Speaker 1: Diversion podcasts. This episode contains descriptions of graphic violence and
Speaker 1: scenes of genocide. Listener's discretion is advised. Mio was back
Speaker 1: in sal Polo. He'd had a few close brushes on
Speaker 1: his trip to Brazilia. We had almost been spotted by
Speaker 1: some Israeli friends, but his cover was still intact. At
Speaker 1: his hotel, Mio found business letters and telegrams waiting for him,
Speaker 1: requesting your authorization to close the hundred thousand dollar deal
Speaker 1: we discussed prior to your departure. Read one. The letters
Speaker 1: looked real, but they weren't. Mio's massad boss back in Paris,
Speaker 1: Joseph your Reeve, had sent them in case. The butcher
Speaker 1: was checking up on his new friend Anton kunz La
Speaker 1: while he was out of town. Herbert Suckers had invited
Speaker 1: kunz La to visit him and his family at his home,
Speaker 1: so me was getting ready for the meeting. He had
Speaker 1: no idea what would happen, but they would ask him.
Speaker 1: He didn't even know what Suckers wanted, which was a
Speaker 1: real question. Most spies use a handful of motives to
Speaker 1: get people to do what they want. Money, sex, patriotism, resentment.
Speaker 1: You've seen things like that in the movies, they're all
Speaker 1: easy ways into somebody's life. But suckers, he was not fish.
Speaker 1: He seemed to want to be a hero again, to
Speaker 1: be beloved. Neo couldn't offer him that. It was beyond
Speaker 1: his powers. So what could he dangle in front of
Speaker 1: the butcher? Here's former U. S. Army intelligence officer Chris Costa,
Speaker 1: so human intelligence officers. They are rain to be a
Speaker 1: little bit psychologist, a little bit body language expert. They
Speaker 1: are also a father confessor. There are a rabbi, they're
Speaker 1: a priest. They're a friend. They're a teacher, they're a mentor,
Speaker 1: they're a coach, they're a student. They have to adapt.
Speaker 1: But all along the way, you are looking for clues
Speaker 1: as to what motivates this individual that I have to manipulate.
Speaker 1: Neal would have to play amateur psychologists. He sat on
Speaker 1: his hotel bed. He thought back to his meeting with Sukers,
Speaker 1: and he asked himself a few questions. What was the
Speaker 1: butcher missing in his life? What did the butcher really want?
Speaker 1: And how could he give the butcher that one thing
Speaker 1: he lacked? I tried to imagine what had gone through
Speaker 1: Uker's mind since our so called accidental earst encounter that
Speaker 1: had ended over a glass of brandy in the cabin
Speaker 1: of his boat. It was clear that Herbert Stookers missed
Speaker 1: the days of glory as deputy commander of the Rigor Ghetto.
Speaker 1: Then he had been almost an almighty god. At least
Speaker 1: where's the life and death of the Jews of Riga
Speaker 1: was concerned. He most probably recalls those days fondly, when
Speaker 1: he was at the zenith of his power, treated with
Speaker 1: great reverence and fear by anyone who saw him riding
Speaker 1: on horseback through the streets of the ghetto, clasped heavy handgun,
Speaker 1: clad in his black leather pilot's court. Then he had
Speaker 1: unlimited power, the power to determine the fate of other people.
Speaker 1: How he must long for those days which seem now
Speaker 1: looking through the window of the shabby ticket office of
Speaker 1: his undown both rental business like a mirage produced by
Speaker 1: in memory sells with an overdeveloped imagination. I'm Stephen Talty
Speaker 1: in this as good assassin's hunting the butcher, So he's
Speaker 1: the first part was to find and not be looking forward,
Speaker 1: while for the second part was to find a nag
Speaker 1: and healing. He shot fast and see expertise that comes
Speaker 1: from experience, the end of a trail of blood and horror,
Speaker 1: in the end of a man whose name will be
Speaker 1: written in infamy. M Episode five, Baiting the hook. Sitting there,
Speaker 1: Mio began to feel his way into Zuker's life. He
Speaker 1: thought about this former superstar pilot now working as a
Speaker 1: kind of grease monkey. How far this man had fallen
Speaker 1: in the world. Question one? What was the Butcher missing
Speaker 1: in his life? Respect? The Jewish activists who discovered Suckers
Speaker 1: living in Rio hadn't managed to get him deported or arrested,
Speaker 1: but they had badly damaged his public image. Zuckers was
Speaker 1: a social outcast now, and it was clear he hated it.
Speaker 1: Question too. If making him a hero was out of
Speaker 1: the question, was there anything that could substitute for it?
Speaker 1: Mio thought about that a narcissist like Suckers, he wants
Speaker 1: what he used to have, power and fame. The Butcher
Speaker 1: wanted people to look up to him. Back in Latvia,
Speaker 1: he'd been a winner, He was beloved, and he liked
Speaker 1: that a lot. So Question three, how could MEO get
Speaker 1: the Butcher or pretend to get the Butcher? The power
Speaker 1: that he so clearly wanted. They could always start with money.
Speaker 1: Money would buy Zookers new suits, and it would buy
Speaker 1: him new glasses to replace the taped up ones he'd
Speaker 1: been wearing at the docks. First came money, then respect,
Speaker 1: then power. It was an age old formula, but it worked.
Speaker 1: Me was guessing at all this he had no idea
Speaker 1: really what was in the butcher's heart. But as it
Speaker 1: turned out, he'd come very close to the truth. Again,
Speaker 1: Chris Costa, this is ultimately, this particular case is an
Speaker 1: incredible example of looking every step of the way to
Speaker 1: understand what motivates this target so that I can set
Speaker 1: up the ultimate trap. And I think in this case
Speaker 1: he was motivated by wanting to regain something that he lost.
Speaker 1: He wanted more financial stability, He wanted to be an
Speaker 1: important person again, so he was vulnerable to a great
Speaker 1: business opportunity with somebody he trusted. In. Doing my research,
Speaker 1: I came across an interview that Sucker's wife had later
Speaker 1: given to police. She told them that when Zuker's first
Speaker 1: started getting successful in Brazil, he told his friends he
Speaker 1: was going to quote create a great club and found
Speaker 1: a school of seaplane pilots, unlike anything that had ever
Speaker 1: existed in Brazil. Not only that, he wanted to build
Speaker 1: a new airplane engine that would revolutionize the industry. His
Speaker 1: dream had always been to be a pioneer, to shock
Speaker 1: the world with his genius in building airplanes. All he
Speaker 1: needed was an investor to help him with money. Meal
Speaker 1: didn't know about any of these dreams, but he'd somehow
Speaker 1: detected what Sukers was looking for. A backer, someone to
Speaker 1: believe in him. Who knows, maybe with the help of
Speaker 1: Kunzle and his backer's capital, he will finally be able
Speaker 1: to pull himself out of this dismal existence, all of
Speaker 1: his on the verge of poverty, and become rich, a
Speaker 1: respectable member of society, and and read himself of the
Speaker 1: persecution of the Jews that had been beleaguing him for years.
Speaker 1: The American reporter Jack Anderson, who traveled to Brazil in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty to cover Nazi fugitives, sensed it too. Suckers
Speaker 1: wanted to rehabilitate himself, and both Anderson and Mio offered
Speaker 1: him a shot. So interestingly, Zookers turned up the charm
Speaker 1: and trotted out a very similar routine for both Meo
Speaker 1: and Jack Anderson. I think that he was afraid, not
Speaker 1: so much of the publicity as he was of the Jews.
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons that he may have
Speaker 1: been willing to talk to me was to present his
Speaker 1: case how he had saved this girl, and how he
Speaker 1: was not a Jew killer, and how he had been misrepresented. So,
Speaker 1: sitting on his hotel bed, Neil decided on his approach
Speaker 1: he would dangle a chance at redemption in front of
Speaker 1: the butcher, a last shot at riches and fame. That
Speaker 1: was the bait. Neo got into his rented v W
Speaker 1: and followed the directions that seekers had given him to
Speaker 1: his house. When he turned the corner onto the final street,
Speaker 1: he found he was in a normal, boring suburb lined
Speaker 1: with modest homes. Here's how Anderson describes it. It was
Speaker 1: about twenty miles, as I recall, out of dirt road,
Speaker 1: out of kind of a remote but very pastoral setting
Speaker 1: outside of So Paulo, comparable to a lakeside development where
Speaker 1: wealthy people might have bungalows. Couldn't have been more peaceful
Speaker 1: looking place. It was almost a postcard tranquility. And when
Speaker 1: I got there there were three seaplanes. You are enough sitting,
Speaker 1: three of them sitting anchored near his house, and two
Speaker 1: big burly guards at his gate. It was easy to
Speaker 1: spot the Sucre's residence. In fact, it stuck out like
Speaker 1: a sore thumb. The house was completely surrounded by a
Speaker 1: high fence topped with barbed wire. The German shepherd that
Speaker 1: year Reeve had warned him about was barking at me
Speaker 1: O through the fence, showing its teeth. The house was
Speaker 1: pretty basic and there was a garden shed in the yard.
Speaker 1: It confirmed me as guests clearly Sucers was hurting for money.
Speaker 1: The butcher emerged from the house spotted me O getting
Speaker 1: out of the VW. His face broke into a wide
Speaker 1: grin and he called out to Meo, saying how glad
Speaker 1: he was to see him. Sucers tied up the German
Speaker 1: shepherd and invited his guest inside. Here's how Anderson describes
Speaker 1: meeting Suckers. I approached the gate and asked identified myself
Speaker 1: and asked for him, And one of these two big
Speaker 1: burly guards goes up to the door and knocks on
Speaker 1: the door, and a guy comes out. He's thirty yards away,
Speaker 1: forty yards away. The waves still need to come on in,
Speaker 1: and so they let me in and I walked in,
Speaker 1: and it was kind of chilling because he was wearing
Speaker 1: a leather jacket. Not read all the stuff. He was
Speaker 1: wearing this leather jacket. When he turned around open the door,
Speaker 1: he had a pistol book and out of his back pocket.
Speaker 1: Kind of chilling. He invited me in and we talked
Speaker 1: to Great Lane. As he entered the house, his eyes
Speaker 1: darted around the here he was looking for signs of
Speaker 1: the past. During the years nineteen forty one nineteen forty four,
Speaker 1: Zukers had a messed a small fortune robbed from his
Speaker 1: Jewish victims, but he had to leave most of it
Speaker 1: in Latvia when he escapes the Red Army to the
Speaker 1: vest and the remains of the stolen goods had to
Speaker 1: be sold in order to finance the long escape route
Speaker 1: from Riga to South Paolo. Now, as he studied Sucers home,
Speaker 1: Nero realized that the money and the jewels they were
Speaker 1: long gone. There were no chandeliers or grand pianos here.
Speaker 1: The rooms were modestly furnished, even a little shabby. It
Speaker 1: was a good sign his instincts have been right. The
Speaker 1: butcher introduced me out to his children and to his wife, Milda,
Speaker 1: a thin woman with messy hair. She looked frazzled or
Speaker 1: maybe anxious. Sucers brought me over to a wooden chest,
Speaker 1: and he pulling out medals and ribbons and showing them
Speaker 1: to me O. He was clearly proud of them. Most
Speaker 1: of them were for daring trips to Africa Japan once
Speaker 1: he'd made in the thirties when he was a world
Speaker 1: famous pilot. He was showing me O that he had
Speaker 1: once been somebody. Neo nodded and congratulated Sukers. His eyes
Speaker 1: drifted around the drawer. He spotted a bunch of other medals.
Speaker 1: These ones they were different, They had swastikas on it.
Speaker 1: Clearly they had nothing to do with aviation. This was
Speaker 1: for work Zukers had done during the war. At ze moments,
Speaker 1: I preferred not to think of the activities for which
Speaker 1: Chukos had been a wall did these declarations. Here's how
Speaker 1: Jack Anderson describes getting a similar tour from Zuker's and
Speaker 1: I at some point asked him a question that required
Speaker 1: him to look up some papers or documents, and the
Speaker 1: open the closet. It was by the front door. They
Speaker 1: opened the closet, and they're hanging. In that closet was
Speaker 1: a row of Nazi uniform and all freshly pressed, complete
Speaker 1: with a swastika. He made a big point. I remember
Speaker 1: doing the discussion. He denied the atrocities, which I would
Speaker 1: expected him to, but spoke crudely of Jews, you know,
Speaker 1: us him I'm not a Jew killer, saying it contemptuously,
Speaker 1: as if he wishes he were. And his greatest evidence
Speaker 1: of that was that he had helped a Jewish girl escape.
Speaker 1: And I talked to people about it and they said, yes,
Speaker 1: that's correct. He did help, and there was an obvious ploy,
Speaker 1: so that if he ever got caught, he would This
Speaker 1: was going to be his great excuse, his great justification
Speaker 1: for not having his own neck wrong. What do you mean,
Speaker 1: I'm a Jew killer? I save this girl? And he
Speaker 1: did save this girl, but he killed many others and
Speaker 1: raped many others, but he saved one. I was told
Speaker 1: by the Jews themselves. Yes he didn't save one girl.
Speaker 1: I mean he did that to create an alibi for himself.
Speaker 1: What came next was even more disturbing. Seekers opened another
Speaker 1: drawer and Mio immediately saw guns. There were two pistols. Apperetta,
Speaker 1: a German mauser, and a semi automatic rightful. All the
Speaker 1: evidence that I saw around there checked completely with the
Speaker 1: file that I had, even to the point that it
Speaker 1: made the hair on back of my next stand up.
Speaker 1: It checked completely with him with what was in the
Speaker 1: file in these affidavits, The way he acted his physical appearance,
Speaker 1: where he dressed the pistol in the back of his pocket,
Speaker 1: his his arrogant attitudes is brutal. Ways. He wasn't brutal
Speaker 1: to me. Of course, he wasn't brutal, but he conducted
Speaker 1: himself like a man who would be brutal. I would
Speaker 1: have hated to build his prisoner in that place. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you that his big brutal look of brutal talking.
Speaker 1: So I came away convinced that he was exactly what
Speaker 1: the Jews said. He was just struck me as a
Speaker 1: kind of a guy who would have probably enjoyed kicking
Speaker 1: me around secrets. Was having a good time picking up
Speaker 1: each gun and showing it off. He leaned over to
Speaker 1: Mio and told him he knew how to take good
Speaker 1: care of himself. Meo wondered why Zukers was showing him
Speaker 1: the weapons he was posing as a developer, and Sucris
Speaker 1: was auditioning for a job. It's not as if you
Speaker 1: need an arsenal to sell real estate. Was the butcher
Speaker 1: trying to prove to Meo that he'd once been a soldier?
Speaker 1: Or was it a warning? Maybe Sucres suspected that Meo
Speaker 1: really wasn't who he said he was. Neo couldn't figure
Speaker 1: it out, not yet, but he felt exposed. The lack
Speaker 1: of backup he'd insisted on now seemed foolish. Nia realized
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be easy to eliminate this man. He was
Speaker 1: crafty and suspicious. Suckers brought Meo out to the workshed
Speaker 1: showed him some pictures he developed. He'd taken them from
Speaker 1: his plane, and they covered different areas of the city
Speaker 1: that might be right for investment. After the scare over
Speaker 1: the guns was a positive sign. Showed that Sukers was
Speaker 1: interested in working on the real estate stuff. He was
Speaker 1: hungry and that was a good thing. Afterwards, the family
Speaker 1: sat in the living room. Suckers was talkative, but his
Speaker 1: sons and daughters they were kind of awkward. They didn't
Speaker 1: say a lot. Mean got the sense that the family
Speaker 1: didn't get many visitors. Though some resilience had defended Suckers
Speaker 1: when he was accused of being the Butcher, many others
Speaker 1: they had abandoned him. He'd lost friends, the family seemed
Speaker 1: starved for company. Anton Kouzla Uh was a lifeline. Neil
Speaker 1: could feel how much the Zookers needed a savior. As
Speaker 1: they munched on cake and sip coffee, the kids loosened
Speaker 1: up a bit. They began asking Kunzla about the future.
Speaker 1: He assured them that he was planning big things for Brazil.
Speaker 1: He and his partners were serious about investing and making
Speaker 1: a lot of money there, and their father he was
Speaker 1: part of their big plans. If you're this far into
Speaker 1: the story, we're assuming you're enjoying Hunting the Butcher. If
Speaker 1: you're listening on Apple podcasts, would you be able to
Speaker 1: take a minute to give the show a rating and
Speaker 1: a review. Just find the show's page on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: scrolled down to the section called Ratings and Reviews and
Speaker 1: tap one of those purple stars to give it a rating.
Speaker 1: Then tapped a little purple link that says write a
Speaker 1: review and leave a few words about what you think
Speaker 1: of Hunting the Butcher. It really helps get the word
Speaker 1: out and let other listeners know about the podcast. Much appreciated.
Speaker 1: Now on with the show. Later, he and Zukers drove around.
Speaker 1: They were looking at properties that could become vacation resorts.
Speaker 1: Neo feigned interest, but he was thinking about how to
Speaker 1: get the butcher out of the country. If Zukers had
Speaker 1: shown him the most beautiful plot of land in Brazil,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have cared. He was building trust dependence. Zuker
Speaker 1: says that Kunsla was bored the places he'd shown him
Speaker 1: weren't doing the trick, so he came up with an idea.
Speaker 1: The two of them should take a trip inland away
Speaker 1: from the coast. He told the secret agent they owned
Speaker 1: two plantations there. Maybe they'd be right for MEO's tourism business.
Speaker 1: Neo immediately agreed. It would be like a boy's trip,
Speaker 1: an adventure. They can relax on the way to the plantations,
Speaker 1: they could bond. I should point out here that me
Speaker 1: was violating almost every rule of working undercover, especially when
Speaker 1: your target was as dangerous as the Butcher was. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't surprise Chris Costa. So in many cases you
Speaker 1: are so you're a singleton. You're alone, you don't have
Speaker 1: a backup, you don't have a quick reaction force, you
Speaker 1: don't have the ability to simply call for help. There's
Speaker 1: no switch you can activate that sends a message that
Speaker 1: you're at risk. So this is where you have to
Speaker 1: constantly assess the risk and the amount of risk you're
Speaker 1: willing to accept. Usually, an espionage work, if there's a
Speaker 1: risk your cover will be blown and you'll be exposed.
Speaker 1: You try to keep your interactions to public places that
Speaker 1: are easy to escape from, or where a killer might
Speaker 1: feel reluctant to shoot you, because there could be witnesses.
Speaker 1: So you keep your meeting to the safest places you
Speaker 1: can think of, not plantations out in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: Saucers was proposing going into the back country, the two
Speaker 1: of them alone. It was super risky. If Mio had
Speaker 1: passed the idea by his boss, your reeve, you probably
Speaker 1: would have said no. But your read was thousands of
Speaker 1: miles away and Mia was flying solo. He agreed to go.
Speaker 1: Meo could see that Sucers was starting to dream about
Speaker 1: the future, to get excited. That's what Mio wanted. In
Speaker 1: the morning, Meal's first stop was to a sporting goods store.
Speaker 1: He felt strange about going with Suckers into the jungle unarmed,
Speaker 1: so he bought a small knife. He would have preferred
Speaker 1: a gun or something more lethal, but he couldn't conceal
Speaker 1: a gun, so he had this thing that was really
Speaker 1: a glorified pen knife. Most massad agents would laugh at
Speaker 1: such a weapon. What are you going to do with that?
Speaker 1: But it was the best Meal could think of. When
Speaker 1: Mea arrived at Suker's house, the butcher emerged carrying supplies,
Speaker 1: canned food and other things, and his other hand was
Speaker 1: a long bag. Meio knew what that was and he froze.
Speaker 1: It was the rifle he'd seen the day before. Why
Speaker 1: was the butcher bringing a long gun to the jungle,
Speaker 1: Neil began to get nervous. There was one other detail
Speaker 1: he worried about. On the drive to the plantations, he
Speaker 1: like most Jewish men, was circumcised, but his cover was
Speaker 1: an Austrian businessman, and Austrian most likely wouldn't be circumcised.
Speaker 1: So how would Mio explain if the two of them
Speaker 1: went to take a leak in jungle and Suckers glanced over?
Speaker 1: He had to prepare for everything. He decided to tell
Speaker 1: the butcher that he'd gotten the sexually transmitted disease during
Speaker 1: the war, and that doctors had performed in operation. Soldiers
Speaker 1: were always getting syphilis and things like that. They could
Speaker 1: laugh about it, reminisce about the war. Maybe it would work.
Speaker 1: The long trip to the plantations would also give Zukers
Speaker 1: a chance to see if they were being tailed. If
Speaker 1: Mio had people following him, some kind of a backup team,
Speaker 1: they would be exposed on the deserted roads. At least
Speaker 1: for now, MEO's decision to come to Brazil solo look smart.
Speaker 1: It was hot, a typical Brazilian day. Finally they drove
Speaker 1: up to the first plantation. It was disappointing, a small
Speaker 1: plot of land, not much to look at. Meo shook
Speaker 1: his head. There was nothing out here. Why would Sukers
Speaker 1: think this would be a good spot for an expensive resort.
Speaker 1: It had been a waste of time. They got back
Speaker 1: in the car and headed to the second place. This
Speaker 1: one it was much more promising, a huge farm with
Speaker 1: thousands of banana trees, the leaves swaying in the breeze.
Speaker 1: It was pretty impressive. Actually, at least there was room
Speaker 1: for a hotel and maybe a swimming pool. It might
Speaker 1: work as a tourist destination. There was one other thing.
Speaker 1: The place was completely deserted, like not a soul in sight.
Speaker 1: Neo parked the car and got out. Zukers did too.
Speaker 1: Then he reached back in and grabbed the rifle. Zukers
Speaker 1: asked me to take a short walk. He pointed to
Speaker 1: a small path leading to an uncultivated area full of
Speaker 1: trees and tall bushes and tells me it leads to
Speaker 1: a small river swarming with crocodiles. Meal appeared perfectly calm,
Speaker 1: but inside he was tense. Something was very wrong. Clearly
Speaker 1: the trip wasn't about real estate ventures or plots of land.
Speaker 1: You could dismiss bringing a rifle along. Leave the plantations
Speaker 1: had wild animals. But the butcher wasn't even trying to
Speaker 1: talk up the place as a tourist destination. He was
Speaker 1: up to something else. Suckers had brought him here to
Speaker 1: see if Kula really was who said he was. I
Speaker 1: knew that Zukers was observing my reactions closely, and hastened
Speaker 1: to accept tiso without any hesitation. They walked down the
Speaker 1: path and stopped at a small clearing, where Sukers took
Speaker 1: the rifle out of the bag. Suckers asked me, oh
Speaker 1: for shooting match. If he'd really been on the Eastern Front,
Speaker 1: he should know how to shoot along gu Sucers pointing
Speaker 1: to a tree about fifty yards away. There was a
Speaker 1: metal plate nailed to the trunk that would be the target.
Speaker 1: You're being led in the jungle to shoot with a
Speaker 1: guy that you know has already killed people with his
Speaker 1: own hands. Is this yet again? Are you being tricked
Speaker 1: and manipulated by somebody that certainly was vicious and displayed
Speaker 1: viciousness during World War Two and a propensity to kill
Speaker 1: people All of a sudden, You're alone on some plantation.
Speaker 1: Is this a setup? Are you going to be killed?
Speaker 1: I had no doubt in my mind that the shooting
Speaker 1: competition was no spoiler of the moment idea. It was
Speaker 1: a well planned move by Zukers, intended to put me
Speaker 1: to the test and maybe even beyond it. Mio also
Speaker 1: realized that if it came to a fight, his little
Speaker 1: pocket knife wasn't going to be much use. Zukers loaded
Speaker 1: ten bullets into the rifle and sighted the plate hanging
Speaker 1: on the tree. He let off ten shots, one right
Speaker 1: after the other. You could tell he knew how to
Speaker 1: handle a gun. He shot fast, with the expertise that
Speaker 1: comes from experience, a large part of which had been
Speaker 1: the clad by shooting naked and petrofied Jews in the
Speaker 1: head in the Valley of the Dead in Rombula Forest.
Speaker 1: The Rambola forest was the place near Riga where the
Speaker 1: Nazis had murdered twenty five thousand Jews in the winter
Speaker 1: of Suker. Shots all hit their target within two inch radius.
Speaker 1: He'd done well. He handed the rifle to Mio. I
Speaker 1: could see out of the corner of my eye how
Speaker 1: he followed my every move, waiting to find out whether
Speaker 1: I was an imposta. I had to reach military best.
Speaker 1: From the minute I had taken this mission upon myself,
Speaker 1: Anton kuns had become an inseparable part of me. Meo
Speaker 1: pulled the trigger again and again. When he was finished,
Speaker 1: the two men walked towards the tree. Me was praying,
Speaker 1: you'd at the target. When they studied the plate, it
Speaker 1: turned out that meal shots were clustered in the center.
Speaker 1: He'd done even better than Zukers. The butcher seemed excited.
Speaker 1: He cried out, way to go and slap me on
Speaker 1: the shoulder. Like many soldiers, he placed a lot of
Speaker 1: weight on whether a man could shoot a gun. I
Speaker 1: us almost completely convinced I was all right. As of
Speaker 1: that moment, It's the atmosphere between us became much lighter,
Speaker 1: as if the shooting match was some male ritual of
Speaker 1: the two former comrades and alms in the service of
Speaker 1: the fuer Hi. This is Stephen Talty, host of Good
Speaker 1: Assassins Hunting the Butcher. The folks that helped me bring
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Speaker 1: test was over Meo he passed. The two men walked
Speaker 1: back along the path. As he went, Leo felt a
Speaker 1: sharp jab in his foot. A nail had gone through
Speaker 1: the bottom of his boot and pierced the skin. He
Speaker 1: sat down, took off the boot and looked at the cut.
Speaker 1: Seekers was standing above him holding the stock of the rifle.
Speaker 1: Suddenly he handed the gun to Meo and told him
Speaker 1: to pound the nail down so it wouldn't cut him again.
Speaker 1: The magazine in the canvas loaded van bullet in his
Speaker 1: head at the point BLANKO inch another bulletins are hot
Speaker 1: to ascertain death and the mission is complete, they thought.
Speaker 1: By the time they find them hearing this remote corners about,
Speaker 1: I should be long on to Europe. Do you decide
Speaker 1: that you're going to take this mission in your own hands?
Speaker 1: And despite the plan that you're developing, are you going
Speaker 1: to kill this guy? It was tempting, but in the
Speaker 1: end he couldn't do it. The butcher had to die
Speaker 1: in a certain way, almost a ceremonial way, for the
Speaker 1: mission to succeed. The team had to read a verdict
Speaker 1: out and this had to happen in the country that
Speaker 1: wouldn't endanger Jews. It was just too soon, and it
Speaker 1: took an incredible amount of discipline. But intelligence officers always
Speaker 1: have to keep in mind that they have a plan.
Speaker 1: There's a logic for that plant. Who could have known
Speaker 1: that you would end up on a plantation alone with
Speaker 1: no help, shooting a weapon with the target of your
Speaker 1: later assassination him. So the amount of discipline and courage
Speaker 1: it took to to not use that weapon when you
Speaker 1: had it in your hand while you're executing a target practice.
Speaker 1: The amount of discipline I took him not to end
Speaker 1: the mission right then and there is extraordinary. Neil pounded
Speaker 1: down the nail. He got up. The two made their
Speaker 1: way back to the caretaker's hut. Were sukers, fixed dinner
Speaker 1: from the camed food he brought. Darkness had closed in
Speaker 1: and they sat on their camp beds, getting ready to sleep.
Speaker 1: Neil was thinking of the past. I remember Tuesday's day,
Speaker 1: the moments of the pouture from my family and hometown,
Speaker 1: and the whistle of the train as it slowly rolled
Speaker 1: out of the main station, adorned with dozens of huge
Speaker 1: Nazi flags. It still rings in my ears. My parents
Speaker 1: stood on the platform and raved goodbye to the fifteen,
Speaker 1: the old sound traveling on his way to a far
Speaker 1: off land. At that moment, I felt I was cutting
Speaker 1: myself off from everything Chong, preparing to become a proud
Speaker 1: Jew in the land of Israel. I could not help
Speaker 1: but to think of my family exterminated by murder. Was
Speaker 1: similar to the man who said less than a meter
Speaker 1: away from me from testimonies, I guessed. After the war,
Speaker 1: I learned that my father died in Tisan stat in May.
Speaker 1: A short while afterwards, my mother was transported to Auschwitz, where,
Speaker 1: together with millions of other Jews, she was murdered by
Speaker 1: the Nazis, who were assisted by monsters like Suckers. Now
Speaker 1: the butcher was only a few is away. It felt
Speaker 1: surreal to Meo and an odd way. Suckers was a
Speaker 1: kind of connection to Mio's own family. Suckers had been
Speaker 1: there in the middle of the action. He had been
Speaker 1: close enough to touch the Jewish men and women as
Speaker 1: they were marched to the death pits. I wonder if
Speaker 1: Mio was asking himself the same questions I've been asking
Speaker 1: for the past three years. Why had Suckers done it?
Speaker 1: Why had he betrayed those people? Mio had the ultimate
Speaker 1: chance to get the answer straight from a Nazi. The
Speaker 1: guy was sitting right there next to him. But Mio,
Speaker 1: when he recalled that moment later on, didn't talk about motives.
Speaker 1: He just seemed to accept that Suckers was evil or
Speaker 1: just responsible. The why didn't seem to bother him. He
Speaker 1: wanted to kill the butcher, not psychoanalyze him. That bothers me.
Speaker 1: To be honest, is it pointless to ask why Zukers
Speaker 1: became a killer? If MEO felt satisfied that he understood
Speaker 1: the butcher, maybe I should be too. But after thinking
Speaker 1: about it, I can't agree. Saying Zukers had done evil
Speaker 1: things wasn't the same as saying that he was a
Speaker 1: pent evil. There has to be a way to get
Speaker 1: closer to his actual reasons for doing what he did.
Speaker 1: The moment passed, Niel saw Zukers slip a pistol under
Speaker 1: his pillow. There wasn't anyone around for miles, but the
Speaker 1: butcher was still on his card. Hours later, in the
Speaker 1: darkness of the small hut, he woke up. He saw
Speaker 1: Zuker standing up and taking the gun from underneath the pillow.
Speaker 1: My heart started to race. What was he doing? What's
Speaker 1: to be on the safe side. I grabbed my personal weapon.
Speaker 1: It's a poor small pocket knife I had purchased in
Speaker 1: South Boodo. Zukers turned and walked outside. He was just
Speaker 1: going to take a leak with his gun. It was
Speaker 1: almost comical to me. I could not believe the butcher
Speaker 1: expected an ambush in the middle of the Brazilian jungle.
Speaker 1: How much harder would it be to assassinate him in
Speaker 1: a foreign country when his paranoia was sure to be
Speaker 1: even more pumped up. I'm sure Mio had the same thoughts.
Speaker 1: Zukers was going to make the kidnapping of Ada Kman
Speaker 1: look easy. When I spoke to get sh Imran, the
Speaker 1: Massot agent who knew me O, he commented on this,
Speaker 1: no doubt that Meal was aware that course is not
Speaker 1: an easy target. Of course was suspicious. He was aware
Speaker 1: that he is on the wanted list of some of
Speaker 1: the survivors of the Holocaust. And he I mean, first
Speaker 1: of all, his awls looked like a like a wild wist,
Speaker 1: fortifications like al aloid. He had guns at home, the
Speaker 1: dog bobbed wires, Etceteraight off. It was very, very suspicious
Speaker 1: of anybody trying to get too close. Socus from time
Speaker 1: to time expressed his suspicious that something is wrong with
Speaker 1: this nice off them businessman or boat of lore appeared
Speaker 1: in like life with the promises for golden future and
Speaker 1: excellent business and as we know so was still the
Speaker 1: last moment, was not fully sure that the meal is kosher.
Speaker 1: Sorry for using this Jewish word in this case. Finally
Speaker 1: Mia went to sleep. He couldn't solve the puzzle yet.
Speaker 1: He had to get closer to this Nazi. He needed
Speaker 1: more time. He felt he and Sukers had made a
Speaker 1: kind of breakthrough in the jungle. The guy trusted Kunzla,
Speaker 1: or at least it felt like he trusted him, but
Speaker 1: he was about to find out that Bond was fragile.
Speaker 1: The Butcher, as it turned out, was hunting Meo as
Speaker 1: much as Meo was hunting him. Good assassins. Hunting the
Speaker 1: Butcher is a production of Diversion Podcasts in association with
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. This season is written and hosted by
Speaker 1: Stephen Tulting, produced and directed by Scott Waxman and Jacob Bronstein.
Speaker 1: Executive producers Scott Waxman and Mark Francis. Story editing by
Speaker 1: Jacob Bronstein, with editorial direction from Scott Waxman and mangesh
Speaker 1: At Ticket or editing, mixing and sound designed by Mark
Speaker 1: Francis with the voices of Nick Avka Thomas Amrie, Angele
Speaker 1: Andrew Polk, Mindy Escobar, Leants, Steve Rautman, and Stefan Rudnitsky.
Speaker 1: Theme music by Tyler Cash. Archival research by Adam Shapiro,
Speaker 1: thanks to Oran Rosenbaum at you d A. A special
Speaker 1: thank you to Kevin Anderson and the Anderson family for
Speaker 1: permission to use the Jack Anderson recording, Leah Richardson and
Speaker 1: the Special Collections Research Center at George Washington University Library
Speaker 1: in ron Saw diversion