The Nazis Next Door (43 page)

[>]
 
Holtzman was livid:
Author interview with Elizabeth Holtzman, former member of Congress.

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sat Holtzman down for a briefing:
CIA, “Draft Working Paper,” 18.

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“sanctuary to suspected Nazis”:
Ibid.

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“It is doing nothing”:
Holtzman interview; and Elizabeth Holtzman,
Who Said It Would Be Easy?
(New York: Arcade, 1996), 90.

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laid out for her neatly:
Holtzman interview.

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reporters in San Diego:
Author interview with Bob Dorn, former reporter for
San Diego Evening Tribune;
and Bob Dorn and Martin Gerchen, “Area Man Accused of Nazi War Crimes,”
San Diego Evening Tribune
, October 14, 1976.

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evidence that he had collaborated:
An immigration panel ordered that Laipenieks be deported for his role in aiding the Nazis in Latvia as a police interrogator, but an appellate court threw out the deportation case in 1985. The judges found that while Laipenieks had admitted to helping round up Communist “sympathizers” for the Nazis, it was not proven that he had personally persecuted Jews. He died in the United States in 1998.

[>]
“Thank you once again”: Feigin, The Office of Special Investigations, 119
. Feigin, The Office of Special Investigations, 119.

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“I’m not sure I’d tell you”:
Bob Dorn, “CIA Denies Giving Aid to War Crimes Suspect,”
San Diego Evening Tribune
, November 30, 1976.

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a remarkable series of congressional hearings: Hearings Before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, August 3, 1977, and July 19–21, 1978
. Hearings Before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, August 3, 1977, and July 19–21, 1978.

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“I can only ask ‘why?’”:
Ibid., July 19, 1978.

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The two weren’t on speaking terms:
Saidel,
The Outraged Conscience
, 87.

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the 1950s-era loophole was finally sealed:
Jeffrey N. Mausner, “Apprehending and Prosecuting Nazi War Criminals in the United States,”
Nova Law Review
15, no. 2 (Spring 1991); and Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
, 40.

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lost three of the five cases:
Ryan,
Quiet Neighbors
, 60.

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as listeners in the courtroom gasped:
Author interview with Andrew Krieg, former reporter for
Hartford Courant
, who covered the Florida trial of Feodor Fedorenko, where the mistaken identification took place. The trial judge threw out the case against Fedorenko in 1978, based in part on the shaky eyewitness testimony. But an appeals court reversed that decision. In the biggest legal win in the history of the Justice Department’s Nazi office, the Supreme Court upheld Fedorenko’s deportation in 1981 and affirmed the authority of the Justice Department to deport Americans who took part in Nazi atrocities. Fedorenko, a guard at Treblinka and at a Jewish ghetto in Poland, was deported in 1984 to the Soviet Union, where he was convicted of war crimes and executed three years later.

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a disgruntled former tenant:
Ryan,
Quiet Neighbors
, 60. The Chicago immigrant, Frank Walus, was originally ordered deported in 1978 because of his apparent role as a Gestapo member in Poland who personally murdered Jews. But prosecutors were forced to drop the case after new evidence confirmed it was a matter of mistaken identity. The collapse of the case was the biggest black eye in the Justice Department’s Nazi prosecutions prior to the Ivan the Terrible prosecution more than a decade later.

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“legal lepers”:
Ryan,
Quiet Neighbors
, 61.

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Ryan had won a crucial case:
Ryan was the appellate lawyer in the Justice Department’s victory before the Supreme Court in the deportation of Feodor Fedorenko. (See Ryan,
Quiet Neighbors
.)

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“that’s one more win”:
Author interview with Allan Ryan, former director of the Office of Special Investigations at the United States Justice Department, quoting Philip Heymann, former assistant attorney general at the Justice Department.

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It didn’t get him the job:
Author interview with Philip Heymann, former assistant attorney general at the Justice Department.

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“A little seasoning”:
Walter Rockler, recorded interview (2000) for Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
.

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“We shot them”:
Author interview with Art Sinai, former deputy director of investigations at the Office of Special Investigations.

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a surprise visit:
Sinai interview.

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“We’ll help you out”:
Ibid.

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the FBI wasn’t willing:
Internal memos, 1979–80, between the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations and the FBI regarding access to FBI records on Nazi suspects; obtained by author.

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“their specific identity is not being disclosed”:
Confidential memo, November 21, 1979, from the FBI to Justice Department OSI officials, informing them that the FBI was not willing to turn over information on sixteen Nazi suspects who were confidential FBI informants. Allan Ryan, then at OSI, said in an interview with the author that he believed higher-level Justice Department officials lodged objections to the FBI decision. But there is no record that the FBI’s decision to withhold information on the suspected Nazis was ever reversed.

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“every case will be vigorously pursued”:
Justice Department press statement, January 16, 1980, after creation of Office of Special Investigations to probe Nazi cases.

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“To hell with you”:
Rockler interview.

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“There may be reason”:
Justice Department memo from John Loftus, prosecutor in Nazi office, April 25, 1980.

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the FBI destroyed: Undated memo (1980) from the Justice Department criminal division to the FBI directing the bureau to explain to a judge how the Trifa Manifesto had been destroyed
. Undated memo (1980) from the Justice Department criminal division to the FBI directing the bureau to explain to a judge how the Trifa Manifesto had been destroyed.

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put out dozens of articles:
Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
, 237.

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a rogue investigation:
Letters from Neal Sher, former director of OSI, to the FBI objecting to its handling of the Koreh case and the delay in disciplining agents, 1994–96; and Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
, 231–33.

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“so outrageous”:
Sher letter to FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, November 23, 1994.

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Koreh grudgingly acknowledged:
Sher letters on Koreh; and Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
. Ultimately, Koreh acknowledged publishing the Nazi propaganda in Hungary and was ordered deported in 1997. The Justice Department agreed not to seek his removal from the country because of his failing health, and he died three months later. The FBI censured his daughter, Veronica Koreh Maxwell, and suspended his son-in-law, Kenneth Maxwell, for a week for their conduct in the investigation in defense of Koreh.

9. The Sins of the Father

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Gus von Bolschwing didn’t think much of it:
Gus von Bolschwing interview.

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“Did you know”:
Author interview with Jeff Mausner, former Justice Department prosecutor at Office of Special Investigations; and Gus von Bolschwing interview.

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must be a bizarre mistake:
Gus von Bolschwing interview.

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impossible for her to believe:
Author interview with Diane Lavoie, daughter of Vladas Zajanckauskas.

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“don’t ever lose hope”:
Steven Levingston, “The Executioner’s Trail,”
Boston Globe Magazine
, November 8, 1998, p. 13.

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he walked down the school’s hallway:
Aslan Soobzokov interview.

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Aslan left his air base:
Ibid.

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colored his earliest memories:
Author interview with Rad Artukovic, son of Andrija Artukovic.

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made his very first court appearance:
Patt Morrison, “A Good Son,”
Los Angeles Times Magazine
, May 18, 1986, p. 11.

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“a kangaroo court”:
Rad Artukovic interview.

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“I hate your dad”:
Ibid.

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wanted badly to believe:
Gus von Bolschwing interview.

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gave an interview in 1973:
Ralph Blumenthal, “Bishop Under Inquiry on Atrocity Link,”
New York Times
, December 26, 1973.

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finally pushing ahead with deportation
: Trifa voluntarily agreed to give up his citizenship in 1980 but lived at the Romanian church’s two-hundred-acre estate in Grass Lake, Michigan, for another four years while American authorities tried unsuccessfully to find a country that would take him. Trifa made clear that he would not go just anywhere. “You know, I’m not looking for any place too hot, or too cold,” he said in an interview in 1984 at the Michigan estate. “I will not stay in a grass hut in the middle of Africa, either. I will be 70 in June. I’m looking for a place with a high standard of living, with culture.” (Howard Blum, “Stateless Rumanian Archbishop Looks for a Country,”
New York Times
, February 2, 1984.) He ended up moving to Portugal in 1984, although Portuguese officials insisted later that they were not aware of his role with the Nazis in Romania when they agreed to let him in. He died in Portugal in 1987. His American followers brought his body back to Michigan and buried him at the church estate.

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went looking for witnesses:
Author interview with Eugene Thirolf, former prosecutor at the Justice Department.

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Mendelsohn was in a car:
Author interview with Martin Mendelsohn, former official at INS Nazi unit and Office of Special Investigations.

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raised “obvious questions”:
CIA, “Draft Working Paper,” 31.

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  “
Most of our cases
”
:
Ibid.

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“I am deeply disturbed”:
Justice Department transcript of von Bolschwing deposition.

150   
“I would say”:
“Nazi Who Surrendered U.S. Citizenship Dies in Capital,”
Sacramento Bee
, March 7, 1982.

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was satisfied that no one in his own family:
Paul Chutkow, “From the ‘Music Box’ Emerges the Nazi Demon,”
New York Times
, December 24, 1989.

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Prosecutors suspected eighty-three-year-old Istvan Eszterhas:
Author interview with Eli Rosenbaum, former director of Office of Special Investigations at Justice Department.

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“correct what the father has done”:
Sharon Waxman, “In a Screenwriter’s Art, Echoes of His Father’s Secret,”
New York Times
, March 18, 2004.

10. A Good Party Spoiled

[>]
 
wandered off to the bookstore:
Rosenbaum interview.

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translation of a memoir:
Jean Michel,
Dora: The Nazi Concentration Camp Where Modern Space Technology Was Born and 30,000 Prisoners
Died
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979).

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a book called
The Rocket Team: Frederick I. Ordway III and Mitchell R. Sharpe,
The Rocket Team: From the V-2 to the Saturn Moon Rocket—The Inside Story of How a Small Group of Engineers Changed World History
(New York: Crowell, 1979).

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“I cursed at having to leave the party”:
Ibid., 72.

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“You ever heard of a guy”:
Rosenbaum interview.

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“100% Nazi, dangerous type”:
“Arthur Rudolph,” file, Nazi War Crimes Interagency Working Group, Declassified Records of the Central Intelligence Agency (Record Group 263), National Archives and Records Administration.