Speaker 1: Diversion podcasts. A note this episode contains descriptions of graphic violence.
Speaker 1: Listeners discretion is advised. Way back in episode one, I
Speaker 1: talked about my reason for doing this podcast. I'd written
Speaker 1: a book about Meo and Herbert Suckers, but I was
Speaker 1: left feeling there was something missing in the story, the
Speaker 1: answer to the question of why why did Herbert Suckers
Speaker 1: go from being a national hero to a mass murderer.
Speaker 1: As I researched Massad's mission to assassinate Sukers, I picked
Speaker 1: up clues here and there from the people I've been
Speaker 1: talking to. But really, I've saved answering that question that
Speaker 1: this episode because it turned out to have more sides
Speaker 1: to it than I originally thought. I'm Stephen Talty and
Speaker 1: this is good Assassin's Hunting the Butcher, Episode ten Motives
Speaker 1: for Murder. So the opinion of most people I spoke
Speaker 1: to was that Suckers had always been a secret anti Semite.
Speaker 1: He had to be. Before the war, he'd hidden his
Speaker 1: hatred inside himself, but really, down deep, he hated Jews,
Speaker 1: and when the war came, the Nazis gave him a
Speaker 1: chance to use that hatred, and he did terrible things
Speaker 1: end of story. But that just didn't fit the facts.
Speaker 1: So I kept looking, and in that search I found Zelma.
Speaker 1: Zelma was a bright, beautiful Jewish girl. During the war,
Speaker 1: on the day her family had been murdered, Zelma had
Speaker 1: been hidden by a Laughyan guy who was hopelessly in
Speaker 1: love with her. His nickname was Nank, and she stayed
Speaker 1: in hiding, undercover as it were, and learned things that
Speaker 1: take us to the heart of Zuker's life. Her story
Speaker 1: also involves psychiatric asylums and escaped Sweden, suicide attempts, and
Speaker 1: much more. But her story is mostly about suffering and
Speaker 1: love and never forgetting. Zelma is the key to knowing
Speaker 1: the question of why, or at least one side of it.
Speaker 1: So I want to tell you Zelma's story. Zelma was
Speaker 1: a Latian Jew studying foreign languages at a college in Riga.
Speaker 1: She was in her early twenties at the time the
Speaker 1: Russians invaded in Her dream was to learn foreign languages
Speaker 1: and escape Latvia. She was fiery and she was beautiful.
Speaker 1: In my book, I compare her to a Jewish Rita Hayworth.
Speaker 1: I think the description fits. Selma came from a very
Speaker 1: close family she had a younger sister and an older brother.
Speaker 1: She'd grown up in a small town in Latvia, but
Speaker 1: her ambitions were to league to see the world and
Speaker 1: to eventually settle in Palestine. When I went to Israel
Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen to research this story, I met
Speaker 1: with Zelma's daughter, Naomi. Naomi was hesitant at first to
Speaker 1: speak with me. She was very protective of her mother.
Speaker 1: So I started out with something simple, tell me what
Speaker 1: your mother was like. No, it's throughother complicated, you know,
Speaker 1: to describe AND's own mother. You know, she was, first
Speaker 1: of all, she was a loving personality. She loved people,
Speaker 1: and she she was a very devoted person. But as
Speaker 1: I knew her since I was a child, she was loving,
Speaker 1: a devoted mother. But you know, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: if you know what they say about the Jewish mothers,
Speaker 1: they are crazy, always worried and devoted and loving, like
Speaker 1: without any limit. But I think that it was also
Speaker 1: because of her past. She was always worried that I
Speaker 1: shouldn't be cold and that I would have enough food.
Speaker 1: Why Zama was so worried that her daughter would have
Speaker 1: enough food, Well that becomes clear a little later. So
Speaker 1: Zelma was a college and Riga. During the Soviet occupation,
Speaker 1: she suffered along with everyone else, but when the Germans
Speaker 1: came in, everything changed. Her family was forced into a
Speaker 1: ghetto in one of the poor neighborhoods of the city.
Speaker 1: Barbed wire went up. Food was scarce, but Zelman and
Speaker 1: her sister got jobs outside of the ghetto. She went
Speaker 1: to work and returned every night. One day she was
Speaker 1: detained by the police and brought to the building in
Speaker 1: Riga with the Rage Commando, the unit that Herbert Supers
Speaker 1: served in had its headquarters. Here's Zelma describing how she
Speaker 1: remembers that night from an interview she did with the
Speaker 1: USC show a Foundation. We are already inside, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: inside the courtyard, jewelry is being confiscated, shouting, heilding. So
Speaker 1: the girls were driven, including me of course, into the cellar,
Speaker 1: which was dark. There was a small lamp overhead. It
Speaker 1: was dirty and there were signs that people had spent
Speaker 1: there the night because it was rather dirty. In one
Speaker 1: corner there was a so called toilet and we were
Speaker 1: sitting on the floor. Guard was all the time watching us,
Speaker 1: without saying anything, without asking questions, And this went on
Speaker 1: until the late afternoon. Towards evening, these Perk and Crouse
Speaker 1: people started coming to to the cellar one after the other,
Speaker 1: and they picked out girls, including me. Upstairs. They were
Speaker 1: all drunk, I could tell it easily. There were all
Speaker 1: head pistols in their hands. So the so called officer
Speaker 1: are facing me, said upstairs. And I did go upstairs
Speaker 1: because there was no other way out. She was brought
Speaker 1: to a room where Victor Rush, the leader of the commandos,
Speaker 1: was waiting. She begged him to let her go, but
Speaker 1: he refused. It was in his office he rated me,
Speaker 1: He humiliated me, He tortured me sexually, and I thought
Speaker 1: that at the end his name was Arrays, lictors Arrayes.
Speaker 1: How did she know it was Robed himself who was
Speaker 1: the perpetrator. I wouldn't have known it. But when I
Speaker 1: was crying and weeping and asking for mercy, he said,
Speaker 1: you bitch, don't you know who is standing before you?
Speaker 1: He said, I am niktos Arra is the boss of
Speaker 1: this place. Some months later, Zelma was told that the
Speaker 1: Nazis were going to round up the Jews and take
Speaker 1: them to a work camp outside of Latvia. Her father
Speaker 1: was hopeful, maybe the Nazis would let them live. Of course,
Speaker 1: there had been atrocities and murders, but who knew. It
Speaker 1: was still early in the war, and stories about concentration
Speaker 1: camps and the gas chambers hadn't started circulating yet. But
Speaker 1: Zelma sent something terrible was happening. So one day she
Speaker 1: said goodbye to her parents as usual and told her
Speaker 1: sister what she was planning. Please don't tell our parents.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't know anything. They will not survive if they
Speaker 1: hear what I'm going to do. I'm going to commit suicide.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to give them a chance to torture me,
Speaker 1: to rape me again and to kill me. I will
Speaker 1: die away. I found correct. She was going to commit
Speaker 1: suicide by opinion the Daugava River that flowed through Riga.
Speaker 1: She wouldn't allow the Nazis and their accomplices to hurt
Speaker 1: her again. She decided for herself how her life would end,
Speaker 1: so she walked toward the river. But before she arrived,
Speaker 1: she visited an apartment where a Latvian man was living,
Speaker 1: the guy Knock that I mentioned before. She just wanted
Speaker 1: to leave a message for a family friend, but Nanc
Speaker 1: was in love with Selma had been ever since he
Speaker 1: spotted her at a country dance months before, and when
Speaker 1: she told him what she was about to do not consistent.
Speaker 1: She stayed there in the apartment and Zelma agreed not
Speaker 1: saved her and risked his life in the process. Had
Speaker 1: he been caught, he would have been shot alongside Selma.
Speaker 1: So the thing about non apartment was he had two roommates,
Speaker 1: and these guys worked for the Rage Commando who were
Speaker 1: helping the Nazis round up and killed Jews. This was
Speaker 1: Herbert Supers unit. Later it would come out that the
Speaker 1: Rage Commando or Latvian Auxiliary Security Police, was responsible for
Speaker 1: the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews, roma, Latvian communists,
Speaker 1: mental health patients, and others. They were notorious, violent, bloodthirsty.
Speaker 1: So Zelma was hiding from the Nazis inside this apartment
Speaker 1: where Nazi collaborators came all the time. They had parties there,
Speaker 1: brought their girlfriends, not introduced Elma to these guys as
Speaker 1: his fiancee. Then it worked, but the Nazis were still
Speaker 1: conducting sweeps looking for people hiding Jews who was really dangerous.
Speaker 1: In the first place, they used to come to get
Speaker 1: to eat, drink, and sing all their songs. Even there,
Speaker 1: the national songs, not the Anzeme, but folk songs had
Speaker 1: a parody against Jews. Let's throw the Jews into into
Speaker 1: the river and let's kill them, something like that. You
Speaker 1: can't imagine what I felt like sitting among them, But
Speaker 1: I had only one aim and didn't think of anything
Speaker 1: that of anything they're saying. Remember, remember forever their name,
Speaker 1: the surname, what school they went to, what they were
Speaker 1: doing before the war, whatever you can. You have a mission.
Speaker 1: Why did the rest perish? Why did you stay alive?
Speaker 1: And your mission is the oaths you have. You have
Speaker 1: given at the mass graves in the community that if
Speaker 1: you stay alive, you will destroy them as many of
Speaker 1: them as you can. And this is what I did.
Speaker 1: Someone tried to find out what happened to her family,
Speaker 1: but it was hard to ask questions like that, Why
Speaker 1: should it supposedly gentile Latvian girl care about what happened
Speaker 1: to some Jewish family. Finally she spotted the next boyfriend
Speaker 1: of hers, a Jewish guy who had somehow escaped to sweeps.
Speaker 1: She asked him if he knew about her family. He
Speaker 1: passed her a note telling her that both their families
Speaker 1: were dead, along with thousands of other Jews. Zelma was devastated.
Speaker 1: Of course, her brother had escaped to Russia, but her mother,
Speaker 1: her father, and her younger sister were gone. She began
Speaker 1: to have nightmares. Her daughter told me that they lasted
Speaker 1: for the rest of her life. Yes, she had nightmares
Speaker 1: as far as I remember myself. You know, when I
Speaker 1: was a child, there was not a single night that
Speaker 1: fast quietly for her. And as my dad was you're
Speaker 1: a pathologist, he knew how to treat her. Of course,
Speaker 1: so she took a lot of medicines in order to
Speaker 1: just to sleep at least a few hours during the night.
Speaker 1: And she was shouting at night and she was crying.
Speaker 1: So with her family gone someon was alone in Riga.
Speaker 1: All she had a nunk and every day she was
Speaker 1: in danger of being discovered. Once the Gestapo came to
Speaker 1: the apartment where they lived, and so they knocked on
Speaker 1: the door and my mom she well nunk the left
Speaker 1: when who saved her just he told her to in
Speaker 1: the little room near at the kitchen it was usually
Speaker 1: the maid's room, and closed the door and my mom
Speaker 1: put on a kerchief. And by the way, she was
Speaker 1: a great actor and they came into the room. They
Speaker 1: opened the door, and then she behaved like some simpleton, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like a person who was in a psychiatric state.
Speaker 1: Not so, let's say normative as they say nowadays. Yes, so,
Speaker 1: as they asked, and who are you? And so she
Speaker 1: mumbled something that they said, Okay, leave her, that's not
Speaker 1: the case, and they closed the door. Zelma had a
Speaker 1: lucky escape, but she stayed with nanc and despite the
Speaker 1: danger and the surveillance, she became obsessed with doing something
Speaker 1: about the murders of her family. She wanted the killers
Speaker 1: to be punished, so when the commando members came to visit,
Speaker 1: she would listen very closely to their conversations. I heard
Speaker 1: the names of their frinds, of their collaborators they used
Speaker 1: to come to the house, particularly to meet already, not
Speaker 1: so much to Stubbylon and they those people had no
Speaker 1: idea who I was, as they kept sitting and boasting
Speaker 1: how many people they've shot water day, and I knew
Speaker 1: exactly whether they came from, what their names were, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So she kept a list. Sometimes they would brag about
Speaker 1: what they'd done that day, about how many Jews they'd killed.
Speaker 1: She would listen carefully to catch the men's names, with
Speaker 1: schools they went to, what towns they were from. There
Speaker 1: were other Jews hiding in Latvia, but as far as
Speaker 1: I can tell, no one had kept a list like Zelma.
Speaker 1: It was as if while the war was still going on,
Speaker 1: that she'd become a Nazi hunter e. Simon Biesenthal and
Speaker 1: to be a freedman. Even those two never really began
Speaker 1: their search until after the war. Zelma did it under
Speaker 1: the nose of the Castapo. I asked Naomi about this.
Speaker 1: Why did her mother take on this job? Was the
Speaker 1: survivor's guilt? She never well. We talked a lot, of course,
Speaker 1: but she never told me that she had any feeling
Speaker 1: of guilt. It may be deep in her soul. She
Speaker 1: felt it like many Like many people. There were many
Speaker 1: people who couldn't just continue and committed suicide. Yes, because
Speaker 1: they couldn't live with it. I asked Naomi. Why was
Speaker 1: her mother so determined? Why was she so determined? I
Speaker 1: think it was very important for her. I don't think
Speaker 1: there are just a few people who just were so tolerant,
Speaker 1: you know, and didn't want to find the murderers. She
Speaker 1: was determined to do it. Yes, because perhaps it's also yes,
Speaker 1: you are right, you know, perhaps it's also due to
Speaker 1: her character. This is amazing. I don't know any other examples,
Speaker 1: and I've researched this of solo Jews actively surveilling and
Speaker 1: hunting Nazis during the war while they were still in power.
Speaker 1: She was the turn like, I'm not going to stop
Speaker 1: util we find this and this and this and that one,
Speaker 1: you know, and I want to do it, and that's it,
Speaker 1: you know, well, it was It was her character because
Speaker 1: she looked upon herself as a very strong person, and
Speaker 1: she was very strong in different aspects of her life. Yes,
Speaker 1: not only in this aspect. One night, there was a
Speaker 1: party at the apartment, lots of men crowding in, drinking,
Speaker 1: and in the middle of it, Zama heard that someone
Speaker 1: special had arrived. It was Herbert Suckers. When he came in,
Speaker 1: she heard him say something. He was showing the others
Speaker 1: his gun, and he announced the crowd that with that
Speaker 1: gun he killed dirty Jews that day. It was the
Speaker 1: only confess shin that Zukers would ever make. Zelma memorized
Speaker 1: his words. She added Suckers to her list of killers,
Speaker 1: and she waited in just Before the war ended, Zelma
Speaker 1: and Knock escaped to Sweden together. One of the first
Speaker 1: things Selma did was to write an account what had
Speaker 1: happened in Riga. She included all the names of the
Speaker 1: killers that she had written down, so this was still
Speaker 1: Zelma's report was one of the first eyewitness accounts of
Speaker 1: the Holocaust. There were lots of stories during the war
Speaker 1: of the camps and the atrocities, but in n there
Speaker 1: weren't yet available first person eyewitness accounts like Zelma's. Had
Speaker 1: she been able to get it out into the world,
Speaker 1: it would have been a big deal. She brought the
Speaker 1: report to the big newspapers at Stockholm, but was rebuffed.
Speaker 1: Most important newspaper in Sweden is Dugan's Unitary. I had
Speaker 1: a report for them. I went there to the editor,
Speaker 1: to the chief editor, and that was a time when
Speaker 1: they still hope that the Germans would win the war.
Speaker 1: And when I told him the contents of my report,
Speaker 1: he said, I am sorry for such things. We have
Speaker 1: no space in our newspaper. She brought a report to
Speaker 1: the attention of American and British embassies in Sweden, and
Speaker 1: their reaction was even worse. There the report, they were
Speaker 1: terribly frightened. There was a list of a number of
Speaker 1: war criminals. They destroyed it. There was a list of survivors,
Speaker 1: which they destroyed partly, and and that's it. So after
Speaker 1: the war, I thought I would never see it again.
Speaker 1: Most of Latvia's Jews were already dead, but others were
Speaker 1: still hiding and being pursued. It was still time to
Speaker 1: save them and to arrest the man who had killed
Speaker 1: Zelma's family. They were still in Latvia. They could be captured,
Speaker 1: but nobody did anything. The Germans were still powerful. People
Speaker 1: were afraid getting on their wrong side. At that point,
Speaker 1: it was thought perhaps they'd win the war. Who knew.
Speaker 1: Zelma was shocked, depressed. Nobody seemed to care or to
Speaker 1: believe her. She never mentioned what exactly, but she was
Speaker 1: very much disappointed. Yes, that the people didn't want to
Speaker 1: hear about it there in Sweden, that's right, Yes, I
Speaker 1: think for something political, you know that they didn't want
Speaker 1: to spoil the relationships. Yes, she was very much disappointed
Speaker 1: her whole life about it. That's right. After the war,
Speaker 1: Zelma and Nac returned to Latvia. There the Soviets were
Speaker 1: taking over again, and Nac was arrested for anti Soviet activities.
Speaker 1: He'd deposed the occupation back in. Zelma, who now thought
Speaker 1: of him as a friend and not a husband or
Speaker 1: a lover, tried to help. She went to the authorities
Speaker 1: and offered to take his place, but they told her
Speaker 1: if she stuck by Knock, she would go to prison too.
Speaker 1: As she lobbied for Knock's release, Zelma met and fell
Speaker 1: in love with the Jewish doctor, the man who become
Speaker 1: Naomi's father. They married and eventually had two girls, Naomi
Speaker 1: and her sister. Knock, by the way, I knew all
Speaker 1: about this, he'd even given his approval. He and Zelma
Speaker 1: were just friends by this time, and Nac wanted her
Speaker 1: to be happy. So Zelma had all this information about
Speaker 1: Herbert Suckers and the other perpetrators, but she was stuck
Speaker 1: in Latvia. The Soviets wouldn't let her leave. Things got
Speaker 1: bad because she wouldn't denounce Knock and becoming an informer
Speaker 1: for the Soviet spy agency. She was thrown in a
Speaker 1: psychiatric asylum. The conditions were horrible and she lost hope.
Speaker 1: She even tried to commit suicide, but a Latvian nurse
Speaker 1: saved her. Eventually, Zelma was released, but she was still
Speaker 1: an outcast. Finally, twenty years later, she and her family
Speaker 1: emigrated to Israel, and then things got interesting. In the
Speaker 1: late seventies, Victor Raj, the leader of the violent commando
Speaker 1: unit that was responsible for the deaths so many during
Speaker 1: the war. The man who had raped Selma, was arrested
Speaker 1: in Frankfurt, Germany, where he was living under an assumed name.
Speaker 1: He was brought to trial in Hamburg in nineteen The
Speaker 1: trial was made possible only because of Selma and other
Speaker 1: survivors who volunteered to testify against the Nazi collaborator. Without them,
Speaker 1: they would have been no case. Zelma was nervous, but
Speaker 1: she agreed to fly from Israel to Hamburg to face
Speaker 1: arrage thirty years after he detacked her. I knew I
Speaker 1: have to be strong. I knew I have to do
Speaker 1: my job. I knew that it has to be proven
Speaker 1: that this man is the greatest murderer of East due
Speaker 1: during the war, that he is responsible for the killing
Speaker 1: of Latin jury, and he has to spend his life
Speaker 1: in prison. Naomi went with her mother promotional support. They
Speaker 1: were afraid, but it was a chance to get justice
Speaker 1: and to find out why and as I told you,
Speaker 1: I was with her in Hamburg, you know, during the
Speaker 1: trial of our Eyes, and I saw her there. How
Speaker 1: she behaved and how she you know, she was so strong.
Speaker 1: She just didn't break down. I think it was very
Speaker 1: hard for her, but she did it. Finally, a raj
Speaker 1: was brought into the courtroom. Selma got up and told
Speaker 1: her story, the roundups, the violent rape, the killings. At
Speaker 1: the end, the juris asked her a few questions. Then
Speaker 1: the presiding judge leaned over to address her. This is
Speaker 1: hard to believe every word you are saying. Then a
Speaker 1: black and white photograph was placed before her, showing about
Speaker 1: thirty men in uniform. The judge told her, then he
Speaker 1: was a young man. Now before you, an old ailing
Speaker 1: man is sitting. Could you identify him? I cooked on
Speaker 1: my glasses, go ahead, pointing at him. At him, the
Speaker 1: court was silent. The defense attorney approached her and asked,
Speaker 1: but how did you know? Is that what was done
Speaker 1: to you was done by days? So I said, He
Speaker 1: said to me, you bitch, do you know who's standing
Speaker 1: before you? He said, habit kind of an argument. I
Speaker 1: have no more questions. The attorney nodded to the judge
Speaker 1: and the cross examination was over. Rags sentence was probably
Speaker 1: sealed at this point, but prosecutors wanted to know about
Speaker 1: his unit and about Herbert Suckers. On the witness stand,
Speaker 1: they pressed Garage about his second in command, and Arraje
Speaker 1: finally revealed what it had caused Suckers to join up.
Speaker 1: Rage described his first meeting with Sukers, around the time
Speaker 1: of the German invasion. He said the Aviator had left
Speaker 1: his farm and come to the capitol to meet with him.
Speaker 1: They talked, and Suckers began asking for refuge. Rumors were
Speaker 1: circulating in the countryside. Suckers told him claiming that he
Speaker 1: had worked as a Soviet collaborator during the occupation. The
Speaker 1: gossip apparently contained details not only had he turned Bolshevik,
Speaker 1: but the Soviets had given him a Cadillac as payment
Speaker 1: for his services. Other sources I was able to find
Speaker 1: confirmed this. In During the first Soviet occupation, Zuckers had
Speaker 1: been called to Moscow by the Vice Minister of the
Speaker 1: aviation industry. The man had heard about suckers brilliance and
Speaker 1: designing air plants. He asked the Aviator to help the
Speaker 1: Russians build long range Palmbers. It was a tough moment
Speaker 1: for Suckers. Soviets were hated in Latvia for the horrors
Speaker 1: they were inflicting on the people there. But this was
Speaker 1: a huge opportunity. Suckers could become a major player in
Speaker 1: world aviation. So he took the job. Later with the
Speaker 1: Nazis and control Churs was afraid. He must have sensed
Speaker 1: the murderous rage that Latvians felt towards anyone who had
Speaker 1: worked with the Russians. He was faced with the same
Speaker 1: accusation being made against the Jews and Nazi propaganda being
Speaker 1: broadcast daily on the radio. Every Jew is a Bolshevik.
Speaker 1: If he didn't find a way to separate himself from
Speaker 1: the rumors, he could share the jews fate, and so
Speaker 1: he sought out a raj who took him on as
Speaker 1: his second in command. This was what I've been looking
Speaker 1: for the answer to why Zukers thought he could be executed.
Speaker 1: So he joined the commando unit and began killing Jews.
Speaker 1: It wasn't anti Semitism, it was plain self preservation survival.
Speaker 1: He was scared. He was a coward, But what an
Speaker 1: awful transaction. Savior skin but helped take the lives of
Speaker 1: thirty thousand innocent people. It was in a way worse
Speaker 1: than I had thought. If Sukers had been a true believer,
Speaker 1: someone that really believed that Jews were with the Nazis
Speaker 1: said they were, that was one thing, But to kill
Speaker 1: your neighbors and friends just to stay alive. It actually
Speaker 1: bothered me more than my original theory. So I had
Speaker 1: an answer, or at least a partial one, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to run it by one more person. I wanted
Speaker 1: to know if Zuker's still mattered. Good Assassin's Hunting the
Speaker 1: Butcher isn't over. Next week I talked about some of
Speaker 1: Massad's greatest operations, with snipers, stolen airplane, fall, Harris Masterminds,
Speaker 1: and other surprises. I think you'll like it, and I
Speaker 1: hope you tune in kill. I'd heard about attempts to
Speaker 1: rehabilitate Zuka's reputation. In two thou fourteen, There's actually been
Speaker 1: a musical about him, which played in Latvia to cheering crowds.
Speaker 1: This is a number from the show that asked whether
Speaker 1: Zuker's is a killer or a misunderstood national hero. The
Speaker 1: musical ignited a debate. Some denounced it but others on
Speaker 1: the far right said he was in fact innocent and
Speaker 1: should be publicly exonerated. I wondered if the spirit of
Speaker 1: Herbert Suckers still lived on in Riga. So I called
Speaker 1: Ilya Lensky. He's a director of the Jews and Latvia
Speaker 1: Museum in Riga and he studied history at the University
Speaker 1: of Latvia. He's young Jewish. I called him up at
Speaker 1: his office on Zoom. I started out by asking him
Speaker 1: how many Jews are left in Riga today and if
Speaker 1: they felt safe. So we estimate that it could be
Speaker 1: at minimum of eight thousand Jews and all the Latvia,
Speaker 1: well majority of them in Riga. Sometimes it's estimated to
Speaker 1: be up to ten thousand. And then of course there
Speaker 1: is much broader group of people who could potentially being
Speaker 1: affiliated with the Jewish community, so having Jewish roots or whatever,
Speaker 1: but that's different stories. So we could estimate about eight
Speaker 1: thousand people to identify themselves as Jews, and most of
Speaker 1: whom are connected to the Jewish community religiously culturally in
Speaker 1: different ways. So nowhere there is legal discrimination, of course,
Speaker 1: but also there is no unificial discrimination. And we would
Speaker 1: presume that Latvia is one of the few countries in
Speaker 1: Europe where basically the jewsh community does not see anti
Speaker 1: Semitism as the major challenge to its existence. I mean,
Speaker 1: we cannot say that there is no anti Semitism, and
Speaker 1: of course also to of course story is part of
Speaker 1: story of antism mimatism as well, but but anti Semitism
Speaker 1: we do not consider to be the major challenge. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's surprising. He's saying that there's almost no anti Semitism
Speaker 1: in Latvia anymore, which is great and not what I
Speaker 1: was expecting to hear. I had a few more questions
Speaker 1: on that. So do you think that Latvians have sort
Speaker 1: of faced up to their role in the Holocaust, you know,
Speaker 1: in a sort of full and honest way. Uh, that's
Speaker 1: a good question. I don't have an answer to this,
Speaker 1: because actually we don't know what is a full honest way.
Speaker 1: I worked for the museum for almost fifteen years, and
Speaker 1: for all of this time I've been involved in one
Speaker 1: way or another and researching how Latin society sees the
Speaker 1: Holocaust today. And so I can say the definitely Latin
Speaker 1: society has made a significant progress in last thirty years,
Speaker 1: and we have to understand that also during the Soviet times.
Speaker 1: There's was a complex It's a multi layered issue of
Speaker 1: how halcost is perceived. I asked Elia what he thought
Speaker 1: was causing this change. I think as the generations change,
Speaker 1: and generally as we are more becoming more and more European,
Speaker 1: particularly with the joining the EU and so on, the
Speaker 1: paradigm changes in the sense that there's, for example, is
Speaker 1: basically gone, at least in the public sphere, the concept
Speaker 1: that the Holocaust was just a revenge for the atrocitus
Speaker 1: of the Jewish communists. Yeah, so, I mean this was
Speaker 1: something that they could still encounter in the nine takes.
Speaker 1: People say, yeah, Latvians were participating, it's a bad thing.
Speaker 1: But the Jews where the main perpetrators during the communist
Speaker 1: terror in nineteen, which is basically reproducing Nazi propaganda because
Speaker 1: the Nazis used this as an excuse for their integers repressions.
Speaker 1: They used this to recruit Latins to collaborate. So today
Speaker 1: we basically do not see that in public discourse. I mean, again,
Speaker 1: we see it on the internet, but I don't think
Speaker 1: that any sin politician today would dare to say something
Speaker 1: like that. This was really incredible. It was earlier, really
Speaker 1: saying that struggle against anti Semitism was over. I cannot
Speaker 1: say that we are in the end of the way
Speaker 1: of how we speak about the Holocaust. But the fact
Speaker 1: that the Holocaust is being now also portrayed rather openly
Speaker 1: in cultural products. We could say we have it in
Speaker 1: the literature, we have it in the movies. I think
Speaker 1: it's a sort of a good sign. So I would
Speaker 1: say that I don't know if we're doing good, but
Speaker 1: I can say that not being we have a great progress,
Speaker 1: and that's what makes me very optimistic. So good news.
Speaker 1: Zukers was far less popular in Latvia than I'd imagined,
Speaker 1: but I still wanted to ask Ilia the big question
Speaker 1: about motives. I'm just wondering what your personal opinion of
Speaker 1: Zukers is. One of the reasons I wanted to do
Speaker 1: the podcast is the whole question of why. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was a man who had some Jewish friends, or
Speaker 1: he was seen in cafes talking to Jews before the war.
Speaker 1: His father employed Jews in his workshop. He didn't have
Speaker 1: a terrible reputation. He visited the Palastine, He's visited health,
Speaker 1: he gave it. He gave a talk Palistine in the
Speaker 1: Jewish club. Absolutely, so he was kind of a hero
Speaker 1: for Jews and non Jews alike in the thirties. Have
Speaker 1: you thought about this idea of betrayal why he seemed
Speaker 1: to turn on his Latvian neighbors, even people he knew well.
Speaker 1: First of all, as we knew so responsibly, could have
Speaker 1: been suspected of cooperating with the Salviettes. Yeah, because he
Speaker 1: tried to work as an engineer for the SOB. It's
Speaker 1: okay they failed with a different story, So it could
Speaker 1: be that he was afraid that. It's only small part
Speaker 1: of the explanation. It could be an explanation why he
Speaker 1: joined the r I S Unit. But the biggest question,
Speaker 1: so why did he actively collaborate? The answer is pretty simply,
Speaker 1: he just didn't see any issue. You see, that's the
Speaker 1: most weird thing that when we discussed Sucker's case, we
Speaker 1: do not discuss the case of a fervent And toes mind,
Speaker 1: this had never occurred to me that Suckers killed Joos
Speaker 1: because he didn't see any issue. It was the weirdest
Speaker 1: answer honestly I'd gotten in three years of research. I
Speaker 1: think Elias sensed my confusion because he went on, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're discussing a regular person who just did not
Speaker 1: see an issue. Okay, I go there, I work there. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I kill people, but it's it's a situation. I mean,
Speaker 1: in different situations, I would not be killing people. In
Speaker 1: this situation. I'm doing my work, and part of my
Speaker 1: work involves occasionally killing people. So so what I mean,
Speaker 1: the war is going on. It's bad. It's bad for everyone. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I don't know it would extent we could say,
Speaker 1: and we could trust the witness accounts, so that he
Speaker 1: was really enjoying doing what he was doing, that's the question.
Speaker 1: We can't presume that at some point. Yes, but I'm
Speaker 1: not a psychologist, so I don't want to discuss these things.
Speaker 1: But probably he just didn't see it as an initiation,
Speaker 1: that's you see, that's why he was not hiding. For example,
Speaker 1: in the fifties, living in sixties, living in Brazil, he
Speaker 1: was not hiding. He was giving interviews, yeah, where he
Speaker 1: said that the accusations against him are fake and that
Speaker 1: he didn't do anything wrong. Yeah. So if you really
Speaker 1: consider yourself guilty, then probably you hide as many you know,
Speaker 1: real Nazis did, Yeah, German Nazis. But also, for example,
Speaker 1: as we know, our eyes was living and hiding. So
Speaker 1: probably he just did not see any problem with it.
Speaker 1: And I would say one of the key elements when
Speaker 1: we discuss the issues of Holocaust and laugh in general,
Speaker 1: that many people in the r Ice Unit, they didn't
Speaker 1: have any record of membership and anti Semitic organizations before that.
Speaker 1: We cannot say that they were like fervent and to someone, No,
Speaker 1: they were regular people, ordinary man. So probably this could
Speaker 1: be also an answer to why he did what he did.
Speaker 1: In other circumstances, he would not do that. But circumstances
Speaker 1: were that he did it and probably didn't see it
Speaker 1: as anything wrong or any anything problematic. Probably he saw
Speaker 1: it as something wrong, but not too wrong. So Eliot's theory,
Speaker 1: if you can call it that, who said Suckers didn't
Speaker 1: see what the big deal was about? So what he
Speaker 1: helped kill some Jews, That's what was happening in Riga,
Speaker 1: That's what was happening everywhere, at least in German controlled countries.
Speaker 1: It was like in the air you breathe, you couldn't
Speaker 1: escape it. So Zuckers wasn't taunting these railies when he
Speaker 1: said he was innocent. He wasn't a sociopath. He was
Speaker 1: something far more ordinary, a guy who went along with things,
Speaker 1: who didn't have the courage to stand up and say no.
Speaker 1: There was another layer to this, one that reminded me
Speaker 1: of Zuker's behavior when he first got to Brazil in
Speaker 1: the late forties. In his many newspaper and magazine interviews,
Speaker 1: Zuker's promoted himself almost as a victim. He said, you know,
Speaker 1: the Russians came to my country, and then the Germans,
Speaker 1: and I was a refugee, and I fought them in
Speaker 1: any way I could. Dr. Sarah Valente, the professor who
Speaker 1: studies the legacy of the Holocaust in Brazil, came across
Speaker 1: a particularly startling example of Sukers doing this as so,
Speaker 1: he says, Kokers claims to have lived without political preoccupations,
Speaker 1: devoting his life entirely to aviation, so he was not
Speaker 1: a political person at all. He was only flying, he
Speaker 1: was only a pilot. And that his country was invaded
Speaker 1: by the Russians on June seventeenth, nineteen forty, and that
Speaker 1: the Latvian Jews dominated and enslaved the rest of the population,
Speaker 1: carrying out massacres and tortures. They wiped out more than
Speaker 1: thirty thousand civilians. This to me is very telling because
Speaker 1: in this moment he is bringing the blame to the
Speaker 1: Jews as being the ones who are capable of having
Speaker 1: done this. It's a fascinating article from a research perspective
Speaker 1: in the sense that he has. Kuker further claims that
Speaker 1: during the Russian occupation, he disguised himself as a peasant
Speaker 1: and took part in the underground resistance movement. He didn't
Speaker 1: joined a lot of an army and fought the Russians
Speaker 1: alongside the Germans when they began their offensive in July
Speaker 1: of nineteen one. He maintains that he did not take
Speaker 1: part in any massacre against Jews. He never changed his name,
Speaker 1: he's never went into hiding, and was not accused by
Speaker 1: the Allied authorities. So it's almost like he took on
Speaker 1: this mantle of victimhood and kept exaggerating it to the
Speaker 1: point that he couldn't see anything he did is problematic.
Speaker 1: I asked Ilia about this, as you mentioned, when he
Speaker 1: came to Brasil, he did give interviews, and one of
Speaker 1: the interesting things I found is that he promoted himself
Speaker 1: almost as a victim and couldn't see anything that he
Speaker 1: did as of the Maattic. As you said, do you
Speaker 1: think this is a wider issue for Latvians that the
Speaker 1: suffering of the Year of Terror was not acknowledged by
Speaker 1: the wider world and their own suffering wasn't perhaps given
Speaker 1: the way that they wanted it to. Yes, that's definitely true.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think many ethnic Latvians in the country,
Speaker 1: but also in the emigrant community, they felt that their
Speaker 1: story is being neglected. And there is interesting memoir. It's
Speaker 1: a semi fiction, semi memoir but generally trustworthy by Xantha Mauna,
Speaker 1: a prominent Latvian literary critic, and there she describes the
Speaker 1: discussion she had with some Latvian intellectuals costing the professor.
Speaker 1: And there she she describes how a few days after
Speaker 1: Rumbula killings she was talking to this professor and he
Speaker 1: said that England and France didn't say a word when
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand children from the Baltics were deported to
Speaker 1: say read by the Soviets, So why should we care
Speaker 1: about the Jews being killed? Lots of Latvians suffered horrific
Speaker 1: things during the war, and that didn't get a lot
Speaker 1: of attention even today. I think very important point is
Speaker 1: that the Jews were not seen as part of the society.
Speaker 1: It was not only anti Semitisms, it was generally kind
Speaker 1: of um glass wolves existing within Latvian society. That makes sense.
Speaker 1: Part of the Latvian mentality is that they're caught between
Speaker 1: two ancient enemies, and in the forties they were terrorized
Speaker 1: by both of them. Latvians wanted that story told. I
Speaker 1: would too. I had one more question for Ilia. It's
Speaker 1: great that Jews in Latvia feel little or no hatred
Speaker 1: towards them today, but his answers made me think us
Speaker 1: Zookers as an example before the war, a good guy,
Speaker 1: not an anti semi. In the war comes and he
Speaker 1: changes completely, but not because of anti Semitism, not really.
Speaker 1: So even if the situation for Jews in Latvia today
Speaker 1: is good, did that mean everything was fine or were
Speaker 1: we missing something? I came to that age old question.
Speaker 1: Could something like the Holocaust happened there? Again? That's a
Speaker 1: good question. The problem, as I said that, actually we
Speaker 1: don't understand how much this hidden sentiment was present back then.
Speaker 1: Were to say how much the pre war anti Semitism
Speaker 1: which which existed them which at some points was rather hardcore.
Speaker 1: It was non violent, but it was very hardcore, and
Speaker 1: it was present in the political rhetorics, very it was visible.
Speaker 1: To what extent it's connected with the events of the Holocaust,
Speaker 1: to what extent people who were hating the Jews is
Speaker 1: non violently in the thirties, they went to killing the
Speaker 1: Jews in the forties. Yeah, and so I would say
Speaker 1: this is more threatening somehow than than open anti Semitism.
Speaker 1: I think this has to do very much with general
Speaker 1: human psychology. That's why I always say that the Holocaust,
Speaker 1: after all, is not only is the part of the
Speaker 1: Jewish history, but behind it as a whole story of
Speaker 1: humankind and human being, functions and extreme conditions and so on.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of this saying I heard once about
Speaker 1: the military generals are always prepared to fight the last war,
Speaker 1: meaning they learned the lessons of the past, but failed
Speaker 1: to anticipate the future. The next war or the next
Speaker 1: attempted genocide will probably be different than the Holocaust. We
Speaker 1: see the past. Clearly, we can't study Seekers as a
Speaker 1: kind of test case measure his anti semitism. The tradeoffs
Speaker 1: he made and wanting to survive, but looking ahead that's
Speaker 1: much harder. I asked Ilia about this. Yeah, so, so
Speaker 1: when when when you suddenly strike when you think about
Speaker 1: the Holocaust and it happens, I guess too many historians. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, all of us who sported the Holocaust we
Speaker 1: have rather strong kind of you know, emotional screen because
Speaker 1: but but even us, at some point we just come
Speaker 1: to kind of stupor which do not undstand we do.
Speaker 1: We don't have this key to unlocked the door, because
Speaker 1: that's the door much ruder than our research than where
Speaker 1: we comprehend It's it's somewhere in the field of psychology
Speaker 1: and how person functions in general. You know, I could
Speaker 1: tell that Ilia had thought about the same question, probably
Speaker 1: more than I had, and he come up with what
Speaker 1: I thought was a fascinating conclusion. Yeah, so, so so so,
Speaker 1: And that's why I don't like, For example, the question
Speaker 1: quite often asked in an age discussions, is Holocaust possible today?
Speaker 1: Let's say, no, Holocaust is not possible today, because Holocaust
Speaker 1: is what already happened. We already know how Holocaust happened,
Speaker 1: and you know it happened. That's it is genocide possible. Well,
Speaker 1: of course, we see it in Rwanda, in Bosnia, wherever
Speaker 1: is all the other things? Possibly, yes, possible, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: would just not be called holocaust and probably will not
Speaker 1: be aginst juice. But it doesn't matter. So there probably
Speaker 1: won't be another holocaust because in a way we know
Speaker 1: what to look for. We're pretty well inoculated against that
Speaker 1: particular virus, aren't we. But while we're trying so hard
Speaker 1: to spout one disaster, is that where a different one
Speaker 1: might creep up on us. That's what worries Ilia and
Speaker 1: I can see his point. A New Year's day in
Speaker 1: janu the great American novelist John Steinbeck sat down to
Speaker 1: write a letter to a friend, as World War Two
Speaker 1: was raging around the world and plunging humanity to what
Speaker 1: looked like the darkest period in modern history. Steinbeck wrote,
Speaker 1: not that I have lost any hope. All the goodness
Speaker 1: and the heroisms will rise up again, then be cut
Speaker 1: down again, and rise up. It isn't that the evil
Speaker 1: thing wins, it never will, but that it doesn't die.
Speaker 1: I don't know why we should expect it to. It
Speaker 1: seems fairly obvious. The two sides of the mirror are
Speaker 1: required before one has a mirror that two forces are
Speaker 1: necessary in Man before he is man good Assassins. Hunting
Speaker 1: the Butcher is a production of Diversion Podcasts in association
Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio. This season is written and hosted
Speaker 1: by Stephen Tulty, produced and directed by Scott Waxman and
Speaker 1: Jacob Bronstein. Executive producers Scott Waxman and Mark Francis. Story
Speaker 1: editing by Jacob Bronstein, with editorial direction from Scott Waxman
Speaker 1: and Mongesh At Ticketdoor Editing, mixing and sound designed by
Speaker 1: Mark Francis. Archival research by Adam Shapiro. Thanks to Oran
Speaker 1: Rosenbaum at U t A. Diversion Podcasts