Speaker 1: Diversion podcasts. This episode contains descriptions of graphic violence and
Speaker 1: scenes of genocide. Listener's discretion is advised. So if the
Speaker 1: first part was to find a Nazi and bringing forward trial,
Speaker 1: the second part was to find a Nazi and killing
Speaker 1: and to find someone that hiding in the other side
Speaker 1: of the world. And the idea was to kill someone
Speaker 1: that got blood on his hands. That's after Abraham. He's
Speaker 1: a former MESSOD agent and a kind of amateur historian
Speaker 1: of the agency. I called him to talk about the
Speaker 1: operation to take out the Butcher of Latvia. But that's
Speaker 1: what's the idea to let the other nazis, not to
Speaker 1: try to find all the other just to let them
Speaker 1: know that if we came to South America, we can
Speaker 1: find you in any place. I'm Stephen Talty and this
Speaker 1: is good assassin's hunting the butcher. And there was a
Speaker 1: knock on the door. All the men line up outside
Speaker 1: and the machine gun was that that? That that that
Speaker 1: I remember the seventh one of the cops came over
Speaker 1: and said, look at the sun tomorrow. You want to
Speaker 1: see the end. We must thwart this shameful paces, the
Speaker 1: end of a trail of blood and horror the end
Speaker 1: of a man whose name will be written in inform
Speaker 1: episode two, The Killer's History. So when we left me
Speaker 1: O it's really spy. He had just finished a meeting
Speaker 1: where he had been briefed on his mission. But before
Speaker 1: we follow Meo on his trip across the world and
Speaker 1: eventually to his first meeting with his target, it's important
Speaker 1: to know who Zucres really was. Why was he called
Speaker 1: the Butcher of Latvia or another of his nicknames, the
Speaker 1: Hangman of Riga. Those two things, who the target really was,
Speaker 1: and with crimes he committed during World War two, they'd
Speaker 1: influence how the operation would go down. And for that
Speaker 1: we have to go back to Latvia, to the days
Speaker 1: just before World War Two began. Riga was a very beautiful,
Speaker 1: very beauniversity. I had an opera, we had the university,
Speaker 1: we had a polytech for engineering. We had five six theaters, German,
Speaker 1: Russian theater, Jewish tata. This is Shishana Khan, a Latin
Speaker 1: Jew from the town of Leopaya. I mean we got
Speaker 1: monifeses all right. As in many of us A small states,
Speaker 1: the Jews tried to identify and said higher culture and
Speaker 1: the Illebo German was the culture. Anything which came from Germany,
Speaker 1: I mean, was a hundred percent wonderful. The books, the music,
Speaker 1: the clothes, the chocolates, everything was perfect. The people who
Speaker 1: lived more on the eastern side of latter as they
Speaker 1: emulated the Russians, of course, and the talk Russian. Latvie
Speaker 1: is one of the Baltic states, and it's had a
Speaker 1: fairly tragic history. It sits between two much more powerful countries,
Speaker 1: Germany and Russia, and it's been occupied by one of
Speaker 1: the other multiple times over the centuries, often with bloody
Speaker 1: results when it came to its Jewish citizens. Latvie was
Speaker 1: a decent place to live in the nineteen thirties if
Speaker 1: you consider the other options in Eastern Europe. There was discrimination, quotas,
Speaker 1: but no history of massacres thirty five in the names
Speaker 1: of the streets. Every document was in three languages. Latvian, German,
Speaker 1: Russian are not exactly that order. The capital Riga had
Speaker 1: only one Jewish policeman. He was a kind of tourist
Speaker 1: attraction because the sight of him was so rare. Many
Speaker 1: Jews were called incidents with their classmates or their co workers.
Speaker 1: Jews were sometimes referred to as the black growth. Some
Speaker 1: of their neighbors even called them parasites. But there were
Speaker 1: gentiles who were friends with Jewish families, and there were
Speaker 1: even some inner marriages. So for Jews, Latview was not
Speaker 1: as bad as say Russia, at least not yet. In
Speaker 1: the thirties and into the forties, as the Nazis spread
Speaker 1: their message, Latvia was actually considered as sanctuary for Jews.
Speaker 1: They came to Riga from places like Prague or Lynn
Speaker 1: Warsaw to find a safe place to live. During this
Speaker 1: time the ninety thirties, Herbert Sucres was becoming a national hero.
Speaker 1: This is Richards Plavniks. He's an historian. It teaches at
Speaker 1: the University of Central Florida. Richards was born in Latvia
Speaker 1: and he wrote a book about Victor Raj and the
Speaker 1: notorious commando unit that Suckers was part of that murdered
Speaker 1: so many thousands. Because Richards is an authority, I called
Speaker 1: him to get his thoughts on Latvia during the war.
Speaker 1: The celebrity of Suckers, who sort of technology pioneer, exploration
Speaker 1: pioneer with some daring do uh. And he's handsome and
Speaker 1: he looks good. He's a great spokes model for the
Speaker 1: Latvian state in the nineteen thirties, and really it was
Speaker 1: sort of of a piece in that era. Suckers was
Speaker 1: such a celebrity in Latvia in the thirties. In fact,
Speaker 1: popular songs were even recorded that told of his exploits.
Speaker 1: This is a song about Zuker's ninety three solo flight
Speaker 1: from Latvia to the British African colony of the Gambia. Hello, Hello,
Speaker 1: or Lida. As I mentioned before, he was a brilliant pilot,
Speaker 1: made these epic journeys all over the world. When it
Speaker 1: came to flying, he really was a kind of genius.
Speaker 1: Not only did he design a series of small aircraft,
Speaker 1: he built them by hand on a tiny budget, often
Speaker 1: using spare parts. He took off crashed planes. Then he
Speaker 1: flew that thousands of miles to places like Japan, the
Speaker 1: West coast of Africa, even Palestine. He was a daredevil
Speaker 1: with a brain. Herbert Suckers put Latvia on the map.
Speaker 1: His fellow citizens, including many Jews, loved him for it.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for an American equivalent, think Amelia Earhart
Speaker 1: or Charles Lindbergh. Suckers was a big deal, but It's
Speaker 1: not like he had a perfect reputation when it came
Speaker 1: to Jews. He joined the Air Force when he was young.
Speaker 1: In the Latin military at that time it had a
Speaker 1: lot of anti Semites. Zuckers would occasionally make an anti
Speaker 1: Jewish joe. It was fairly typical at the time. But
Speaker 1: he had actually grown up with Jews. They had worked
Speaker 1: in his father's shop, and he was often seen talking
Speaker 1: with Jewish men in the cafes of Riga. So Circrets
Speaker 1: wasn't considered an anti Semite before the war. In fact,
Speaker 1: far from it. I spoke with a man named Michael
Speaker 1: crom about his father. Isaac crom who was the Latvian
Speaker 1: Jew was at school studying engineering at the same time
Speaker 1: as Herbert Suckers. Michael Cromb pointed me to his father's
Speaker 1: interview with the survivors of the show a Visual History
Speaker 1: Foundation now the usc Show A Foundation Institute as one
Speaker 1: fellow that Chuckers who became infamous his name, uh you know,
Speaker 1: mentioning here. He was a mechanical student and mechanical call
Speaker 1: it call that he had a faculty Sustas and I
Speaker 1: was an engineering since my father was an engineering student
Speaker 1: and Suckers was this engineering person. He saw Suckers all
Speaker 1: the time in the hallways uh in the engineering the
Speaker 1: warment and Suckers was a celebrity and big man on
Speaker 1: campus and always was mobbed by people. But there was
Speaker 1: no question that my father I knew him, saw him,
Speaker 1: didn't interact with him in terms of being friends, didn't
Speaker 1: have conversations with him, but saw him at you know,
Speaker 1: a distance of a few feet all the time. And
Speaker 1: the show a Foundation interview, Isaac crom talks about how
Speaker 1: Zuker's visited Palestine in the thirties and when he came
Speaker 1: back to Latvia gave public talks about the Jewish settlers
Speaker 1: he observed there. The Jews had impressed stokers. Then the
Speaker 1: Suckers on the way back has stopped over in Palestine,
Speaker 1: and he had lectures in the Jewish theater, fully packed houses,
Speaker 1: telling them how the Halachim we're working on the swamps
Speaker 1: and drying out the swam flant in Ronstin. He made
Speaker 1: a meant on this kind of lectures in the Soviets
Speaker 1: occupied Latvia. This becomes important later in the story. The
Speaker 1: takeover was part of something called the Molotov Ribbon trop
Speaker 1: packed between Hitler and Stalin. It meant that life in
Speaker 1: Latvia was completely transformed. Money became worthless. Soviet soldiers broke
Speaker 1: into shops and took everything they wanted. Thousands of Latvians
Speaker 1: exiled to Siberia or sentenced to death. It was a
Speaker 1: terrible time. The Soviets were almost universally hated. Your occupation
Speaker 1: became known as the Year of Horror. Then, in July
Speaker 1: forty one, the Germans invade. They fought their way into Riga.
Speaker 1: It soon sent the last Soviet soldiers running to the east.
Speaker 1: Another kind of horror emerged, one now directed at Jews.
Speaker 1: The Nazis began passing anti Semitic laws. They encouraged Latvians
Speaker 1: to direct their hatred at their Jewish neighbors. They declared
Speaker 1: that Jews had helped the Soviets to occupy Latvia and
Speaker 1: carry out atrocities. Jews had betrayed their country and they
Speaker 1: needed to pay for it. It was a lie, of course,
Speaker 1: but it worked. Round Ups began almost immediately. What added
Speaker 1: to the terror was that it was often their fellow
Speaker 1: Latvians who took the lead in the violence. Once I
Speaker 1: remembered in my wildest streams I could never have a
Speaker 1: match on the hidden animosity the Latvians had for their
Speaker 1: Jewish neighbors. I had hoped deliberation would have passionate meaning
Speaker 1: for the Jews. Instead, the Latvians as sawed themselves as
Speaker 1: the messengers of Nazi evil and began to govern the
Speaker 1: city as if they had received consent from Berlin to
Speaker 1: do so. I had lived my entire life there among
Speaker 1: Latvians were now considered me their mortal enemy and were
Speaker 1: prepared to kill me. Jews and Gentiles had lived side
Speaker 1: by side in Latvia, gone to the same schools, and
Speaker 1: tore the suffering of the Soviet occupation together, but now
Speaker 1: the Jews were being singled out. Jewish families hid in
Speaker 1: their apartments, listening for the sound of heavy footsteps on
Speaker 1: the stairs. That was the sign the German and Latvian
Speaker 1: soldiers were in the building looking for them. Landlords would
Speaker 1: tell the Germans where the families lived, and there would
Speaker 1: be a loud pounding on the door that would echo
Speaker 1: through the building. And on the first night of the occupation,
Speaker 1: on July the first or second, every Jewish home was
Speaker 1: visited by the Nazis, along with it with the Latvian God.
Speaker 1: This is Sasha's Seminoff, a Latin Jew who was sixteen
Speaker 1: when the Nazis invaded. And there was a knock on
Speaker 1: the door on July the second. It was a knock
Speaker 1: at the door and they were was it German s
Speaker 1: s officer and the Latvian God? And they said, all
Speaker 1: the men line up outside. And we looked out the
Speaker 1: window and there it was nighttime and there all our
Speaker 1: neighbors the land up outside on the god like like
Speaker 1: like criminals. The Latin Guard, the seven Off mentions. That
Speaker 1: was Herbert Suckers. Seminas father knew him from before the war.
Speaker 1: He tried to reason with the famous aviator and my
Speaker 1: dad said, oh no, I'm a I'm a veteran of
Speaker 1: the First World War, you know, and show these papers.
Speaker 1: It's a Jew. Get out of it. It was the
Speaker 1: last time Sashi would see his father. He was shot
Speaker 1: in the nearby forest and buried in a mass grave
Speaker 1: along with thousands of other Jewish men. A few nights later,
Speaker 1: the butcher came back. He wanted the Seminas flat. He
Speaker 1: occupied our apartment all our longings, and he was the
Speaker 1: one that showed my mother the list of the Mende.
Speaker 1: But they were killed on that first program, and my mother,
Speaker 1: my father was amongst them. Zukers even ordered Seminof, who
Speaker 1: was a talented young musician, to complay the piano at
Speaker 1: the wild parties he threw at the seminoffs apartment. He
Speaker 1: would call me at night he had used to entertain
Speaker 1: some of his horse had a Jewish girlfriend that they
Speaker 1: would it was his mistress, and he would make me
Speaker 1: come up to my apartment and play the piano for
Speaker 1: him bal it was drinking. Just imagine that scene, this
Speaker 1: teenage boy walking into the apartment. He grew up in
Speaker 1: on the couches was aunts and uncles. Once sat during
Speaker 1: family parties with these red faced soldiers, laughing, shouting, drinking
Speaker 1: bottle after bottle. They would come to the apartment after
Speaker 1: the work of rounding up and killing Jews was done.
Speaker 1: They would tell jokes, stories about their day. The place
Speaker 1: was like a frat house, but with a much darker edge,
Speaker 1: and Sasha would play waltz is on the piano as
Speaker 1: the men dance with prostitutes. Who knows what went on
Speaker 1: in the bedrooms. Sasha didn't see that, but he could imagine.
Speaker 1: In a memoir, he wrote After the war, Seminof recalled
Speaker 1: how Sukers treated the Jewish girl he brought along with him.
Speaker 1: One day, he ordered me at night in the month
Speaker 1: of July n that I come to his room and
Speaker 1: play for him and his friends. There I met the
Speaker 1: heads of the secret lot, being police. They were drunk
Speaker 1: that I played for many hours. Dous I witnessed how
Speaker 1: they brought in the Jewish girl, and each of them,
Speaker 1: one after the other, had their way with her. I
Speaker 1: know that this maiden was held for many more weeks
Speaker 1: and took his apartment. There were executions in the streets.
Speaker 1: The Germans created a ghetto in a poor neighborhood of Riga,
Speaker 1: and every Jew, on pain of death, was ordered to
Speaker 1: move there. Zuker has lived like a lord inoccupied Riga.
Speaker 1: He and his men could do anything anything they wanted,
Speaker 1: provided they didn't cross the Germans. He would visit Jewish
Speaker 1: homes demanding coffee and women. He would drag the wom
Speaker 1: into his car and rape them. Occasionally he'd kill and
Speaker 1: mutilate them, or he would show up in the ghetto
Speaker 1: drunk and go crazy. Survivor El Medalia remembered those visits.
Speaker 1: She knew Sukers well she'd met him at one of
Speaker 1: the holding points for prisoners in Riga, where he told
Speaker 1: her she didn't look very much like a Jew. Now
Speaker 1: she saw him in action. Oppression and murder became part
Speaker 1: of everyday life. One day I saw Zukers through the
Speaker 1: window driving his car up to the ghetto. He was
Speaker 1: drunk and could hardly stand on his feet. Laughing, he
Speaker 1: started shooting at the people like a hunter in a forest.
Speaker 1: This is Henry burmanis Latin into talking about atrocities during
Speaker 1: the war. As we lined up to go to work
Speaker 1: that morning, we were faced on the other side of
Speaker 1: the street by hundred ten special Electrian police and we
Speaker 1: stood there eyeing each other, and one of the cops
Speaker 1: came over and poked his rifle in my stomach and said,
Speaker 1: look at the sun tomorrow, you want to see it again.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what he had in mind, but that
Speaker 1: group came into the ghetto unders a supervision and on
Speaker 1: the supervision of a man name of Suckers Latvian wards
Speaker 1: flying is. They took off of the get of population
Speaker 1: by seat blocks and forced them out to the out
Speaker 1: of their homes to line up in the sleep. The
Speaker 1: columns of four or five, and they were marched off
Speaker 1: to Lumberland. November, the clearing of the Riga Ghetto began.
Speaker 1: The Nazis and their accompasses took Choose and forced them
Speaker 1: into a nearby forest. Women were dragged from their apartments
Speaker 1: along with their children and beaten. Those who resisted were
Speaker 1: often bludged to death. Here's Isaac crom again, who saw
Speaker 1: Zukers in action that morning. The recording of crimes statement
Speaker 1: is unavailable, so this is an actor reading Ham's words.
Speaker 1: This time, I was on lords Of Street near the
Speaker 1: Riga Ghetto when I saw some Joe being dragged. Herbert
Speaker 1: Zuckers was in charge of the soldiers. He was dressed
Speaker 1: in black uniform of a military aviator. He ordered me
Speaker 1: and some other men to put the killed Jews on
Speaker 1: the sledge and dragged them to the cemetery. I had
Speaker 1: an upportnity to watch Suckers closely for a while. A
Speaker 1: Jewish woman started screaming when she was being dragged to
Speaker 1: the truck. She wanted to have her daughter with her.
Speaker 1: Zuker shot her with his gun. I was a witness
Speaker 1: of this killing. I also saw Sukers point his gun
Speaker 1: at the child who was crying because he couldn't find
Speaker 1: his mother in the crowd. He killed this child with
Speaker 1: one shot. Some of the testimonies are almost too awful
Speaker 1: to believe proven. Parkin been a neighbor of the Zukers
Speaker 1: when Herbert was a boy. He spoke Yiddish very well,
Speaker 1: for you've always been friends with Jews. We grew up
Speaker 1: together and her friends. But later during the Nazi occupation,
Speaker 1: Barkin ran across the butcher in Riga. The man he
Speaker 1: once called a friend had become unrecognizable. When I was
Speaker 1: still in the ghetto, I saw how Tooker has approached
Speaker 1: a girl the age of ten or eleven years and
Speaker 1: asked in Yiddish if you would like a candy. He
Speaker 1: told her to open her mouth, and then I saw
Speaker 1: him pulling his revolver, shootings a girl into mouth and
Speaker 1: killing her on the spot. I was just going to
Speaker 1: work and walking on the same sidewalk I saw the
Speaker 1: murder from close up. Suckers was a cruel murderer. Zuker's
Speaker 1: fame worked against him. He was a well known figure
Speaker 1: in Latvia. There were other men who were equally as
Speaker 1: brutal in but Jews remembered Suckers because he was a
Speaker 1: kind of celebrity. There was also the trail. Jews knew
Speaker 1: they were anti Semites and Riga before the war, but
Speaker 1: Suckers had never been one of them. For many Jews,
Speaker 1: he embodied the double cross their neighbors had inflicted on them.
Speaker 1: The official toll of Suckers actions, the one that Massad
Speaker 1: used was thirty thousand men, women and children. That didn't
Speaker 1: mean he'd shot all those people by himself. For many
Speaker 1: of those deaths, he acted as a collaborator, the man
Speaker 1: who forced Jews out of their homes, drove them to
Speaker 1: the killing grounds. I came across other stories as well.
Speaker 1: This is Carolina Tates, a Jewish Latvian who was an
Speaker 1: eyewitness to the mass murders in the Ramboula forest outside
Speaker 1: Riga and so um a ditch and that it was
Speaker 1: people of his his Tata shooters with the and the
Speaker 1: Germans say stay in line or we was back there.
Speaker 1: We was very bad. So the first people because I
Speaker 1: just saw that I was not there, but I saw
Speaker 1: that they stand and and the ditch on that side
Speaker 1: was the shooters. There was Latvians and Germans and the
Speaker 1: Jewish people. You know, there is a mother with a
Speaker 1: child and too little. Every the Jewish people have children,
Speaker 1: a lot of children. They stay in the machine gun.
Speaker 1: Was I remember the sound. The sound was as they
Speaker 1: was falling in that grave, half dead, half life, the
Speaker 1: little children screaming, people was benching to God. Well the
Speaker 1: woman was screaming and yelling and crying. It is a mess,
Speaker 1: you know. That was just like, what what can I feel?
Speaker 1: I feel nothing? Ella, the young woman who seen sucers
Speaker 1: shoot at people in the ghetto, was driven to the
Speaker 1: pits on December eight, when thousands of Jews were murdered.
Speaker 1: Secrets was among the commandos who cleared the ghetto and
Speaker 1: forced the Jews to the pits. There they were ordered
Speaker 1: into the trenches, shot in rows. Mothers were ordered to
Speaker 1: hold their infants in the air and both were executed
Speaker 1: at close range. Some were buried alive. Ella watched as
Speaker 1: her fellow Jews prepared for their desks. The people seemed
Speaker 1: indifferent to their surroundings. They were holding each other, suffering
Speaker 1: from the bitter cold, crying and saying goodbye. Relatives and
Speaker 1: friends were standing together. From the front, we could hear
Speaker 1: veiling and crying, which created a terrible hun a drone.
Speaker 1: There were many women with babies crying in their arms,
Speaker 1: as though they also sensed their impending death. Children took
Speaker 1: hold of the clothing of their mothers, grandmothers, and grandfathers
Speaker 1: seeking protection. There are no words to describe the tragedy.
Speaker 1: Ella actually managed to escape the pits by claiming she
Speaker 1: wasn't Jewish. A guard let her stand to the side.
Speaker 1: She listened to the shots ring out until they began
Speaker 1: to die off. Finally, she was brought to a car
Speaker 1: told to get inside. The Germans began to leave. The
Speaker 1: door of the car opened and Zuker sat down at
Speaker 1: the veal. He turned on the lights in the car
Speaker 1: and peered back at us. For a few seconds, he
Speaker 1: stared at me. I was frightened that he might recognize me.
Speaker 1: I remembered his assertion that I didn't look Jewish at all,
Speaker 1: that I would live a better life somewhere in the
Speaker 1: city like other people, or go to the country. But
Speaker 1: this time Zucker said nothing. He started the engine and
Speaker 1: they left that horrible place. He did not betray me.
Speaker 1: So suckers saved the life of this young Jewish woman,
Speaker 1: and she wasn't the only one. Once in a while,
Speaker 1: as the killing went on, he would pick out a
Speaker 1: Jew almost at random and helped him escape. Why why
Speaker 1: did the butcher kill some of his neighbors and spare others?
Speaker 1: I read through the testimonies looking for a clue. Maybe
Speaker 1: he did it for the money, but there was no
Speaker 1: record of him asking for any Maybe he only saved
Speaker 1: young women, but no, he actually spared at least one
Speaker 1: Jewish Man, a doctor he'd known before the war. So
Speaker 1: what was it? The testimonies did answer one question for me.
Speaker 1: Clearly Zukers was guilty, So why did he still have
Speaker 1: the enders? I found half a dozen eyewitnesses to his actions,
Speaker 1: and later I came across statements from fellow Latvians in
Speaker 1: his commando unit. They confirmed he had been part of
Speaker 1: the massacres. But again, why, I went through other possibilities.
Speaker 1: Maybe he'd always been an anti Semit and just hit
Speaker 1: it till the Nazis came. Maybe the Germans forced him
Speaker 1: to kill. That was the explanation of many non Germans
Speaker 1: who murdered Jews during the war. Maybe that was part
Speaker 1: of the answer. But then I'd read a testimony talking
Speaker 1: about how the butcher seemed to enjoy killing. There was
Speaker 1: more than one. It just didn't fit the idea that
Speaker 1: he was forced to do anything, So I had no answers.
Speaker 1: Even the survivors and their testimonies couldn't give a reason.
Speaker 1: Most of them, they were as baffled as I was.
Speaker 1: Maybe there were others who fit this pattern, friendly towards
Speaker 1: Jews before the war, joined in the maskers, but save
Speaker 1: the occasional victim. Maybe there were historians who had found
Speaker 1: killers like this and that would help give some insight
Speaker 1: into Zukers. I made some calls, and I was able
Speaker 1: to track down and speak to two people who shared
Speaker 1: with me some crucial insights. I'll play you some of
Speaker 1: those tapes a little later in a future episode. It
Speaker 1: was a start, a way to get inside Suker's mind.
Speaker 1: So the war ends, Suker survived it without being thrown
Speaker 1: into a pow camp. He was detained briefly by the U.
Speaker 1: S Army, but his name was not on any list
Speaker 1: of perpetrators at that point, so he was let go.
Speaker 1: Then in he and his family sailed for Brazil. They
Speaker 1: had almost no money. When the family arrived, Zukers was
Speaker 1: forced to build a makeshift house on a real beach
Speaker 1: to give them somewhere to live. But he was a
Speaker 1: hard worker. He built small boats to rent a tourists
Speaker 1: and his business crew. He came a success. He even
Speaker 1: told people he'd hid shows when the Nazis had come
Speaker 1: to Latvia, that he'd risked his life to save a
Speaker 1: young woman named Miriam. In fact, he brought her to Brazil.
Speaker 1: He took Miriam around, showed her off to his new friends.
Speaker 1: Resilient Jews were moved. He was a hero who had
Speaker 1: protected their brothers and sisters when they were being hunted.
Speaker 1: Jos and Rio, two parties for Zukers, invited him to
Speaker 1: their homes, even gave him money. As for Miriam, it's
Speaker 1: likely she was the same woman that Sasha Semonov had
Speaker 1: seen in his family's apartment. Sukers had saved her life,
Speaker 1: but he also abused and humiliated her. The young Jewish
Speaker 1: girl had become his mistress and sex slave. By the
Speaker 1: Butcher was living well. His business was making money, his
Speaker 1: children were thriving, and he had friends all over the city.
Speaker 1: If he'd kept his mouth shut, he just lived his life,
Speaker 1: It's unlikely anyone would have ever bothered him. Then he
Speaker 1: did something stupid, like really stupid. A popular Brazilian magazine
Speaker 1: named Okrazero asked Suckers if they could write a profile
Speaker 1: of him. They were impressed with his story. He was
Speaker 1: an immigrant who had made good in Brazil. People love
Speaker 1: those kinds of stories. They were also impressed with his family.
Speaker 1: His bronzed children could be seen water skiing on the
Speaker 1: lakes around sal Paolo. Zuker's proved Brazil was the land
Speaker 1: of dreams. Of course, Zuker should have said no, he
Speaker 1: was a war criminal, but he was tempted and eventually
Speaker 1: he agreed. He gave the interview, using his real name.
Speaker 1: In it, he talked about his rags to riches story.
Speaker 1: Who were pictures of him and his good looking children
Speaker 1: water skiing, looking like movie stars. The magazine came out
Speaker 1: on June. It landed on the coffee tables of middle
Speaker 1: class homes throughout Brazil, in shops everywhere. Basically, most Brazilians
Speaker 1: read the story and thought, Wow, what a cool guy.
Speaker 1: He came to this country with nothing, and now look
Speaker 1: at him, he's thriving. But there were a few people
Speaker 1: who read the piece differently. They were Jewish. They knew
Speaker 1: the name Herbert Zukers, and they knew the real story
Speaker 1: behind it, this whole episode with a magazine interview. It's
Speaker 1: just bizarre to me. What was Zuker's thinking. Nazis who
Speaker 1: escaped to South America, they kept their heads down, they
Speaker 1: changed their names, they did anything they could to avoid attention.
Speaker 1: But here was Zuker's parading around like he was another
Speaker 1: Oscar Schindler. It was almost schizophrenic. Did Zukers really believe
Speaker 1: the stories he was telling of saving Jews? Why did
Speaker 1: he seek how publicity when it could only bring him
Speaker 1: closer to danger. I kept coming back to that name.
Speaker 1: Herbert Sukers was so proud of what he'd achieved before
Speaker 1: the war. He loved being the Latvian Lindburgh. He really
Speaker 1: thought of himself as this historical figure, and if he
Speaker 1: changed his name, all of that would go away, the
Speaker 1: aviation awards, the headlines, the fame. He wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to tell anyone about these amazing things he'd done in
Speaker 1: his twenties and thirties. So he couldn't be safe and
Speaker 1: be Herbert Sukers at the same time. And eventually he
Speaker 1: chose to keep the name. He was willing to risk
Speaker 1: his life in order to be admired, and loved it.
Speaker 1: Was madness, but he took the risk and it was
Speaker 1: paying off once again. He was a hero who cared
Speaker 1: if he told some lies along the way. For Zukers,
Speaker 1: it was the attention that mattered. He wanted to be adored.
Speaker 1: But then the rumors started, rumors about atrocities, the machine guns,
Speaker 1: the ghetto and Riga. First, that's all they were gossip.
Speaker 1: There were no cell phone cameras to take a quick
Speaker 1: picture of him. Compare it with the Butcher of Latvia.
Speaker 1: There was no Google to look up his past. By chance,
Speaker 1: Zukers had chosen the right country to live in in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. There were almost no Latvian Jews in Rio,
Speaker 1: no eyewitnesses to his crimes, no one who'd known him
Speaker 1: as a boy and had watched him transform into a killer.
Speaker 1: How would the survivors who knew about his monstrosities find
Speaker 1: Suckers and prove he was the Butcher of Latvia? And
Speaker 1: how would they do that without spooking him. Zukers had
Speaker 1: escaped justice once after the war. He was a resourceful,
Speaker 1: a narcissist and a very good actor. Masada knew some
Speaker 1: of this. They had studied the reports of survivors and
Speaker 1: the articles on his flights before the war. All those
Speaker 1: details were given to Mio as he prepared himself to
Speaker 1: meet and hopefully outwit the Butcher. Mio knew he would
Speaker 1: probably only get one shot. With the target as paranoid
Speaker 1: as Sukers was, he would have to be careful about
Speaker 1: how he went after him. The worry was Zukers might
Speaker 1: feel the spies on his trail then disappear. This time
Speaker 1: for good, Neo's cover would have to be airtight. He
Speaker 1: couldn't let his jewishness show. He couldn't alert Suckers in
Speaker 1: any way. After the meeting with Your Reeve, Neo started
Speaker 1: creating his cover. We'll talk about that in the next episode.
Speaker 1: But years before he set out, there had actually been
Speaker 1: another mission to Brazil. Another group of Nazi hunters, many
Speaker 1: of them Holocaust survivors, had gone looking for the killer.
Speaker 1: They wanted to find out whether this Herbert Sukers was
Speaker 1: really the Butcher of Latvia. It was essential to prove
Speaker 1: his identity. Targeting an innocent man. That would be a
Speaker 1: terrible injustice. It would also make the hunters look like
Speaker 1: criminals themselves, damaging the cause. So the first thing Nazi
Speaker 1: Hunters had to do to verify beyond a doubt their
Speaker 1: target was really the right man, but with Herbert Suckers,
Speaker 1: that was going to be much harder than anyone expected.
Speaker 1: Good Assassins Hunting the Butcher is a production of Diversion
Speaker 1: Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio. This season is
Speaker 1: written and hosted by Stephen Toulting, produced and directed by
Speaker 1: Scott Waxman and Jacob Bronstein. Executive producers Scott Waxman and
Speaker 1: Mark Francis. Story editing by Jacob Bronstein, with editorial direction
Speaker 1: from Scott Waxman and Mangesh At Ticket or Editing, mixing
Speaker 1: and sound designed by Mark Francis, with the voices of
Speaker 1: Nick Afka, Thomas Armory, Angle, Andrew Polk, Mindy Escobar, Leants,
Speaker 1: Steve Routman and Stefan Rudnitsky. Theme music by Tyler Cash.
Speaker 1: Archival research by Adam Shapiro. Special thanks to or In
Speaker 1: Rosenbaum at ut A Diversion Podcasts