The Nazis Next Door (44 page)

[>]
 
singing the “Horst Wessel Lied”:
Rudolph interview, September 24, 1982.

[>]
 
asked a boyish-looking member:
Ibid.

[>]
 
slave-labor factory at Dora:
The underground camp at the site where the prisoners were held was known as Dora. The adjoining factory, connected by tunnels, was known as Mittelwerk, or sometimes Mittelbau.

[>]
 
Rosenbaum got up the nerve:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
A Lithuanian tailor in Massachusetts: The Justice Department brought a deportation case in 1984 against the tailor, Juozas Kisielaitis. He left the United States voluntarily for Canada rather than face a trial over the war crimes accusations. Feigin, The Office of Special Investigations, 587
. The Justice Department brought a deportation case in 1984 against the tailor, Juozas Kisielaitis. He left the United States voluntarily for Canada rather than face a trial over the war crimes accusations. Feigin, The Office of Special Investigations, 587.

[>]
 
he killed himself:
Author interviews.

[>]
 
“Rudolph is a rocket scientist”:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
Rudolph had even brought:
Audio recordings and transcript of Justice Department interviews with Rudolph, San Jose, California, October 13, 1982, and February 4, 1983.

[>]
 
“I didn’t ask for a lawyer”:
Rudolph interview, October 13, 1982.

[>]
 
“I couldn’t do a darn thing”:
Ibid., February 4, 1983.

[>]
 
he needed to hold on to his pension:
Interview with Rosenbaum; and author interview with Marianne Rudolph, daughter of Arthur Rudolph.

[>]
 
She still couldn’t believe:
Marianne Rudolph interview.

[>]
 
he would show them:
Author interview with Frederick I. Ordway III, a friend of Rudolph’s.

[>]
 
“It was just bad luck”:
Ibid.

[>]
 
Rosenbaum got a tip:
Rosenbaum interview.

11. “An Innocent Man”

[>]
 
“was he a Nazi or not?”:
Author interview with Floyd Abrams, attorney for
New York Times
in Soobzokov libel suit.

[>]
 
pay Soobzokov $450,000:
The settlement figure is contained in legal documents provided by Aslan Soobzokov. Floyd Abrams refused to discuss the terms of the libel settlement because the record was sealed.

[>]
 
he tried to borrow money:
Aslan Soobzokov interview.

[>]
 
“How can I go back?”:
Ibid.

[>]
 
rights to “the story of my life”:
Letters between Tscherim Soobzokov and his attorney, Michael Dennis, May 23, 1980; obtained by author.

[>]
“to carry out their false and evil designs”: Letter from Tscherim Soobzokov during libel litigation; obtained by author
.Letter from Tscherim Soobzokov during libel litigation; obtained by author.

[>]
 
Abrams and the company’s other lawyers:
Interview with Abrams; and Floyd Abrams, “Foreword: Settler’s Remorse,”
Michigan Law Review
105, no. 6 (April 2007), 1033.

[>]
 
shot to death in the nearby woods:
Witness deposition in
Soobzokov vs. CBS et al
.

[>]
 
too hot to touch:
Correspondence regarding the Soobzokov libel suit; part of personal papers of Benjamin B. Ferencz, on file at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

[>]
 
“brainwashed” him:
Depositions in
Soobzokov vs. CBS
libel suit.

[>]
 
“I don’t know nothing”:
Deposition of Hadgmet Neguch in
Soobzokov vs. CBS
.

[>]
“I’m not going to pay money to a Nazi”: Abrams interview
. Abrams interview.

[>]
 
Soobzokov got a check:
Documents in libel suit provided by Aslan Soobzokov.

[>]
 
he was just pacing:
Author interview with Lidia, longtime neighbor of Soobzokov. She asked that her last name not be used.

[>]
 
noticed a taxi:
Lidia interview and Paterson Police Department reports.

[>]
 
the doorbell awoke her:
Lidia interview and Paterson Police Department reports.

[>]
 
they found yellow wiring, screws: Paterson Police Department reports and FBI crime-scene investigative reports obtained by author under Freedom of Information Act
. Paterson Police Department reports and FBI crime-scene investigative reports obtained by author under Freedom of Information Act.

[>]
  “
we applaud the act”:
Kinga Borondy, “Soobzokov Is Critical,”
North Jersey News
, August 16, 1985.

[>]
 
“He was doing what his country asked”:
Kinga Borondy, “Residents Talk of ‘a Nice Man,’”
North Jersey News
, August 16, 1985.

[>]
 
he was shaken:
Author interview with Howard Blum; and Blum,
Wanted!
, 263.

[>]
 
a call came through:
Lidia interview and Paterson Police Department reports.

[>]
 
Soobzokov nodded yes:
FBI and Paterson Police Department reports.

[>]
 
“I can’t believe they did this”:
Aslan Soobzokov interview.

[>]
 
been also accused of collaborating with the Nazis:
Like Soobzokov, Sprogis beat the Nazi charges in court. An assistant police chief in Latvia during the Nazi occupation, Sprogis admitted his involvement in arresting Jews and confiscating their property, but in 1984 a judge threw out the deportation charges against him, finding that his duties were “ministerial” and did not involve his personally carrying out Nazi persecution. Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
, 101–3.

[>]
 
“a brave and noble act”:
“Police Suspect Link in Blasts at Homes of Men Tied to War Crimes,” Associated Press, September 7, 1985.

[>]
 
were practically identical:
The FBI also linked two bombings in Southern California in 1985 to the Soobzokov and Sprogis bombs that same year. One of the bombs killed the leader of an Arab American group, Alex Odeh, in Orange County, California. The bombings remain unsolved.

12. Backlash

[>]
 
a one-man PR assault:
Buchanan declined the author’s requests for an interview.

[>]
men like Tom Soobzokov: Patrick Buchanan, letter to the editor, New York Times, April 7, 1987
. Patrick Buchanan, letter to the editor, New York Times, April 7, 1987.

[>]
 
“how a handful of American Jews”: Ibid
. Ibid.

[>]
 
Sher was pacing:
Author interview with Neal Sher, former director of Office of Special Investigations at the Justice Department.

[>]
 
turned Sher’s stomach:
Ibid.

[>]
 
fifteen thousand postcards, letters, and calls:
Feigin,
Office of Special Investigations
, 279.

[>]
 
“I cannot help but feel”: Letter of resignation from Saulius Suziedelis, Justice Department historian, to Neal Sher, April 22, 1986
. Letter of resignation from Saulius Suziedelis, Justice Department historian, to Neal Sher, April 22, 1986.

[>]
 
the White House defended:
New York Times
, “Grace Action Noted by U.S.,” March 5, 1982.

[>]
 
Reagan’s jaw-dropping, public insistence:
Lou Cannon, “Honoring Wiesel, Reagan Confronts the Holocaust,”
Washington Post
, April 20, 1985.

[>]
 
“It couldn’t be more important”:
Sher interview and Holtzman interview.

[>]
 
He wanted Meese’s secretary:
Sher interview for Feigin,
Office of Special Investigations
.

[>]
 
start drafting his letter of resignation:
Sher interview.

[>]
 
The twenty-one-page decision:
Karl Linnas vs. INS
, Second Circuit Court of Appeals (790 F.2d 1024); decision issued May 8, 1986.

[>]
 
Linnas had never really challenged:
Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
, 271.

[>]
 
She didn’t think that this was by accident:
Holtzman interview.

[>]
 
It was the most attention:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
“We would like to make sure”:
Author interview with Reagan administration official, who asked that his name not be published.

[>]
 
Their government had already decided:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
The first thing Rosenbaum did:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
“God bless America!”:
Newspaper stories and wire service reports, April 21, 1987. Linnas died ten weeks later of heart failure in Russia before the start of his war crimes trial.

[>]
 
a typical headline:
“Former Nazi Death Camp Guard Relieved from School Job,” Associated Press, January 26, 1984. Reinhold Kulle, a guard at the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, had been working as a janitor at a suburban Chicago school. He was deported to West Germany in 1987.

[>]
  a
scathing Nazi office investigation:
Ryan,
Klaus Barbie and the United States Government
.

[>]
 
“a pact with the devil”:
Editorial, “Barbie and Dishonor,”
Miami Herald
, August 18, 1983.

[>]
 
had secretly been an intelligence officer:
Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
, 313.

[>]
 
as tortured a Nazi history as Austria:
In 1991, Austria formally acknowledged for the first time the country’s role in support of the Nazis. The revelations about Waldheim were seen as one motivation for the admission.

[>]
 
What struck Meese as much as anything:
Author interview with Edwin Meese III, former attorney general in the Reagan administration.

[>]
 
“‘I just worked there and followed orders’”:
Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
, 313, quoting former Justice Department official Stephen S. Trott.

[>]
 
Austria barred Sher himself:
Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
, 316.

[>]
 
Waldheim sent a handwritten note:
Ibid., 321.

[>]
 
must be a mole:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
secretly collecting all the office trash:
Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
, 166.

[>]
 
“Jewish Zionist special interest groups”:
Anti-Defamation League of B’Nai B’rith,
The Campaign Against the U.S. Justice Department’s Prosecution of Suspected Nazi War Criminals
, special report (New York: ADL, June 1985), quoting a letter from a critic of the Justice Department, Dr. Edward Rubel, to Secretary of State George Shultz.

[>]
  “
Let us chase
”
:
The Campaign Against the U.S. Justice Department’s Prosecution
, 11.

[>]
 
retained a prominent Huntsville attorney:
Ordway interview.

[>]
 
to investigate more than a dozen German rocket scientists:
Justice Department “Paperclip” internal documents obtained under Freedom of Information Act, and author interviews.

[>]
 
a “promising investigation”:
Internal Justice Department memos in Strughold investigation obtained through Freedom of Information Act.

[>]
 
with live explosives and chemical weapons:
Justice Department “Paperclip” documents, including memos in 1980–83 on accusations and evidence against Strughold.