overnight the trawniki men were sent back to germany, 95 years old. >> i was wondering this whole time by they weren't tried as war criminals. you answer that however in my mind i'm thinking of israel and how they were able to try these people who were sent to israel

and they were tried there. >> that's the second question i get it every booktalk and i'm glad you asked it. i remember my mother said the same thing. i don't think israel had a great interest in taking back these men. there were not necessarily israeli witnesses. they did take back jon demjanjuk. is everyone know the story of jon demjanjuk? jon demjanjuk was accused a man named ivan the terrible. there was a series on television about it. .. he did serve in the camp and

pulling. the israelis knew and declined to prosecute. so john was allowed to come back into the united states, returned to his life here even though he had served in the death camp, until the nazi unit decided to prosecute him a prophet under a second time which is a huge hurdle that eli rosenbaum had to go to the attorney general of the time in the asked for permission to take the case of second time. they successfully prosecuted them a second time, germany took them back and he was convicted in the murder of 27000 or so jews. but to answer your question israel did take him back but there is not a lot of interest from israel over the years to take back more. there just was not.

when there is citizenship was taken away from them, how did they live, where they entitled to get social security, medica medicare, how could they support themselves and take care of themselves? >> their citizenship, they were here considered stateless men but they were still here and still part of this country still living here and paying mortgages and drawing pensions and all of those things, all of that continues. >> yes. >> as if nothing happened. >> yes that's why it was the single greatest frustration by this unit for years. if they did all this work, proved their cases to the point were judges in some cases these cases were appealed to appellate court up to the u.s. supreme

court so court after court would affirm these decisions, this man is a nazi war criminal and they cannot move them from the u.s. oil and some cases. in other cases they did but a number of cases they struggled to the point where the men were able to die here. [inaudible] >> yeah. have there been any studies about into the personalities of these men into the background of these men because you described them as being brutal beyond brutal so even worse than the fx. so can you -- >> that's a generalization but these men, a lot of them came from eastern european countries and from semitism. for generations before the war. they have been ingrained in their societies.

so yes, a lot of them were more brutal than the ss and the jews that occupied poland and a large part came to fear them more than the ss. they were far greater in number, the s ss had a killing center bt they were boot from the ground and the ones that operated the gap under gas chambers that forced jews from the trains directly into the gas chambers. i can't do the polish thing but they were not concentration camps, they were death camps. they were from centers and did not have barracks because jews did not stay alive there, they were taken right from the train into the gas chamber because the men were doing that work. so jacob reimer said in court that he was a victim of the nazis. that he like so many others said

that that he had to fire at the man pointing to his head at the rear beam because he did not show loyalty to the ss he would've been the next one shot. so the department of justice argued in that case, yeah you got for service models, you did so well you were granted citizenship in nazi germany and you receive paid vacations, you came back on your own accord to continue fighting alongside the ss you could've deserted but you did not and that was the case, why did you do it. [inaudible question] >> yeah, some men deserted because he key, they did not come back but 5000 and so others came on and served a great loyalty. [inaudible question] i don't know, i think they did but it was by and large not a huge number of peopl people who

deserted. not a huge number. a lot of these men after the war since he came from soviet union, they were tried by the soviets after the war. and convicted by the soviets of fighting for the enemy. we did not know that because we weren't talking to the soviets about these things and it took years and years for american investigators to realize that the soviets themselves have prosecuted these men. when we were able to get her hands on the records it helped build cases in the united states. >> i forgot the name of the american the nazi hunting. >> the special investigation. >> i know it's been around a long time but anyone time do not many people were in this office of social investigation. >> for the work they did it was tiny. maybe 40 or 50 people or so. they started osi with

investigators more like criminal investigators who worked inside the federal government and ultimately they started using historians because they realized they desperately needed that context. but for many years we did not do a lot of nazi hunting in the united states, it took until the 70s for there to be political wealth to do this kind of work. >> debbie, thank you for your work. how do we learn from history, how do we have generations not allow mass murderers to not only have the risk of citizenship being stripped, we have got to figure something out, there has to be justice in the world beyond what there is. >> that's a very profound question that i think we could all talk about for hours. i think the first step is to

show that we draw a line and no matter how many years have passed in this country you will be stripped of your citizenship if we find out you are a war criminal. so the people in the special investigation especially the lawyers spent their whole careers, they could have gone on to more lucrative careers, it's not exactly fun to be a federal government survey, eli rosenbaum has a law degree from harvard, these are top top lawyers who spent their whole lives working in this government office and they had mice crawling across the floor, these were not high-profile prosecutors that were making headlines in the new york times and the washington post. they did this work because they were on, they felt it was the right thing to do and there has to be a line no matter how many years have passed, we will come after you if we find out that

you've done something wrong no matter how many years have passed. i don't know how to present it in the future. one depressing thought is that the unit is still just as busy as ever. >> one more question, i was struck by your comment having going back to poland and how it took a country, not just an army would you comment on that. >> the people, it took the people of poland. >> i am sure many of you have been to poland, i can imagine many, many people have been there. it was my first visit to poland and i found poland to be a wounded country, it was occupied by the germans and by the soviets. there were a lot of people in poland, the polish underground that helped save jews. including felix who i told you about, there were a lot of

people who helped and a lot of people who collaborated a really when you qui country. >> maybe i can shed some light about how some of the war criminals and the characters come into this country. i am a survivor and liberated. after i was liberated i was 15 years old and i was dumped into a displaced person camp. in the displaced person camp not only has this place people who are jewish but they would come together with other people who never had a country to go too so we flood. it took a while before the commander or the forces of america to finally come to grips and separate me to displaced persons from the one to try to hide and i remember before i was allowed to come to america, it

took me three or four years of vetting of the cic and papers and all kinds of investigations from the americans for my relatives to come to america. and then i'm sure -- [inaudible] >> he was saying that in a displaced person camp he was saying there was probably a lot of people that participated that managed to slip in and jacob's case the book is called his id number, jacob reimer was vetted by the military in the u.s. army and he was listed on his

immigration papers that he had served in this training camp. but we did not know what it was at the time, the u.s. army investigators had no idea that it was a mass murderer in occupied poland. he was given a recommendation by a red cross supervisor at the time and spent the post war years so free american gis to hollywood movies, he worked for the u.s. army andy kaman with a supervisor recommendation that called him a loyal and honest and hard-working man who would make a great american or great u.s. citizen. so to your point you are right. they did not know enough to let them in despite the vetting.

he was vetted. here when he was in the united states the u.s. investigators caught on to him and he said yeah i was there but i was the paymaster in the administration, no blood on my hands very mundane work in the u.s. department of justice did not know any better until they started investigating and figured out what the camp actually was. >> you said our state department was reticent about getting involved, is that correct, what is your perspective on that, what did you learn in opinion. >> the justice department could not necessarily to official channels and go to other countries and say take your nazis back. they were relying on the state department to do it that is a state department job. though i don't have an opinion on this, i think the people inside the justice department might say that some of the state

department pushed harder than others. but i will say from my reporting that last year in 2018 the state department and the justice department came together to deport this nazi war criminal in queens, new york. but for a long time i think the department of justice would tell you they could not get as much traction as they would've wanted to get with the state department. we hear the gentleman over here who had to wait all these years before he could get out. in the center government allowed to come here in the truth of the matter is our government recruits nazis to come here knowing their nazi past to help in the cold war and scientists in other and they not only allow but brought them here knowing what they did and that something

that is unthinkable. >> for those of you who did not hear the woman was talking about the u.s. government and cia had recruited nazi scientists to come here after the war. and that is incredibly outrageous. i hear what you're saying, this book focused on a totally different thing than that i understand your point. >> ladies and gentlemen i know we could stay here the rest of the day asking debbie questions but some of your questions will be answered in her book and i want to thank you for being here with us today and join me once again and thinking her. [applause] >> the museum remains open until

5:00 p.m. so take advantage of that time. [inaudible conversations] >> now on c-span2 book tv, more television for serious readers. >> good evening everyone, thank you for coming out to our new store at south street seaport, we have been open for two months so welcome, tonight we are excited to have with us eric lichtblau with return to the reich whose life tells an incredible story of world war ii hero is in. based on research and interviews with him itself whom the author was able to meet only months before his death at the age of 94 returned t