so jacob reimer said in court he was a victim of the nasis.like so many others that said that, right? he had to fire the man and the ravines if you did not show loyalty to the ss he would buy the next one shot. it's what the department of justice argued in that case was said yes but you got for service metals, you are granted citizenship and not to germany because you did so well, you received paid vacations and came on in your own accord and continued fighting alongside the ss. you could have deserted but you did not. and that was their case, why did you do it? some men deserted they did not come back. reimer and others stayed on and they served with great loyalty. i think they did by and large it was not a huge number that deserted. a lot of the men, after the war came from the soviet unions, they were tried by the soviets after the war. and convicted by the soviets of fighting for the enemy. we just didn't know that because we were not talking to the soviets about these things. it took years and years for american investigators to realize t

jacob reimer retired to the shoreline of lake parnell in new york.and was living undetected for years and years and years. the push to find these men and bring them to justice is what drives this book. that is the drama behind this book. this is what the historians found in prague in 1990 with jacob brimer's identity on it in his identification number. this led them to understand more about trawniki and these perpetrators. this tiny unit in the justice department faces an incredible set of challenges. 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 in a handful of years, five years tops because surely there couldn't be that many people living here on us soil. their work went on for 30 years. they found concentration camp commandants living here. and of course a subset of the people they were looking at where the men of trawniki. the first challenge they face was racing against time, to understand part of

one worked at the crackerjack company in chicago, jacob reimer, the subject of my book citizen 865, was a wise potato chip franchise owner in manhattan. one worked at the ford motor company. >> and i will add that the collection i referenced at the beginning, the perpetrator collection, the reason it is significant, we see photographs of up to 400 men who served as auxiliary guards and we see them relaxed, proud, socializing with their ss supervisors, so it gives us quite vivid evidence that these are not men who are being forced to do this murderous work against their will. >> right. they liquidated the jewish ghettos brutally. they participated in mass murder, shooting operations in the woods, and they guarded the perimeters of the death camps, and in some case operated the gas chambers as longtime historian here, peter black, who worked at osi and spent years looking for these men, he calls them the foot soldiers of the third reich. i think that is exactly what they were. >> ricki, we saw a photo of the most familiar name, john. your story is about the trial of a german perpetrator,