Speaker 1: Diversion podcasts. A note this episode contains descriptions of graphic
Speaker 1: violence and scenes of genocide. Listener's discretion is advised. Herbert
Speaker 1: Zuker's The Butcher of Latvia, had made a terrible mistake.
Speaker 1: He'd agreed to be profiled in a major Brazilian magazine, Okrauzero.
Speaker 1: The article called from the Baltics to Brazil hit newsstands.
Speaker 1: J I wanted to talk to someone who could put
Speaker 1: this article in context for me, someone who could explain
Speaker 1: Zuker's popularity and has adopted home of Brazil. I am
Speaker 1: Dr saraphile To. I am a visiting assistant professor currently
Speaker 1: at the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies at the University
Speaker 1: of Texas at Dallas. Dr Valenti studies the legacy of
Speaker 1: World War Two in the Holocaust in Brazil. In other words,
Speaker 1: she definitely studies Herbert Sukers. I asked Dr Valenti about
Speaker 1: this magazine article. Suckers allowed himself to be interviewed for
Speaker 1: She explained how it completely whitewashes Zuker's Nazi passed. The
Speaker 1: article talks about the family story, how they were poor
Speaker 1: war refugees. It identifies them as war refugees who all
Speaker 1: of the sudden four years are not massively successful. It
Speaker 1: talks about his beautiful Arian children literally against the backdrop
Speaker 1: of the famous sugirl of mountains of Rio de Janato,
Speaker 1: and this article really praises him and how quickly it says,
Speaker 1: you know, a family from Latvia flees from the horrors
Speaker 1: of war lands in Rio on Carnival Sunday, sells a
Speaker 1: small camera and rebuilds their future. It was five pages long,
Speaker 1: and it showed the beautiful life that the Zuker's family
Speaker 1: had carved out for themselves since leaving Latvia and settling
Speaker 1: in Rio. The Zookers, they look like actors in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties speech movie. One of the things that really resonates,
Speaker 1: especially when we see the descriptions of the children and
Speaker 1: the photographs of the children, especially the photograph of the daughter.
Speaker 1: She has this kind of little bikini top on and
Speaker 1: she's this beautiful girl with blond hair. The family is quite,
Speaker 1: you know, physically, esthetically speaking, beautiful, right. There is something
Speaker 1: that is desirable about their look, their ability to raise
Speaker 1: themselves up, and they're great contributions to the country. And
Speaker 1: the description is very much this idea of you know,
Speaker 1: these are the kinds of people we want in this country.
Speaker 1: Herbert Sukers came across as a go getter who built
Speaker 1: up a nice business from nothing. He is described as
Speaker 1: this embodiment of tenacity, this very industrious man who is
Speaker 1: bringing new type of technology for water skiing, which is
Speaker 1: something that Brazilians had only seen in films at that time,
Speaker 1: and here he is creating this kind of new recreational sport.
Speaker 1: But the article went further. It said that Zukers should
Speaker 1: be an inspiration. Here was a guy who would face
Speaker 1: war and exile, gone through extreme poverty, and yet was
Speaker 1: succeeding when all seems lost. The story read the human
Speaker 1: species can find within itself the same energies and ability
Speaker 1: to forget the past and reshape its own destiny. It
Speaker 1: was such a great story. Who was going to prove
Speaker 1: it wrong? Well? By this time, years after World War Two,
Speaker 1: it was a small group of Nazi hunters who were
Speaker 1: on Suckers trail. They knew he was a monster, but
Speaker 1: they had to prove bit. What if they announced the
Speaker 1: world that they'd located the statistic killer, the Butcher of Latvia,
Speaker 1: and then found out it was the wrong guy. It
Speaker 1: would set the entire cause back, would be a blow
Speaker 1: to Jewish activists everywhere, It would be a disaster. They
Speaker 1: had to be right. I'm Stephen Talty and this is
Speaker 1: good assassin's hunting the butcher. So the first was so
Speaker 1: fine and not end moving forwards, rival the second promine
Speaker 1: and large killing. We must thwart this shameful pass, the
Speaker 1: end of a trail of blood and horror, the end
Speaker 1: of a man whose name will be written in information
Speaker 1: every step but to be closer to Joker stock And
Speaker 1: it was the inevitive, be face to face and counts.
Speaker 1: Episode three, The Man of one Hundred Identities. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you're a fan of the nine movie Marathon Man,
Speaker 1: but it's one of my favorites. It's about an escape
Speaker 1: Nazi played by the famous British actor Lawrence Olivier, who
Speaker 1: comes to New York years after the war to retrieve
Speaker 1: some diamonds. Of course, he's terrified being discovered and arrested
Speaker 1: or even killed, so he goes to great lengths to
Speaker 1: ensure that he won't be identified. There's a famous scene
Speaker 1: where Olivier's character tortures the young Dustin Hoffman, who plays
Speaker 1: the brother of a ci age. The Nazi asked him
Speaker 1: over and over, is it safe? Is it safe? It's
Speaker 1: one of the great thriller scenes. If you haven't watched it,
Speaker 1: you owe it to yourself to check it out. But
Speaker 1: Marathon Man also makes an interesting point that relates to
Speaker 1: our story. Why is this escaped Nazi character so afraid
Speaker 1: of exposing himself? In part, it's because he's in New
Speaker 1: York City and he has to go to the neighborhood
Speaker 1: known as the Diamond District. The Diamond District is where
Speaker 1: thousands of Jewish merchants work even today. In the seventies,
Speaker 1: which is when the movie set, it would have been
Speaker 1: hundreds of Holocaust survivors there. That's why Olivier's character is
Speaker 1: afraid because in a time before the Internet or Google
Speaker 1: or social media, the best way of identifying an escape
Speaker 1: Nazi was through an eye witness, someone who knew him,
Speaker 1: someone who could recognize him. For Nazi on the run,
Speaker 1: New York was one of the most dangerous cities in
Speaker 1: the world because people there would remember his face and
Speaker 1: those people do all the terrible things he'd done. So
Speaker 1: in the vie, the Nazi gets the Diamonds and he's
Speaker 1: walking down the street. He's feeling good. Then an older
Speaker 1: woman spots him. She can't believe what she's seeing, this
Speaker 1: monster actually right in front of her. It's like a
Speaker 1: memory from a different world. She starts screaming his name.
Speaker 1: She follows him, shouting and calling for help, and he
Speaker 1: almost gets caught. But this is the difference between the
Speaker 1: Diamond District in New York City and Rio, where Zukers
Speaker 1: was living at the time. There was a significant Jewish
Speaker 1: community in Rio, some of whom Zukers had already met,
Speaker 1: but very few Holocaust survivors and almost none from Latvia.
Speaker 1: From seven to nineteen fifty, Brazil had a secret policy
Speaker 1: that denied visas to Jews fleeing Hitler. It turned away
Speaker 1: sixteen thousand requests Jewish refugees who wanted to immigrate there.
Speaker 1: The reason simple anti Semitism. This secret policy cut down
Speaker 1: on the numbers who eventually were able to make it
Speaker 1: to Brazil. That's why the magazine article was such a mistake,
Speaker 1: because Okra zero was distributed far and wide, not only
Speaker 1: in Brazil but across South America, and the right people
Speaker 1: saw it. Or from Zuker's point of view, the wrong people.
Speaker 1: But before Zukers could be placed on a list, and
Speaker 1: before Massad and Mio could begin to track him down,
Speaker 1: zukers pursuers had to be sure he was the right guy.
Speaker 1: Was this really the Butcher of Latvia? Maybe there was
Speaker 1: another Herbert Sukers. We had nothing to do with the Nazis.
Speaker 1: Maybe he was innocent. That was problem number one. Problem
Speaker 1: number two had to do with other people. By the
Speaker 1: early fifties, the world was starting to lose interests in
Speaker 1: Nazi war criminals. The few survivors and activists who saw
Speaker 1: the magazine article and thought this might be the Butcher
Speaker 1: contacted the authorities. They wrote the British Foreign Office, who
Speaker 1: had prosecuted war criminals from Latvia. The British basically blew
Speaker 1: them off. The Cold War was underway, the Brits needed
Speaker 1: the Germans as allies. They were tired of the whole
Speaker 1: issue of the Holocaust. They wanted to move on. There
Speaker 1: were a small group of Jewish activists who didn't want
Speaker 1: to move on. They couldn't forget what they'd seen during
Speaker 1: the war. They dedicated their lives to finding people like
Speaker 1: the Butcher. These men and women were scattered around the
Speaker 1: globe New York, Vienna, Tel Aviv. A few of them
Speaker 1: were famous. Simon Wiesenthal, the legendary Nazi hunter, was the
Speaker 1: most famous. That many were anonymous. Beginning in the mid
Speaker 1: nineteen forties, they spent their time writing letters to survivors,
Speaker 1: poring over archives, searching for clues. One committee of these
Speaker 1: Nazi hunters tried to get the Russians interested in the butcher.
Speaker 1: After all, Russia had taken over lab Via after the war,
Speaker 1: surely they would do something. But the Russians said that
Speaker 1: the nation of Latvia no longer existed, so they couldn't
Speaker 1: prosecute anyone who committed crimes there. They washed their hands
Speaker 1: of the whole deal. So even if the Nazi hunters
Speaker 1: proved this guy in Brazil was the butcher, so what
Speaker 1: who was going to do something about it? The hunters
Speaker 1: decided to cross that bridge when they got to it.
Speaker 1: First they had to I D. Suckers confirmed he was
Speaker 1: the butcher. Then they would find someone to do something
Speaker 1: about it. But again, no Google, no camera phones, how
Speaker 1: do you confirm this is the guy? So this is
Speaker 1: how they did it. Step one, they had to get
Speaker 1: photos of Herbert Suckers before the war. That was the
Speaker 1: starting point. But how a young man named Joseph Schneider
Speaker 1: went to the central Library in Riga, the capital of Latvia.
Speaker 1: We don't know a lot about Schneider. He may have
Speaker 1: been part of a Nazi hunter network, or he may
Speaker 1: have been asked to do a favor for a friend.
Speaker 1: In any case, he went to the aviation section and
Speaker 1: started going through the newspaper archives. This was Herbert Suckers
Speaker 1: Achilles Heel. Most Nazis had been anonymous before the war,
Speaker 1: but Suckers had been a publicity hound. He loved the attention,
Speaker 1: so the young researcher started coming across articles on this
Speaker 1: brilliant young aviator. And along with the articles were photos.
Speaker 1: Here's Herbert Suckers in a leather coat. Is one of
Speaker 1: him in profile, smiling and smiling in a plane outside
Speaker 1: the plane. There were tons of pictures. Great, but one problem.
Speaker 1: There were no xerox machines, not only in the regal
Speaker 1: library but anywhere. They weren't on the market yet, and
Speaker 1: the photos had to be copied so they could be
Speaker 1: compared to ones with the guy in rio. Schneider knew this.
Speaker 1: He came prepared. In his hand, he held a small
Speaker 1: razor blade, and when the librarian wasn't looking, he bent
Speaker 1: down and started cutting first one article, then the next.
Speaker 1: He chose the ones with the clearest photos, and when
Speaker 1: he was done, he brought the bomb newspapers back to
Speaker 1: the desk. Then he walked out. In his pocket was
Speaker 1: the crucial evidence. Okay, step one was a success. They
Speaker 1: had a baseline photos of the man they knew to
Speaker 1: be Herbert Suckers. Now they needed pictures of the guy
Speaker 1: in Rio. If the two matched, they had their man.
Speaker 1: This part was a little harder. The Nazi hunters wrote
Speaker 1: their contexts. In Brazil, a young man named Victor that's
Speaker 1: all we know about him his first name, agreed to
Speaker 1: try to get a current photo of Zukers. He went
Speaker 1: to the dock where the man from the magazine article
Speaker 1: was working. He asked the guy, who was wearing an
Speaker 1: old captain's hat, if you could take him and his
Speaker 1: friend on a boat tour of the lake. The man agreed,
Speaker 1: so Victor and his friend and this man who was
Speaker 1: maybe Herbert Suckers got into the boat. Victory had brought
Speaker 1: along a camera, naturally, and he started taking shots of
Speaker 1: the scenery, water, skiers, sailors, he clicked whenever he saw
Speaker 1: something interesting, and then he turned and tried to get
Speaker 1: a shot of the mystery man and the captain sat
Speaker 1: but no, the guy was jumpy. Whenever Victor pointed the
Speaker 1: camera in his direction, he would duck down, or turn
Speaker 1: his head or look away. Victor could not believe it.
Speaker 1: He was taking all these photos and he hadn't gotten
Speaker 1: a single decent shot of the guy. He always tried
Speaker 1: to hide his face, he later said. Finally, Victor took
Speaker 1: a few last shots as the boat returned to the dock.
Speaker 1: Once he had left the marina, Victor brought the roles
Speaker 1: of film to be developed, and he waited. When the
Speaker 1: photos were ready, he picked them up and they were
Speaker 1: pretty much as he thought, disappointing, but he sent them
Speaker 1: off to the Nazi hunters anyway. He said if they
Speaker 1: weren't good enough, he'd go back to the dock, this
Speaker 1: time with a movie camera. The Nazi hunters got the photos,
Speaker 1: he sorted through them and found one they thought might work.
Speaker 1: It showed and Supers in profile as he was ducking
Speaker 1: down to avoid the camera. Not ideal, but worth a shot.
Speaker 1: The team took Victor's photo and put it next to
Speaker 1: one from the Regal Library, and they compared. Within a
Speaker 1: few minutes they had an answer. The man in the
Speaker 1: Captain's hat and the Latvian Lindburg were the same man.
Speaker 1: They found the Butcher of Latvia. M h. If you're
Speaker 1: this far into the story, we're assuming you're enjoying Hunting
Speaker 1: the Butcher. If you're listening on Apple podcasts, would you
Speaker 1: be able to take a minute to give the show
Speaker 1: a rating and a review. Just find the show's page
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, scrolled down to the section called Ratings
Speaker 1: and Reviews and tap one of those purple stars to
Speaker 1: give it a rating. Then tapped a little purple link
Speaker 1: that says write a review and leave a few words
Speaker 1: about what you think of Hunting the Butcher. It really
Speaker 1: helps get the word out and let other listeners know
Speaker 1: about the podcast. Much appreciated. Now on with the show,
Speaker 1: an organization called the World Jewish Congress announced that the
Speaker 1: Butcher of Latvia had been found was living in Brazil,
Speaker 1: and despite the growing indifference towards the hunt for Nazis,
Speaker 1: it had an effect. There were headlines in Brazilian newspapers.
Speaker 1: Sucre's business was ruined. He had to move several times
Speaker 1: to avoid angry protesters. Eventually he ended up in the
Speaker 1: city of sal Paolo, running another small boat rental business.
Speaker 1: This was not what Sucers had imagined for himself. His
Speaker 1: dreams of building a glorious new life in Brazil. They've
Speaker 1: been shattered. The Jews had seen to that. He was bitter, paranoid,
Speaker 1: and lonely, but he was still free. The efforts of
Speaker 1: the Nazi hunters had failed. They tried to get governments
Speaker 1: around the world to pay attention. They'd lobbied Brazil to
Speaker 1: deport him. They'd asked America and Great Britain get involved.
Speaker 1: Nothing had worked. So in the mid sixties, Zukers was
Speaker 1: holding his own He still hoped for a grand third
Speaker 1: act of his life. He believed in himself. He just
Speaker 1: had to convince the world that he'd been misunderstood in
Speaker 1: order to get all the fame and the money back.
Speaker 1: That was the dream. We found some incredible tapes from
Speaker 1: a man named Jack Anderson. Anderson was a legendary and
Speaker 1: controversial investigative reporter who died in two thousand five. Anderson's
Speaker 1: papers resided at George Washington University, and his personal archive
Speaker 1: of recordings have just recently been on sealed. This will
Speaker 1: be the first time anyone has heard these tapes, and
Speaker 1: they're striking. I'm an American newspaper man that just want
Speaker 1: to be interested in talking to some of these Nazis
Speaker 1: and hearing their side of the story. Anderson traveled to
Speaker 1: Brazil in nineteen sixty to track down Nazi fugitives for
Speaker 1: an article he eventually published in Parade magazine, and that
Speaker 1: was his cover. Occurred to me that if they found Aikman,
Speaker 1: there are probably other war criminals down there in hiding.
Speaker 1: In fact, I knew there were other war criminals, and
Speaker 1: I thought it might even be possible to find a few.
Speaker 1: And I thought it would be a great story for Parade.
Speaker 1: So told Parade I was gonna go down and look
Speaker 1: for him. It sounds unbelievable to just hop on a
Speaker 1: plane and go interview Nazis, but Anderson was good at
Speaker 1: his job, and he met a crucial contact at the
Speaker 1: airport immediately upon his arrival. I felt that there was
Speaker 1: a stroke of luck, and if I do say so myself,
Speaker 1: good reporting that I got him in a hurry. I
Speaker 1: just sold him on the idea that I was a
Speaker 1: friendly newspaper man who would like to talk to some
Speaker 1: of them. He got talking, he explained how they operated. Mario,
Speaker 1: as I remember, was his name. His first name you're
Speaker 1: taking wasn't his real name. He had taken on a
Speaker 1: Brazilian name, had been a major in the s s
Speaker 1: and Uh was living a different life now as a
Speaker 1: airline employee. This lower level management guy, Anderson wanted a
Speaker 1: big exclusive and he came prepared. Before his trip. He
Speaker 1: contacted Simon Wiesenthal, and Visenthal sent him reams of research
Speaker 1: on all the Nazi fugitives he thought might be living there.
Speaker 1: But Anderson was focused, and he made a list of
Speaker 1: the most infamous Nazis still at large. He wanted to
Speaker 1: find the next Aikman, and this man he was sitting with,
Speaker 1: Mario seemed to know them all. Told me about Mangle.
Speaker 1: He knew all about Mangley, but he said after the
Speaker 1: kidnapping him Mangley was in Buenos Aires in Argentina, and
Speaker 1: new right where he was said that he had fled
Speaker 1: though after the Aikemen kidnapping. That was after the big ones,
Speaker 1: and and he wasn't very helpful on any of the
Speaker 1: big ones. They were either inaccessible or they had disappeared
Speaker 1: after the Aikman had scared them all into hiding. He
Speaker 1: said that they had a ring of a rather loose
Speaker 1: association of kind of co conspirators, people who were in
Speaker 1: the same boat and therefore helped one another. And then
Speaker 1: he told me about He said they had hideout deep
Speaker 1: in Brazil where they would go when they felt threatened
Speaker 1: when they were on the run. Anderson was hitting a
Speaker 1: wall after the very high profile kidnapping and trial of Aikman.
Speaker 1: Ex Nazis were more paranoid than ever. After all, they
Speaker 1: weren't hiding. It made sense that they wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: talk to a quote unquote American newspaperman, no matter how
Speaker 1: friendly he claimed to be. But there was this one
Speaker 1: Nazi Mario brought up who sounded different from the rest.
Speaker 1: This Nazi wasn't on Anderson's radar and his name didn't
Speaker 1: even ring a bell. That led him to tell me
Speaker 1: about Suckers, who had three seaplanes on the lake outside
Speaker 1: of South Apollo. He said he ran his sightseeing business there,
Speaker 1: but he said he's very useful to us because he
Speaker 1: can fly our people into the interior. So Suckers was
Speaker 1: a guy who flew who was a key guy in
Speaker 1: their operation, and if they needed quick because somebody needed
Speaker 1: a fast getaway into the interior Brazil, he would fly
Speaker 1: them into the seaplane. And apparently there were a series
Speaker 1: of lakes that he knew where to land on. He
Speaker 1: said Zookers was still operating, because Zookers was a lesser
Speaker 1: war criminal, although much of a war criminal. Anderson made
Speaker 1: a mental note of the unusual name and reced back
Speaker 1: to his hotel to come through the research feast and
Speaker 1: Thal had given him. So I looked through these files,
Speaker 1: and happily I had a file on him. So I
Speaker 1: went over his file and decided he was a pretty
Speaker 1: bad son of the bits. The file I remember described
Speaker 1: how he on one occasion had locked Jews in a
Speaker 1: synagogue and then set it on fire and just burned
Speaker 1: him alive in a synagogue. They told about Jews leaving
Speaker 1: in these big fat blue busses for the forest, and
Speaker 1: then they busses came back empty. So the assumption was
Speaker 1: that he was slaughtering him. And he was described in
Speaker 1: some of the Affi Davits. I saw three or four
Speaker 1: descriptions of him, and they were all this consistent. They
Speaker 1: described it as a big, stocky fellow who always wore
Speaker 1: out a leather jack and always carried his pistol in
Speaker 1: his back pocket. It was just curious place to carry
Speaker 1: a pistol. And anyhow, he was brutal. They said that
Speaker 1: he was. One of his favorite pastimes was bursting in
Speaker 1: a Jews who had beautiful daughters twelve and one in
Speaker 1: the morning, and and HollyHood daughters off for his own
Speaker 1: pleasure and that kind of stuff. He was really and ugly, vicious,
Speaker 1: main son of a bitch. And so I said to Morrow,
Speaker 1: can you get through to him? Yes, he said he could.
Speaker 1: I said, would you arrange for me to go see him?
Speaker 1: Tell him that I I just want to talk to
Speaker 1: him about his story, the harassment that he's under in
Speaker 1: that sort of made it sound as friendly as I could.
Speaker 1: Got the word back that he had agreed to see
Speaker 1: me later. I'll tell you about what Anderson encountered when
Speaker 1: he went to meet with Sukers. But meanwhile, Israel was
Speaker 1: focused on South America too, and the Nazi fugitives hiding
Speaker 1: out there. The Israeli government kept a list of important
Speaker 1: Nazi criminals who had escaped justice. We don't know how
Speaker 1: many people were on it, but we do know a
Speaker 1: few of the more famous names. At A Bikman, one
Speaker 1: of the main architects of the Holocaust. The Massad captured
Speaker 1: him in nineteen sixty. He was put on trial and
Speaker 1: then executed two years later. Doctor Joseph Mengela, known as
Speaker 1: the Angel of Death, who had murdered Jewish children at
Speaker 1: Auschwitz and had conducted ghastly experiments on Jewish prisoners, was
Speaker 1: high up on the list, and after the article appeared
Speaker 1: in the Brazilian magazine Zuker's had made it too. In
Speaker 1: the early nineties sixties, the Israelis became concerned about a
Speaker 1: possible amnesty for Nazis. Remember, the German government was seriously
Speaker 1: considering giving a free pass to Nazi murderers who hadn't
Speaker 1: been indicted yet. The Israelis wanted to stop this from
Speaker 1: happening at all costs, and they had decided to go
Speaker 1: after a Nazi. A few months later, Armissad agent Mio
Speaker 1: was in Paris getting ready to assume the role of
Speaker 1: a lifetime He had left the apartment after his meeting
Speaker 1: with his boss, convinced that the mission was justified. He
Speaker 1: had target. Now he had to prepare to meet him,
Speaker 1: to befriend him. It's kind of a seduction. Mio had
Speaker 1: played his part to four a missions that made history.
Speaker 1: He was in Argentina for the most famous Massad operation
Speaker 1: of all, the nineteen six kidnapping of Adolf Aikman, one
Speaker 1: of the senior organizers of the Nazi Holocaust. Neo had
Speaker 1: flown to South America, rented the cars the team used
Speaker 1: during the surveillance and the kidnapping. He'd actually guarded the
Speaker 1: Nazi and the apartment that Massad used before bundling Aikman
Speaker 1: out of Argentina and back to Israel. He'd studied Aikman closely.
Speaker 1: You have no idea what the small, nervous man he was,
Speaker 1: how he signed the document agreeing to be tried in Israel,
Speaker 1: and how he behaved this man who sent millions to
Speaker 1: their death. So Mio had played a supporting role when
Speaker 1: it came to Aikman, but now he faced a much
Speaker 1: more confident, tough minded man, one who wouldn't go so quietly.
Speaker 1: He had to plan the mission himself without explicit directions
Speaker 1: from Massade headquarters, and for that you had to get
Speaker 1: inside the butcher's head, find out what he wanted discover
Speaker 1: his weak points. Who was the kind of an operation
Speaker 1: built for someone like Mia. If you want James Bond
Speaker 1: or Auto spy movies, you'll find a lot of cliches.
Speaker 1: And the spy agent looks very very smart, very tall,
Speaker 1: beautiful into real life. Its other agents how very far
Speaker 1: away from this. Some of them looks like great people,
Speaker 1: little people behind the desk. And the mad Dad was
Speaker 1: even more than this. He was a mastermind. That's after Abraham,
Speaker 1: the ex massad agent who studied the Zuker's operation. He's
Speaker 1: talking about meals genius at playing roles. Like any good actor,
Speaker 1: MEO's first thoughts were about looking the part. After leaving
Speaker 1: the apartment in Paris, he set out to become a
Speaker 1: different person. What Meo needed was a cover identity. He
Speaker 1: wasn't going to South America in heavy disguise, not exactly.
Speaker 1: He already looked a lot like the man he would
Speaker 1: be playing, the Austrian businessman Anton Kunsla. He didn't need
Speaker 1: to physically transform himself. But you have to understand that
Speaker 1: Meo wasn't just another operative. He truly saw it to
Speaker 1: become the person he was portraying. My uncompromising perfectionism. Even
Speaker 1: that's the close of my own health is part of
Speaker 1: my nature. Then creating a cover story, all of his
Speaker 1: paid close attention to all the small details, and they
Speaker 1: never looked for short cuts. I had seen too many
Speaker 1: filops in my lives. It was a result of half
Speaker 1: hearted preparations, due to negligence or laziness. I could not
Speaker 1: allows it. MEO's nickname within Massad was a man of
Speaker 1: a hundred identities. He'd become these people and then when
Speaker 1: the mission was over, leave them behind. But when he
Speaker 1: was inside the cover, it had to feel real to him.
Speaker 1: Even small changes meant a lot. So three days after
Speaker 1: the meeting in Paris, Meal took a train to Rotterdam,
Speaker 1: a port city in Holland. He didn't want to set
Speaker 1: up his cover in Paris was too close to home
Speaker 1: and he might run into someone he knew, So he
Speaker 1: chose Rotterdam for its banks and hotels that did business
Speaker 1: with people from all over Europe, important people. That's what
Speaker 1: he was aiming for. Anton kunz La was going to
Speaker 1: be a guy with a lot of money and prestige,
Speaker 1: someone solid, dependable, someone people paid attention to and believed in.
Speaker 1: There's a combination of my advanced boldness, wound stomach and
Speaker 1: calm appearance gave every care I had adopted in past obervations.
Speaker 1: The semblance of trustworthiness in the breast pocket of meos
Speaker 1: suit was an Austrian passport. It was a fake, of course.
Speaker 1: MASSAD had an entire department in Tel Aviv that produced
Speaker 1: fake passports, birth certificates and other important documents. It's been
Speaker 1: called the passport Factory. They had several ways of getting
Speaker 1: high quality documents. They would ask Jews who would spend
Speaker 1: time in foreign countries to donate their passports so duplicates
Speaker 1: could be made. They've also been accused of stealing blank
Speaker 1: passports then filling in the names of their agents cover identities.
Speaker 1: Fifty blank passports once disappeared from a safe in the
Speaker 1: Canadian embassy in Vienna. MASSAD was suspected. A year later,
Speaker 1: one of the Canadian documents was found in Cyprus. It
Speaker 1: had been left behind by a MASSAD operative after a
Speaker 1: bomb had exploded underneath the bed of a palace Indian
Speaker 1: guerilla leader. It's been reported that the agency keeps the
Speaker 1: fake passports in a vault in their headquarters, sorted by country.
Speaker 1: The documents were extremely high quality. Sad even produced his
Speaker 1: own paper and ink. Neil's passport identified him as Anti Kunsla,
Speaker 1: a man who didn't exist. The mission had a timetable.
Speaker 1: There was a lot to do. Me would only have
Speaker 1: ten hours in Rotterdam, so he had to move fast.
Speaker 1: When he got to the city, he checked into the
Speaker 1: Rin Hotel, a luxury a ddress that would give him
Speaker 1: instant credibility as a rich real estate developer, which was
Speaker 1: supposed to be Kunzla's business. Neil then walked to the
Speaker 1: post office, gave the hotel as his address, and opened
Speaker 1: a PO box. That PEO box now became Anti Kunzla's
Speaker 1: address in Rotterdam. Neo headed out of the post office
Speaker 1: and found branch of the Amro Bank. He told the
Speaker 1: bank clerk he wanted to open an account. When the
Speaker 1: clerk asked for his address, he gave the PO box
Speaker 1: and pulled out three thousand dollars for the initial deposit.
Speaker 1: He was careful not to use his native German in
Speaker 1: talking with Guy, because the Germans had occupied Rotterdam during
Speaker 1: the war and there might still be lingering bitterness. Neo
Speaker 1: he considered everything he still needed a visa for Brazil.
Speaker 1: He asked the hotel dorman what he'd need. The guy
Speaker 1: sent a bell hop to get all the forms. Neo
Speaker 1: slipped him what he called a fat tip, and the
Speaker 1: deal was done. The dorman even called the local doctor
Speaker 1: for a physical, which was one of the requirements for
Speaker 1: traveling to Brazil. Now Meo needed a visa photo. He
Speaker 1: wanted to slightly change his appearance. If the operation was successful,
Speaker 1: it would be a good chance that inner Poul would
Speaker 1: look for him. His face would be on wanted posters
Speaker 1: from Paris to Buenos Aires. He was our me growing
Speaker 1: a mustache, but that wasn't enough. He found an optician
Speaker 1: shop nearest hotel and picked out a pair of heavy frames.
Speaker 1: The optician gave him an exam, and Meo, we had
Speaker 1: perfect eyesight, intentionally misread the bottom line of letters. He's
Speaker 1: got the prescription. Later he realized that the lenses would
Speaker 1: actually damage his vision. But for Meo, it was the
Speaker 1: price you had to pay. I knew Jokers was mistrustful
Speaker 1: and fearful of traps, and the possibility existed, or mote
Speaker 1: as it might have been, that he would find some
Speaker 1: excuse to check my glasses. I might have sacrificed the
Speaker 1: quality of my eyesight for the sake of settling the account.
Speaker 1: Was a despicable murder, but I don't regret it for
Speaker 1: one second. As Mia went to his different appointments, he
Speaker 1: picked up pocket matter, bus tickets, laundry receipt as well
Speaker 1: as tooth based and other items with the price tag
Speaker 1: still on. He could leave this stuff in his luggage
Speaker 1: when he went to Brazil. If Sukers became suspicious and
Speaker 1: went through his things, he'd see that his new friend
Speaker 1: really was who he said he was. He had to
Speaker 1: out paranoid suckers to be even more neurotic and fearful
Speaker 1: than he was. Because Meo was meeting the butcher alone.
Speaker 1: The operation the massage the town and killed soups. Because
Speaker 1: usually in the normal operation you have the backup team,
Speaker 1: you have your way to a kid. Dathaniel says, you
Speaker 1: have a gun or weapons or other kinds of playfriends.
Speaker 1: Not this time. Meal was the only real weapon. With
Speaker 1: his mind his ability to outwit his target. It made
Speaker 1: his cover extremely important. After finishing up in Rotterdam, Meo
Speaker 1: headed to Zurich. There he set up a bank account
Speaker 1: and arranged for several letters of credit. He bought a
Speaker 1: lightweight black suit, the kind of business men who are
Speaker 1: in Brazil. He picked up some stationary which he had
Speaker 1: engraved with his fake name. He had some business cards
Speaker 1: and travelers checks. Then it was back to Paris. He
Speaker 1: met again with the mission Commander Joseph your Reeve and
Speaker 1: worked out exactly how they would communicate during the operation.
Speaker 1: This was and of course there was no email or texting.
Speaker 1: Even international phone calls were expensive and hard to make,
Speaker 1: so instead they would use fake messages sent by airmail
Speaker 1: and in them Meo and Massad would write the real
Speaker 1: messages and invisible inc if Suker's got to look at them,
Speaker 1: they would appear to be just simple business letters. When
Speaker 1: the meeting was over, Neo booked a flight to Brazil
Speaker 1: for September eleventh. He was ready to meet the Butcher. Hi,
Speaker 1: this is Stephen Talty, host of Good Assassins Hunting the Butcher.
Speaker 1: The folks that help me bring you this show, Diversion
Speaker 1: Podcasts have just launched another podcast that I think you'll like.
Speaker 1: It's called Backstaged The Devil in Metal, a deep dive
Speaker 1: into the history of mental music, filled with never before
Speaker 1: heard interviews and stories from some of the biggest names
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Speaker 1: The Devil in Metal is out Now. Follow the show
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, I hired Radio app or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your podcasts. His first stop Rio. The flight
Speaker 1: to Brazil was twelve hours long. He was exhausted when
Speaker 1: he arrived. He checked into the Hotel California that was
Speaker 1: the name Believe it or Not, and went up to
Speaker 1: the restaurant. From his seat, he could see Copacabana Beach
Speaker 1: laid up beneath him. He took in the view, knowing
Speaker 1: it would be the last time for a long time
Speaker 1: he would be able to fully relax. It was a
Speaker 1: fairly wide strip of golden sands bordering blue waters on
Speaker 1: one side, and strewn the myriad colorful dots that were
Speaker 1: in fact beautiful sun tanned women clad in skimpy bazing swoops.
Speaker 1: The hundreds of kites in various colors and shapes such
Speaker 1: as eagles, dragons, and butterflies that sold in the pleasant
Speaker 1: sea breeze completed the picture of a free and easy
Speaker 1: life without the care in the world. He thought about
Speaker 1: how some people could be living such pleasant lives while
Speaker 1: he was twenty stories up planning an assassination. When he
Speaker 1: finished his dinner, he sent a telegram to Massa, I'd
Speaker 1: safely love to everyone. Then that Monday he got to work.
Speaker 1: He went to the tourist ministry and told the officials
Speaker 1: there he wanted to invest in Brazil. He talked his
Speaker 1: way into the minister's office, got his business card. He
Speaker 1: was building his local cover. Finally, he flew to South Paulo,
Speaker 1: where the butcher was now living. He noted that the
Speaker 1: airport was named after Santos Dumont, a famous pilot who
Speaker 1: had a medal named in his honor. Dumont Metal was
Speaker 1: awarded every year to the world's greatest aviators. Zookers had
Speaker 1: won it in the thirties, who was a reminder from
Speaker 1: me O of who the butcher had been before the war.
Speaker 1: Camp Meo checked into an expensive hotel in Sal Paulo.
Speaker 1: For the next few days, he went around the city
Speaker 1: working on his identity. He reunted in a Volkswagen Beetle
Speaker 1: to get him around. He visited the local branch of
Speaker 1: the Swiss Bank, where he'd opened an account, left his
Speaker 1: business card and made sure the manager remembered him, just
Speaker 1: in case Zukers stopped in. Then he dropped by the
Speaker 1: headquarters of a company that specialized in marinas. Zukers had
Speaker 1: his little boat business in a marina in the Interlagos neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Neo needed an excuse to visit it. He quickly talked
Speaker 1: his way into a meeting with a company's director. When
Speaker 1: he was in character, Mio had this confidence that he
Speaker 1: lacked at other times. In real life. He was often shy, introverted.
Speaker 1: In Israel, he was a bit of an outsider. His
Speaker 1: German accent marked him out as a foreigner, as opposed
Speaker 1: to many of the other Massad agents were Sabras native
Speaker 1: born Israelis. But when Mio slipped into a new identity,
Speaker 1: he was transformed. He was sociable, chatty, even commanding. He
Speaker 1: was more comfortable giving orders. It's as if the missions
Speaker 1: gave me a permission to be the person he always
Speaker 1: wanted to be. At the end of the meeting, Neo
Speaker 1: got the director to write a letter introducing him to
Speaker 1: the guy who ran the yacht club in Interlagos. Now
Speaker 1: he had a reason to go there. This is the
Speaker 1: drudge work of espionage, the kind of thing you rarely
Speaker 1: see in movies or spy novels. Establishing cover, making attacks,
Speaker 1: scouting the territory. It seemed boring, and then the way
Speaker 1: it was James Bond would never have bothered. But in
Speaker 1: the real world of espionage, it could save your life.
Speaker 1: I was pleased with my achievements. Thanks to the combination
Speaker 1: of professional experience and the little luck I had managed
Speaker 1: in just four days to not only further establish Macago
Speaker 1: story and had concrete details to the character Anton Kunz,
Speaker 1: but also to get elegantly closer to the target without
Speaker 1: leaving any incriminating traces behind. Every step brought me closer
Speaker 1: to Zuker's dock and to the inevitable face to face
Speaker 1: encounter with him. Meal was expected to meet an old man.
Speaker 1: The butcher was sixty four, after all, past his prime.
Speaker 1: You thought this would be a battle of wills where
Speaker 1: the biggest danger would be getting found out. If that happened,
Speaker 1: the operation would be over and the amnesty for Nazi
Speaker 1: criminals the German government was planning would most likely go
Speaker 1: into effect. Would be a painful blow to Jews all
Speaker 1: over the World. Mio knew the mission was risky, but
Speaker 1: he never imagined it would be physically dangerous. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like the Butcher was still out to kill Jews, but
Speaker 1: Meo was wrong about that, and he also didn't know
Speaker 1: that the Butcher had bowed never to be taken alive.
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 Talti, produced and directed by
Speaker 1: Scott Waxman and jacobron Stein. Executive producers Scott Waxman and
Speaker 1: Mark Francis. Story editing by Jacob Bronstein, with editorial direction
Speaker 1: from Scott Waxman and Mangesh Had Ticket Dour 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 Rautman and Stefan Rudnitsky. Theme music by Tyler Cash.
Speaker 1: Archival research by Adam Shapiro. Special thanks to Oran Rosenbaum
Speaker 1: at U T a mber Er. The Diverse