Speaker 1: Diversion podcasts. This episode contains descriptions of graphic violence and
Speaker 1: scenes of genocide. Listener's discretion is advised. Meo had gotten
Speaker 1: a step closer to the Butcher. He'd come back from
Speaker 1: the road trip to the plantations in the Brazilian jungle
Speaker 1: thinking he was making progress. The Butcher was starting to
Speaker 1: trust him. Neo sat down to write a report to
Speaker 1: your Reeve. He was expected to fill in his boss
Speaker 1: with every major development. At the same time you know
Speaker 1: was drawing up his report, things were starting to heat
Speaker 1: up with the Statute of Limitations, which was the whole
Speaker 1: reason for the mission, to stop Germans from giving Nazi
Speaker 1: killers a free pass for their atrocities. Here's Abner Abraham again,
Speaker 1: the former Massad agent and historian of the agency. I
Speaker 1: mean it's you compared for examples to be Latin. In
Speaker 1: September eleven, it was a revenge but in the mossadoh
Speaker 1: and they decided to kill someone and the Plume Minister
Speaker 1: confirmed this target. It was to prevent him and to
Speaker 1: prevent mortal attacks and more killing of Jews. That that
Speaker 1: was the idea. I'm Steven Talty and this is good
Speaker 1: assassins hunting the butcher. So it's the first month was
Speaker 1: to find a nasty a briging forward trial. The second
Speaker 1: part was to find a Nazi and killing. We must
Speaker 1: thwoat the shining losses. He hadn't of a trail of
Speaker 1: blood and horror, the end of a man whose name
Speaker 1: will be written in informating episode six. The kill team.
Speaker 1: By the end of the world was waking up to
Speaker 1: the fact that the Germans really intended to go ahead
Speaker 1: with the amnesty, so the Jewish resistance was stepping up
Speaker 1: their efforts to try and stop it. To Via Friedman,
Speaker 1: the Nazi hunter, who had met with the German Justice minister,
Speaker 1: was giving interviews in Israel and encouraging world leaders to
Speaker 1: speak out. He was keeping an eye on Germany, hoping
Speaker 1: to pressure and shame its politicians into stopping the amnesty.
Speaker 1: As the cause gained more traction, protesters appeared on the
Speaker 1: streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Soon they would spread
Speaker 1: all over the world, from New York to London. Freedman
Speaker 1: was good one on one with his eyewitness accounts of
Speaker 1: the Holocaust. He could persuade people. Earlier, when the head
Speaker 1: of the Socialist Party in Germany came to Israel. Freedman
Speaker 1: went to see him in the lobby of his hotel,
Speaker 1: and Israeli security agent spotted Freeman coming through the front doors.
Speaker 1: The agent hurried over, almost blocking Freeman from making it
Speaker 1: to the elevators. The guy was pale, nervous. He thought
Speaker 1: the activists was up to no good. The agent asked
Speaker 1: of Freeman was there to assassinate the German leader. Freedman laughed,
Speaker 1: guy knew his reputation, but Freeman told the agent that no,
Speaker 1: he was just going to talk to the politician. The
Speaker 1: agent let him pass. Freedman went upstairs and made his
Speaker 1: presentation to the German official. It was powerful stuff. A
Speaker 1: few hours later, the Socialist leader agreed to oppose the amnesty.
Speaker 1: Was another small coup for Freedman in this campaign to
Speaker 1: sway the German government. Importantly, another much more famous Nazi
Speaker 1: hunter joined the cause, Simon Wisenthal. Visenthal had barely survived
Speaker 1: World War Two, having been imprisoned in four concentration camps
Speaker 1: between in he was in a Polish camp when his
Speaker 1: commander decided to celebrate Hitler's birthday by executing fifty four
Speaker 1: Jewish intellectuals, one for every year of the Feurer's life.
Speaker 1: Enthal was chosen to be one of them. He listened
Speaker 1: as the others were shot before the killers came to him,
Speaker 1: though someone called his name. One of the Germans had
Speaker 1: convinced the commander that Visenthal, who was an accomplished artist,
Speaker 1: should paint a poster of Hitler instead of being murdered.
Speaker 1: He was led away from the pits and later escaped
Speaker 1: from the camp. Visenthal made it through, but he lost
Speaker 1: his family. Weeks after the war ended, he was already
Speaker 1: hunting down Nazis. That quest would occupy him for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life. Visenthal did everything. He spent months
Speaker 1: digging through archives. He staked out apartment buildings waiting for
Speaker 1: ex Nazis to show up, and unlike Friedman, he made
Speaker 1: friends in high places, recruiting politicians and celebrities to his mission.
Speaker 1: He'd had some major successes. When Anne Frank's diary became
Speaker 1: a worldwide bestseller, some Austrians claimed it was a fake.
Speaker 1: They said that Anne Frank had never existed, and they
Speaker 1: challenged Wisenthal to find Carl Silberbauer, the man who had
Speaker 1: supposedly arrested her. Resenthal went to work. After months of
Speaker 1: searching in which Wisenthal spent hours coming through Nazi records
Speaker 1: and Dutch phone books. He found Silverbauer was working as
Speaker 1: a policeman in Vienna. Visenthal exposed him, and silver Bauer
Speaker 1: admitted that Anne Frank had indeed existed and her memoir
Speaker 1: was truthful. It was a major blow to Holocaust deniers.
Speaker 1: Visenthal tracked down Eric Jakowitch, who had been in charge
Speaker 1: of putting Jews from the Netherlands on the trains to
Speaker 1: their desks. Visenthal found Jakowitch living in Italy, where a
Speaker 1: Catholic bishop had helped the Nazi even let him live
Speaker 1: in a local convent. By the early sixties, Jackowitch was
Speaker 1: a millionaire several times over and living a comfortable life.
Speaker 1: Visenthal uncovered his past, and the Nazis picture appeared on
Speaker 1: the front pages of newspapers all over Europe. He went
Speaker 1: on the run, first to Switzerland, then to Germany, but
Speaker 1: Visenthal wouldn't give up. He found him again, and finally
Speaker 1: the killer gave up. He was thrown in jail. So
Speaker 1: Simon Wiesenthal was good at what he did. He was
Speaker 1: a master publicist, self promoter, but he was just as
Speaker 1: obsessed with finding the men and women responsible for the
Speaker 1: genocide and bringing Nazis to justice. You're not just married
Speaker 1: to me. Visenthal's wife used to tell him, you were
Speaker 1: married to the six million. The further ist cause. Reisenthal
Speaker 1: had even become a massad operative. The agency sent him
Speaker 1: an allowance a few hundred dollars a month to help
Speaker 1: with his quest. Here's Wisenthal explaining the significance of the
Speaker 1: Statute of Limitations after that time, via then we will
Speaker 1: find new people. They commit crimes. So I find new
Speaker 1: evidence about people. They are free. They cannot bring them
Speaker 1: for justice in Germany. And this mean thousands. This means
Speaker 1: thousands of people because we lost eleven million witnesses Lake Friedman.
Speaker 1: Simon Visenthal went to meet with the Justice minister in
Speaker 1: Germany about the coming amnesty. He wanted to know what
Speaker 1: would happen if the statute went into effect. Around six
Speaker 1: thousand men had served at Auschwitz, only a tiny number
Speaker 1: of them, less than one percent had even been brought
Speaker 1: to trial when the statute went into effect. With the
Speaker 1: rest I'll go free. The German minister avoided the question.
Speaker 1: He started talking about the billions of Deutsche marks in
Speaker 1: reparations that Germany had paid to survivors. Visenthal seethed. He
Speaker 1: wasn't there to talk about money. He's there to talk
Speaker 1: about punishment. It was once more a case of I
Speaker 1: was simply not speaking the same language I told him
Speaker 1: he had, Minister, the murderer of my mother and the
Speaker 1: murderers of many of my relations and friends have not
Speaker 1: been found yet. I don't even know their names. I
Speaker 1: am a dressing the Minister of us. This is not
Speaker 1: definance Minister. I recognized the Federal Republic's financial efforts, but
Speaker 1: surely they cannot be a substitute for efforts to achieve justice.
Speaker 1: I have come to you as a very specific question,
Speaker 1: what happens after me eight? That was the date the
Speaker 1: amnesty was supposed to go into effect May eighth. The
Speaker 1: Minister didn't give Resenthal and answer. In fact, he was
Speaker 1: starting to sound slippery on the whole issue. Did he
Speaker 1: support the amnesty or didn't he? He told Recenthal it
Speaker 1: wasn't up to him to decide. The Nazi Hunter wasn't satisfied.
Speaker 1: He decided to launch a pr campaign to let people
Speaker 1: around the world know what was going on. Reasenthal was
Speaker 1: brilliant at that kind of thing. He had the kind
Speaker 1: of marketing skills the vision the two Via freedmen blocked.
Speaker 1: Eisenthal wrote an open letter condemning the statute. He called
Speaker 1: the amnesty an unprecedented injustice towards the millions of victims
Speaker 1: of Nazi brutality. Once the murders knew they would never
Speaker 1: be prosecuted, Easenthal wrote, they would link arms with other
Speaker 1: enemies of liberty. They would spread their propaganda and poison
Speaker 1: to the young people of Germany and then abroad. Visenthal
Speaker 1: was broadening the issue beyond the Holocaust at the West
Speaker 1: Germans that the killers of six million get away with it,
Speaker 1: the world would be a far more dangerous place for everybody.
Speaker 1: Visenthal sent the letter to famous people in Europe, America
Speaker 1: and elsewhere. The great American playwright Arthur Miller signed it,
Speaker 1: as did a Nobel Prize winning physicist, The future Pope
Speaker 1: Benedict sixteen announced his support. His own cousin, who had
Speaker 1: down syndrome, had been murdered by the Nazis. Dozens and
Speaker 1: dozens of others joined the campaign, artists, pol Titians, religious leaders.
Speaker 1: Even Robert Kennedy was still recovering from the assassination of
Speaker 1: his brother JFK sent a telegram moral duties. It read
Speaker 1: have no term. Robert Kennedy came out against Germany's planned amnesty,
Speaker 1: but the efforts of the two Nazi hunters, Freedman and
Speaker 1: Wisenthal were in the winner of nine four, having little
Speaker 1: effect in Germany. Opinion polls there still show the statute
Speaker 1: was popular the numbers they weren't budgeting. The two activists
Speaker 1: believed they were losing the fight, which could make Massad's
Speaker 1: Zuker's mission that much more important. It was the final
Speaker 1: piece that could sway the debate. A last shot. Neo
Speaker 1: wrote out his report on his trip with Sukers to
Speaker 1: the plantation. When he was finished, he took a business
Speaker 1: letter that he had already typed out and copied out
Speaker 1: the report in invisible inc inserting the text between the lines.
Speaker 1: Then he folded the letter, put it in an air
Speaker 1: mail envelope and send it off to his boss your
Speaker 1: reeve in Paris. Meal's use of invisible ink intrigued me.
Speaker 1: It's something that, of course I've seen dozens of times
Speaker 1: and spy novels and movies, but I kind of assumed
Speaker 1: that in real life invisible ink would be a bit
Speaker 1: too crude for sophisticated agency like the MASSAD. So I
Speaker 1: checked with an intelligence historian named h. Keith Melton, and
Speaker 1: turns out it was actually a widespread tactic at the time.
Speaker 1: Invisible links have been used for probably a thousand years
Speaker 1: or thousands of years, going back ultimately to Limon juice.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you take a limon juice right
Speaker 1: a secret message between the lines and then hold it
Speaker 1: up to a flame, you can see it becomes visible.
Speaker 1: So the standard component of all invisible aks is the
Speaker 1: ink itself, and the reagent is the way you make
Speaker 1: it visible. And services developed extraordinarily complex secret inks. But
Speaker 1: you could create a secret eak out of salava, out
Speaker 1: of water. You could use it out of diluted blood.
Speaker 1: You could use it from sperm, you could use it
Speaker 1: from bodily fluids. Secret ease can be made out of
Speaker 1: a variety of things. Water is probably one of the
Speaker 1: most interesting because just water can later be detected by
Speaker 1: intelligent service. In general, invisible ink has fallen out of
Speaker 1: use today, but according to Melton, that might be the
Speaker 1: very reason not to discount it entirely. The Russian Service
Speaker 1: quit searching and quit teaching skills for secretings around the
Speaker 1: year two thousands, so as you use belfore then, but
Speaker 1: sometimes tradecraft becomes so forgotten about it and so old
Speaker 1: it becomes usable again. But there's no one's looking for
Speaker 1: And I don't believe the U. S. Coastal Service has
Speaker 1: a capability to the sect secrets anymore, where they certainly
Speaker 1: would have had that fifties sixty seventy years ago. Back
Speaker 1: to me O, he now had a much better feel
Speaker 1: for Zookers, what might work getting him to another country
Speaker 1: and what wouldn't. In his report, he wrote that the
Speaker 1: plantation trip had been worthwhile because he was conditioning Zookers
Speaker 1: to get comfortable with longer and longer trips away from home.
Speaker 1: This was key. He couldn't just bring a flight to
Speaker 1: say Chili on the butcher. He had to build up
Speaker 1: to that slowly, step by step, to make sure that
Speaker 1: suckers would follow him wherever he went. There was also
Speaker 1: the question of the assassination method. Massad had many ways
Speaker 1: to take someone out, what they called targeted killings. In
Speaker 1: nineteen two, when the Egyptians began building rockets at a
Speaker 1: facility in the desert called Factory three three three, Basada
Speaker 1: knew the missiles would eventually be aimed at Israel. They
Speaker 1: mailed two package bombs to the factory, killing five workers there.
Speaker 1: Later they were book bombs, one of which targeted a
Speaker 1: plo operative named Bassam Sharif. Shariff survived and we were
Speaker 1: actually able to find a tape of him discussing the incident.
Speaker 1: Uh that was allowed to day. That morning, when the
Speaker 1: book came to me, the mailman said, well, you have
Speaker 1: a book and it's stamped. I looked at the envelope.
Speaker 1: It was opened. The envelope was opened and the book
Speaker 1: was protruding out and stamped by the Lebanese government. Checked
Speaker 1: clear from explosives. So I was relaxed a little bit.
Speaker 1: And the moment I opened that time, you know I
Speaker 1: discovered it. It's part of a second. I've seen the
Speaker 1: explosive two charges. They have hold of the book and
Speaker 1: put two explosive charges one and another that action and
Speaker 1: one and then down, so that they cut me into
Speaker 1: three pieces. In my head. I was standing. That's why
Speaker 1: my managed to probably the Palestinian poet and terrorist Mohammed
Speaker 1: Buddha opened the door of his car parked on the
Speaker 1: Paris street. Massad had planted a pressure activated bomb underneath
Speaker 1: the driver's seat. As soon as Buddhia sat down, it
Speaker 1: went off and Buddhia was killed. Other targets of Assad
Speaker 1: simply disappeared. That's what happened to one German scientist, Heinz Krug,
Speaker 1: who's helping Egypt build those missiles in the desert. He
Speaker 1: worked out of Munich. MASSAD sent the surveillance team there
Speaker 1: to learn Krug's movements. Then, early one evening, crew received
Speaker 1: a phone call from a man pretending to be a
Speaker 1: friend of the Egyptian general who's heading up missile program.
Speaker 1: Something important had come up, and the man requested a
Speaker 1: meeting at the Ambassador Hotel in Munich. Krug suspected nothing.
Speaker 1: He went to the meeting and met the man, who
Speaker 1: was actually a MASSAD operative. They discussed business. The next day,
Speaker 1: the operative picked him up for another round of discussions
Speaker 1: brought him to a villa in the suburbs. Krug going
Speaker 1: into the villa expecting to meet one of the Egyptian commanders. Inside,
Speaker 1: there was a MASSAD team waiting for him. They hit
Speaker 1: him on the head and put him still alive in
Speaker 1: the secret compartment inside a v W camper. He was
Speaker 1: driven to Marseilles, France, sedated, put on an airplane, and
Speaker 1: flown to Israel. Their Kruge was roughed up and interrogated.
Speaker 1: After spilling his secrets over many months, a Massad agent
Speaker 1: was ordered to take him to a deserted area north
Speaker 1: of Tel Aviv to kill him. Krug's body was then
Speaker 1: loaded aboard and Israeli military plane and dumped into the sea.
Speaker 1: Some Massad assassins used handguns, though the cliche method a
Speaker 1: rifle fired from a long distance never seemed to be
Speaker 1: part of their repertoire. One PLO man was shot by
Speaker 1: a guy driving by on a motorcycle. Another target was
Speaker 1: pushed into traffic was killed by a passing car. There
Speaker 1: was even a target who was dosed with radioactive material
Speaker 1: and later died years later. Another suspected victim of Massad,
Speaker 1: a scientist who doubled as a colonel in the Egyptian Army,
Speaker 1: fell quote unquote from a balcony in Alexandria. When Egyptian
Speaker 1: police entered his apartment, they found the gas had been
Speaker 1: turned on and there were cuts in the scientist's arms,
Speaker 1: both signs pointing to a suicide attempt. Massad had made
Speaker 1: it look like the man had tried to kill himself
Speaker 1: three different ways and finally succeeded. It had all the
Speaker 1: hall marks of an Israeli hit. Massad didn't claim responsibility,
Speaker 1: because Massad never claims responsibility. I wanted to let you
Speaker 1: know about something we're trying. We've set up an email
Speaker 1: address for listeners to send us your questions about the show.
Speaker 1: Are you curious about something you've heard on Hunting the
Speaker 1: Butcher and want to know more? Is there something I
Speaker 1: haven't covered that you wish I would. I want to
Speaker 1: hear from you. Record yourself asking your question. The voice
Speaker 1: memos app on iPhone works well. Include your name and
Speaker 1: where you're from, and we'll try to answer your question
Speaker 1: on a future episode. The email address is Hunting the
Speaker 1: Butcher at the Version podcast dot com. Record yourself asking
Speaker 1: a question and email it to me again. The email
Speaker 1: address is Hunting the Butcher at Diversion podcast asked dot com.
Speaker 1: That's a podcast plural with an S at the end.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to hearing your questions. Thanks. Now on
Speaker 1: with the show. So Meo had options for the assassination method,
Speaker 1: but he hadn't made up his mind on which was
Speaker 1: the best way to go, how should it be done?
Speaker 1: What would be the safest way? A bullets from a farm,
Speaker 1: perhaps poisoning, maybe a point blank shot in the back
Speaker 1: of the head. He had to know more about the
Speaker 1: butcher before he could decide. With his report completed, Meo
Speaker 1: got back in touch with Suckers. The butcher proposed another
Speaker 1: scouting trip for Coonsla's tourist business, this time to a
Speaker 1: town on the Brazilian coast called Santos. Meo jumped at
Speaker 1: the opportunity. A plan was starting to form in his head,
Speaker 1: a plan for the death of Herbert Suckers. He wanted
Speaker 1: to test out a couple of ideas for it, so
Speaker 1: he told Suckers they would check out the market for
Speaker 1: rental homes in Santos, get the prices, see how many
Speaker 1: were full this time of year. If it looked good,
Speaker 1: his company might start investing. Neo drove with Suckers to
Speaker 1: the coast and got a room at a nice hotel.
Speaker 1: The next morning, Neo set up a routine. They would
Speaker 1: find a rental home that was on the market and
Speaker 1: a range of visit. They talked to the owner, see
Speaker 1: what the properties were like and how much they were
Speaker 1: going for. Zuckers thought he was helping kunz La out
Speaker 1: with his business research. He did some interpreting. He spoke
Speaker 1: good Portuguese. Had Mio actually been looking to make investments,
Speaker 1: Suckers would have been pretty useful. One of the ideas
Speaker 1: Mio had for the assassination was to bring the butcher
Speaker 1: to a house in another of the South American countries
Speaker 1: and have the killed team waiting there for him. It
Speaker 1: would be private, safe, and it would give the team
Speaker 1: time alone with Suckers to read him his sentence. This
Speaker 1: option had a lot going for it, but if the
Speaker 1: plan was going to work, Meo had to train Sukers.
Speaker 1: Walking into strange houses had to be automatic for him.
Speaker 1: After Santos Zuker suggested they hit another beach town, Portelegre.
Speaker 1: Suckers was having a good time. Mia was paying all
Speaker 1: the bills, nice restaurants, good hotels. It was like a
Speaker 1: preview of coming attractions. If he could get on board
Speaker 1: with Kunsla's company, this would be his life from now on.
Speaker 1: He liked it. Meo was buttering up the butcher. You
Speaker 1: have no idea how glad I am we met, I
Speaker 1: told the butcher. It must have been the faiths that
Speaker 1: brought us together. You are at home here, who know
Speaker 1: the South American language and how to do business here.
Speaker 1: Mio agreed to meet Suckers and Portelegre a few days later.
Speaker 1: They traveled there separately. After Meal checked into their hotel,
Speaker 1: he went to Zuker's room. He knocked on the door,
Speaker 1: then he got a shock. Some seconds passed. Suddenly the
Speaker 1: door of us pulled open to reveal Ukers standing there,
Speaker 1: a gun in his hand. The snake is always on
Speaker 1: his toes, I thought, I pointed as the gun, I said,
Speaker 1: half jokingly, So what is it? But you're scared of me?
Speaker 1: If you had a long nose, then I would have
Speaker 1: a good reason to be scared. Zuker said, anyway, one
Speaker 1: must always be on the alert. He returns the gun
Speaker 1: to his pocket. Neio tried to laugh it off, but
Speaker 1: he could see that the butcher was actually nervous. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a good sign. Neo drove around Portle Gray with Zukers,
Speaker 1: looking at houses. At one point, Zuker's was in the
Speaker 1: passenger seat talking about tourism when Mio heard him mention
Speaker 1: the name Joseph Kramer. Meo managed to keep his eyes
Speaker 1: on the road. He controlled his breathing, showing no reaction,
Speaker 1: but inside he was reeling. Joseph Kramer. Most Jews who'd
Speaker 1: lost people in the Holocaust knew the name. The Belson
Speaker 1: War criminals arrived at Lunaboug for trial. Their faces gave
Speaker 1: a little clue to what they're thinking. Last out of
Speaker 1: the lotty is Joseph Kramer, the Beast of Belson. The calm,
Speaker 1: orderliness of the scene contrasts violently with the ghastly pictures
Speaker 1: which shocked the country when they were shown in British usually.
Speaker 1: Kramer was the infamous East of Belson. The former commander
Speaker 1: of the concentration camp Auschwitz, broken out to hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of Jews had died under his watch. He personally
Speaker 1: selected Jews for death. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Kramer was known to have been exceptionally brutal to the
Speaker 1: Jewish prisoners, sometimes whipping them until their skin flayed off
Speaker 1: leg suckers. Cramer had denied everything after the war. He
Speaker 1: told prosecutors the stories about him were quote products of
Speaker 1: the Jews imagination. Kramer was captured by the British tried
Speaker 1: in the months following the end of the war and
Speaker 1: what's known as the Belson Trial. Kramer was convicted and
Speaker 1: sentenced to death. He was hanged on December thirteenth. Meo
Speaker 1: kept driving, but his mind was going a mile a minute.
Speaker 1: Why would Suckers bring up Joseph Kramer. He hadn't even
Speaker 1: been talking about the war. He just dropped it into
Speaker 1: the middle of a boring little monologue about some topic.
Speaker 1: Meo only half remembered. It was just strange. It was
Speaker 1: as if the Butcher was testing Meo in the language
Speaker 1: he would understand only if he were someone other than
Speaker 1: Anton Kunzla, if he were saying a double agent. Couldn't
Speaker 1: Suckers be speaking to Meo and a kind of code
Speaker 1: saying I know why you're here, and it isn't to
Speaker 1: make money. Neo couldn't be sure, but he was worried.
Speaker 1: Back in Paris, Josef your Reeve had been busy. It
Speaker 1: was his job to recruit the rest of the team
Speaker 1: that would fly to South America to join Meo and
Speaker 1: carry out the sentence on the butcher body men a
Speaker 1: kill team. When your Reef was done, he dissembled an
Speaker 1: intriguing collection of men. If you saw them walking down
Speaker 1: the street, you wouldn't have thought massad, assassination squad. They
Speaker 1: didn't seem like guys that were going to be sent
Speaker 1: halfway around the world to take care of a notorious murderer.
Speaker 1: First it was your Reeve himself. He was a pretty
Speaker 1: unusual choice for the chief of an intelligence unit. Your
Speaker 1: reef died. I went to Israel to speak with his daughter, Leehy,
Speaker 1: and she described him to me. My father was a
Speaker 1: very sensitive person, full of maybe contradictions, if you can
Speaker 1: say that. On the one hand, he was a bohemian
Speaker 1: person and his best friends were artists in theater players,
Speaker 1: and he had a great sense of humor. You know,
Speaker 1: if you heard his laughter, you couldn't stop love with
Speaker 1: him together, and he saw everything is a very humorous thing.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, he used to tell me,
Speaker 1: not everything is a joke. I don't think that everything
Speaker 1: is a is a game or a joke. Just take
Speaker 1: it seriously. So on the one hand, he was very serious.
Speaker 1: He was the most reliable person on earth. If you
Speaker 1: were his friend, you could rely on him to the
Speaker 1: end of your life. I mean, he would save you
Speaker 1: from everything. If you went through you knew that he
Speaker 1: was your friend. That was it. And he was really
Speaker 1: charismatic without being aware of it. Really. When he entered
Speaker 1: the room, the room was filled with his empathy. Unlike Neo,
Speaker 1: the introvert, your reefs seemed to know everyone. He had
Speaker 1: a big personality and he attracted people to him with
Speaker 1: his wit. And one of the men you reeve had
Speaker 1: gotten to known Massad was an agent named Eliezer Laser
Speaker 1: Seded As with me O, Sudeep didn't look much like
Speaker 1: a secret agent. He was thin and physically unremarkable. My
Speaker 1: father was just opposite of James Bond. He had walked
Speaker 1: twice in the street, so you can seem that's the Deep, Son,
Speaker 1: said Sharon. I spoke to him about his father and
Speaker 1: his memories of his father's undercover work. He was modest,
Speaker 1: It was funny. Everybody loved him. He was very, oh
Speaker 1: you know, very nice guy. At looking at him, you
Speaker 1: cannot imagine if you see a fight. But the Deep
Speaker 1: had a reputation as someone who was tough and relentless,
Speaker 1: a fearless, hotheaded fighter who never gave up. He had
Speaker 1: spent his early days in Etzel Or the Ragoon, a
Speaker 1: right wing paramilitary organization in Palestine. He can cute Jaffa.
Speaker 1: After the everybody said is that he cannot get it
Speaker 1: because it was snipers all over. And he told begging,
Speaker 1: give me another night, an explosive that will concute Jaffa.
Speaker 1: And he did it with his men. He'd come of
Speaker 1: age during the struggle for a Jewish homeland. He met
Speaker 1: his wife, a nurse, when she treated him for several
Speaker 1: broken fingers. There's alto a torture session administered by a
Speaker 1: rival organization. Their love affair played out against the bombings
Speaker 1: of the War of Independence. They've seen the birth of
Speaker 1: the nation together, said his son. They'd fought for it.
Speaker 1: They were always telling stories about the early days of Israel.
Speaker 1: Sede was the ultimate late dark character, the mercurial, soulful
Speaker 1: Sabra with the sad past a. Sabra is a native
Speaker 1: born Israeli. Saded's wife was the tough one. When he
Speaker 1: received an invitation to join Massad from a future Israeli
Speaker 1: prime minister, his wife didn't baden eye, it was called demon,
Speaker 1: told him, if you want to him to join the Mossad.
Speaker 1: So we came to my mother ask her if she
Speaker 1: accept She said, all right, Look, if you are not
Speaker 1: going to go. I will go and you stay home
Speaker 1: to educate our children in my family. Was also a
Speaker 1: joke that it's America that he went, not my mother,
Speaker 1: because if he was saying to educate us, we will
Speaker 1: be no education at all. Sod was soft, kind, funny
Speaker 1: and again it was a wonderful father. You know, sometimes
Speaker 1: you think that somebody that they working to Mossa and
Speaker 1: and the he killed colonels, you should be something very frightening. No,
Speaker 1: just olderly nice guy and apparently the kind of guy
Speaker 1: who would carry out pranks during missions. You really decided
Speaker 1: to bring Sue Deep onto the killed team. It was
Speaker 1: a risky choice. So Deed had been involved in the
Speaker 1: notorious previous mission, the plot to kill the German Chancellor
Speaker 1: Conrad ad an Hour in March, so theed's commander at
Speaker 1: the time was angry that the German government was paying
Speaker 1: Israel reparations. He considered it to be blood money. The
Speaker 1: Killed team used a letter bomb to try and get
Speaker 1: at an Hour, but it exploded before it reached him.
Speaker 1: It did, however, killed the technician who was trying to
Speaker 1: defuse the bomb. Sadite was arrested in Paris. Ru's living
Speaker 1: at the time. He was later released. If something went
Speaker 1: wrong with the Zuker's mission and Sade's identity was revealed,
Speaker 1: it could be a big deal in Germany. It could
Speaker 1: actually convince Germans not to repeal the amnesty. Sade had
Speaker 1: once tried to kill the head of the German government
Speaker 1: after all, but Yariv, like Sude, he insisted he beyond
Speaker 1: the team. Sadie's mother and grandmother had been born in Riga,
Speaker 1: the capital of Latvia. That's where the butcher had done
Speaker 1: most of his killing. Most of Sade's family had lived
Speaker 1: there before the war. None of them had survived the Holocaust.
Speaker 1: Maybe suckers had been involved in their deaths Sude didn't
Speaker 1: know for sure. After your Reeve told Sude about the butcher,
Speaker 1: the agent agreed to do the mission. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: about revenge. There was no hatred of Suker's, Sudet's son
Speaker 1: told me emphatically none. Sudet saw his chance to send
Speaker 1: a message to anti Semites everywhere. If someone killed Jews
Speaker 1: in the future, other Jews would find them. This lack
Speaker 1: of desire for revenge might not have been true of
Speaker 1: the rest of the killed team. Some of them certainly
Speaker 1: wanted vengeance for what had happened during the Holocaust, but
Speaker 1: for sud Et this was protection against future atrocities. It
Speaker 1: wasn't personal for him like it was from Meo. After Sudi,
Speaker 1: your reeve added two more operatives. The first was zev
Speaker 1: A Meet, a former paratrooper and devotee of martial arts.
Speaker 1: A Meat was a very brave guy, typical Sabra, said
Speaker 1: Sadet's son. He was proud of the country, knew what
Speaker 1: he wanted, had no self doubts. A Meat had served
Speaker 1: in Unit one oh one. It was a controversial special
Speaker 1: forces team commanded by future Prime Minister Aerial Sharone. Its
Speaker 1: members were hand picked and they specialized in reprisal raids
Speaker 1: on Arab infiltrators. Those infiltrators regularly crossed the border from
Speaker 1: Jordan's and attacked Israeli villages. Critics accused of one O
Speaker 1: one ers of killing Arabs indiscriminately, especially during one massacre
Speaker 1: that happened in in It at least sixty nine Palestinians
Speaker 1: died when Sharon's men waded into the heavily guarded village
Speaker 1: and began clearing houses like tossing grenades and spraying the
Speaker 1: insides with live rounds, but most Israelis considered them intrepid
Speaker 1: soldiers who lived far out on the knife's edge. Sadite
Speaker 1: was delighted when a meat joined the operation. They were
Speaker 1: a team of two, said Sadet's son. They were always
Speaker 1: making chokes, even when perhaps they shouldn't have. The last
Speaker 1: man you we've chose was Multi Kafere, an agent who
Speaker 1: had grown up tending sheep on an Israeli farm. He
Speaker 1: later attended the Sorbonne, where he studied history. At Massad,
Speaker 1: Kafire worked as director of the School for Special Operations.
Speaker 1: A meeting Kafere would be body men there to neutralize
Speaker 1: the butcher. When the time came, you Reave now had
Speaker 1: his five guys, including himself. That was it. That was
Speaker 1: the team. Hey, this is Stephen Talty, the host of
Speaker 1: this podcast Good Assassin's Hunting the Butcher. As I've mentioned
Speaker 1: a couple of times on the show, this podcast project
Speaker 1: came out of my work on a related book called
Speaker 1: The Good Assassin. If you want to explore other parts
Speaker 1: of this story, check it out. It's not just a
Speaker 1: book version of the podcast. I spend time on different
Speaker 1: aspects of the mission. There are chapters diving into World
Speaker 1: War two history that we didn't cover in the podcast,
Speaker 1: and the book works as a kind of a companion
Speaker 1: to the listening experience. The paperback edition just arrived. You
Speaker 1: can purchase a copy of The Good Assassin on Amazon,
Speaker 1: Apple Books, and on bookshop dot Org. Thanks. There was
Speaker 1: one problem with your Reeves killed team. None of the
Speaker 1: guys was very big. Your Reeve was short and thin.
Speaker 1: Same for sud. I mean, it was a bit stronger,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't nearly as big as Sukers and Mio.
Speaker 1: He was meant to be an observer. Only the team
Speaker 1: would need to train and how to bring down a strong,
Speaker 1: desperate man who has just realized he's fighting for his life.
Speaker 1: In those days, in the early sixties, Massa didn't have
Speaker 1: guys who specialized in things like that, So You Reeves
Speaker 1: started asking around who could teach his and how to
Speaker 1: bring down a brute like the butcher. The takedown had
Speaker 1: to be fast and it had to be quiet. Finally
Speaker 1: you re found a guy. His name was Emi Lichtenfeld.
Speaker 1: Here's Emi explaining his philosophy on self defense and the
Speaker 1: fighting technique he created called krav Maga. This tapes not
Speaker 1: great at times, but I wanted you to hear me
Speaker 1: in his own voice. He says and he said things.
Speaker 1: He's what he's said said things. He's that you can
Speaker 1: defends a sin in three hundred sixty degree and forward
Speaker 1: angles before I'm making sure and not you our movements.
Speaker 1: And I don't get the bolish the guy don't give
Speaker 1: the nice To understand how Emmy trained the team, I
Speaker 1: reached out to one of Emmy's closest disciples. My name
Speaker 1: is Elian Luth. I started training with Emmy when I
Speaker 1: was about fifteen years old. I trained with him twenty
Speaker 1: four years until he decided to live to another world. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: I was his closest assistant for twenty years. Almost according
Speaker 1: to a y'all, Emmy was a bit of a walking paradox.
Speaker 1: Emmy was in a way very gentle person, gentlemen center
Speaker 1: European education. Um. Or the other hand, he had this
Speaker 1: other side of his of very strong fighter in time
Speaker 1: of need, even a brawler in times that was you know,
Speaker 1: World War two period and a little bit before which
Speaker 1: we cannot judge with to day's eyes. So he was
Speaker 1: definitely a man of peace. On one hand, and a
Speaker 1: man of fighting, protecting, teaching how to kill on the
Speaker 1: other Lichtenfeld had grown up in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia before the war,
Speaker 1: the son of a hard nosed police inspector who moonlighted
Speaker 1: as a jiu jitsu master. Lichtenfeld's father taught his son gymnastics,
Speaker 1: boxing and wrestling. As a young man, Lichtenfeld appeared bare
Speaker 1: chested in publicity photos, looking like a lean, sculpted middleweight.
Speaker 1: He joined the Czechoslovakian national wrestling team and one championships
Speaker 1: across Europe. Even at five ft six and hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty pounds, he was a relentless punishing opponent. With the
Speaker 1: rise of Nazism in Germany, anti Semitic gangs began swarming
Speaker 1: into the Jewish quarter in Bratislava. With a young Lichtenfeld lived.
Speaker 1: If they caught it you alone, the gang would attack him,
Speaker 1: leaving him blooded down the pavement or bleeding out from
Speaker 1: stab wounds. The fascist government and brought Uslava offered terrified
Speaker 1: Jews little or no defense against these mobs. The perpetrators
Speaker 1: went unpunished. Y'all remembers Emmy describing the situation to him
Speaker 1: on a daily basis like every day they were fights.
Speaker 1: Most of the fights would say or big part of
Speaker 1: it was, I guess would to put opponents. So this
Speaker 1: uh fighting the fascists day, night, morning, evenings, on a
Speaker 1: on a regular basis, what we say, and sometimes huge groups.
Speaker 1: So he became the unprouned leader of a group of
Speaker 1: about hundreds of people, and later years we learned that
Speaker 1: he was also teaching them something, some self defense and fighting.
Speaker 1: Here's a great story. One afternoon, Lichtenfeld collected the boxers,
Speaker 1: wrestlers and amateur bodybuilders he knew from the quarter and
Speaker 1: marched them out to confront a large group of check
Speaker 1: men who arrived at the cave. There were hundreds of
Speaker 1: young thugs waiting. Lichtenfeld, carrying a large blue and white
Speaker 1: flag adorned with the Star of David, led the Jewish
Speaker 1: athletes out of the neighborhood. When he spotted the checks,
Speaker 1: he began waving it back and forth in front of
Speaker 1: them like a red handkerchief, take down my flag? Who
Speaker 1: is the man to take down my flag? And shouting.
Speaker 1: One guy emerged from the crowd and came towards me,
Speaker 1: grabbing at the flagpole. Amy took hold of the man's
Speaker 1: arm hoisted him up and threw him over a cemetery walk.
Speaker 1: The riders ran away. Later encounters turned into ultra violent melee's.
Speaker 1: The Checks brought knives and even revolvers to terrorize the Jews.
Speaker 1: Their confrontations were accompanied by screams, gunshots, and the thud
Speaker 1: of bodies on stone. A wasted move could mean a
Speaker 1: smashed collar bone, a severed vein. Em said there was
Speaker 1: no time to punch a person twice, So dynamics so
Speaker 1: visus so fast, and said as he said, no time
Speaker 1: to punch a person twice to survive, Lichtenfeld created the
Speaker 1: street fighting technique called crab Maga, close combat and Hebrew,
Speaker 1: which allowed the Bratislava Jews to inflict the most damage
Speaker 1: in the shortest possible time. According to a y'all, Emmy's
Speaker 1: genius was in the simplicity of his method. Do the
Speaker 1: most natural, the most simple, based on your natural responses
Speaker 1: or one thing, but also based on the problem and
Speaker 1: on the behavior of the attacker. So you must know
Speaker 1: your enemy first of all this know what he's doing. No, No,
Speaker 1: the problem, no, the attack, no, the response of the
Speaker 1: other guy, No, he's natural behavior. But also no yours.
Speaker 1: So the basic techniques of the system are based on
Speaker 1: natural responses. So the natural response is the foundation of
Speaker 1: the technique. What he taught was ruthlessly real world. Unlike
Speaker 1: traditional martial arts when academy proclaimed and then add Kravmaga
Speaker 1: makes no attempt to transform you into a spiritually enlightened warrior.
Speaker 1: Lichtenfeld left Checklist Slovakia the year after the Nazis invaded,
Speaker 1: losing an eye in a painful two year journey towards Palestine,
Speaker 1: which he finally reached in two His mother died at
Speaker 1: Auschwitz Berkenal and most of his other loved ones were
Speaker 1: killed in the Holocaust. The word of Lichtenfeld's expertise and
Speaker 1: the vicious ares spread in these really defense forces adopted
Speaker 1: Kravmaga for training its recruits and named the Czech newcomer
Speaker 1: chief instructor physical fitness. Lichtenfeld, dressed in a white karate uniform,
Speaker 1: spent decades teaching generation after generation of young soldiers how
Speaker 1: to gouge, hit and maim, and most importantly, how to
Speaker 1: be smart about it. Here's em again. Gives you the kick,
Speaker 1: the draw him, rolls him on the stomach. He gives
Speaker 1: him all the kick he breaks, he said, I said,
Speaker 1: then what you break a dead men said? If you
Speaker 1: broke him through leaves what he didn't want me? He
Speaker 1: can stand up, he says, no for what he said,
Speaker 1: if if you think the kick in the head. When
Speaker 1: he was contacted by your reeve, Lichton felt agreed to
Speaker 1: train the team. He didn't care about what the man
Speaker 1: would do with the skills he taught them, which doesn't
Speaker 1: come as a surprise to all. He understood the need
Speaker 1: to make the mission. It's not my business what they're
Speaker 1: going to do. My country is calling me. There's a
Speaker 1: need I give them the tools. Their commanders and them
Speaker 1: they will use the tools. Who was all in the
Speaker 1: end the same thing for him. He assumed they were
Speaker 1: going to hurt those who wanted to hurt Jews. Amy
Speaker 1: never asked why, nor did he dwell too much on
Speaker 1: the request he had received, namely, to take a group
Speaker 1: of men and teach them how to drop a men
Speaker 1: with one aimed blow. You can't help but suspect a
Speaker 1: subconscious motive in choosing Cravmaga. Even Israelis believed that during
Speaker 1: the war, pale slight Jewish men had been lent to
Speaker 1: their desks by strapping robust killers, something many of the
Speaker 1: Sabras regarded with shame. Now, a group of tough Israeli
Speaker 1: Jews planned to find one of those murderers and strike
Speaker 1: them to the ground with their bare hands. It would
Speaker 1: be a tactical way of ensuring silence and stealth, but
Speaker 1: one has to imagine it was something else as well,
Speaker 1: a display of Jewish masculine power. Not everyone, however, was
Speaker 1: pleased with Lichtenfeld or with the plan to immobilize Seacres
Speaker 1: before reading him his death sense. When the outspoken Suded
Speaker 1: heard about it, he was appalled. It's not a movie,
Speaker 1: he fumed, bring a gun. In secret, the team began
Speaker 1: to train. Lichtenfeld led the sessions, and he was relentless.
Speaker 1: Neo had no idea the other team members were training
Speaker 1: in crapmaga. That was your Reeves thing. Mio didn't need
Speaker 1: to know about it. Had he known, he would have
Speaker 1: been pleased that the other agents were practicing eye gouging,
Speaker 1: groin kicking, and other moves because he had come to
Speaker 1: fear sucres physical abilities. He even put this in the
Speaker 1: report he sent back to your Reeve in Paris. I
Speaker 1: re iterates and stressed The effect is that despite the
Speaker 1: late Fund's age of sixty four, havey have us still
Speaker 1: dangerous men? Alert, physically strong and resourceful. Later Mia would
Speaker 1: realize something, You're even. The others didn't believe him at all.
Speaker 1: My friends stopped. It was exaggerating. It's a danger, You're even.
Speaker 1: The other agents had been to war, they'd fought young
Speaker 1: men who were dead set on killing them. They thought
Speaker 1: they could handle the butcher when they read MEO's report,
Speaker 1: You're even. The others were deeply skeptical. They thought me
Speaker 1: it was seeing things in Brazil, knocking off an aching
Speaker 1: Nazi with white hair. It wasn't going to be a problem.
Speaker 1: But you Reeve would later change his mind. Here's Leahy again,
Speaker 1: your Reeves daughter. He used to say that two Chors
Speaker 1: was a huge person, just the uge you couldn't imagine before.
Speaker 1: I mean as many times as you were told before,
Speaker 1: until you really saw him, you couldn't imagine how gigantic
Speaker 1: he was. But that change of heart came months after
Speaker 1: MEO's report, when it was almost too late. This over
Speaker 1: confidence would soon cause terrible problems for the Bazade team.
Speaker 1: Mio had seen the butcher up close. The others had
Speaker 1: no idea what they were dealing with, but they were
Speaker 1: soon going to find out. Good assassins. Hunting the Butcher
Speaker 1: is a production of Diversion Podcasts in association with I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. This season is written and hosted by Stephen Talti,
Speaker 1: produced and directed by Scott Waxman and Jacob Bronstein. Executive
Speaker 1: producers Scott Waxman and Mark Francis. Story editing by Jacob
Speaker 1: Bronstein with editorial direction from Scott Waxman and mangesh Had
Speaker 1: ticket editing, mixing and sound designed by Mark Francis, with
Speaker 1: the voices of Nick Afka, Thomas Armory, Angle, Andrew Polk,
Speaker 1: Mindy Escobar, Leants, Steve Rautman and Stefan Rudnitsky. Theme music
Speaker 1: by Tyler Cash. Archival research by Adam Shapiro. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Oran Rosenbaum at u t A Diversion Podcasts