Citizen 865 Lib/E: The Hunt for Hitler's Hidden Soldiers in America

Product Description



The gripping story of a team of Nazi hunters at the U.S. Department of Justice as they raced against time to expose members of a brutal SS killing force who disappeared in America after World War Two.



In 1990, in a drafty basement archive in Prague, two American historians made a startling discovery: a Nazi roster from 1945 that no Western investigator had ever seen. The long-forgotten document, containing more than 700 names, helped unravel the details behind the most lethal killing operation in World War Two.

In the tiny Polish village of Trawniki, the SS set up a school for mass murder and then recruited a roving army of foot soldiers, 5,000 men strong, to help annihilate the Jewish population of occupied Poland. After the war, some of these men vanished, making their way to the U.S. and blending into communities across America. Though they participated in some of the most unspeakable crimes of the Holocaust, "Trawniki Men" spent years hiding in plain sight, their terrible secrets intact.

In a story spanning seven decades,
Citizen 865 chronicles the harrowing wartime journeys of two Jewish orphans from occupied Poland who outran the men of Trawniki and settled in the United States, only to learn that some of their one-time captors had followed. A tenacious team of prosecutors and historians pursued these men and, up against the forces of time and political opposition, battled to the present day to remove them from U.S. soil.

Through insider accounts and research in four countries, this urgent and powerful narrative provides a front row seat to the dramatic turn of events that allowed a small group of American Nazi hunters to hold murderous men accountable for their crimes decades after the war's end.



Review


"Vividly--and movingly--captures both the frustrations and triumphs of this extraordinary group." -- "Andrew Nagorski, author of 1941"


"Debbie Cenziper's account vividly--and movingly--captures both the frustrations and triumphs of this extraordinary group of dedicated men and women who refused to abandon the quest for a measure of long overdue justice." -- "Andrew Nagorski, author of 1941"


About the Author


Debbie Cenziper is an investigative reporter, journalism professor, and author based in Washington, D.C. She has worked at the Washington Post, the
Miami Herald and the
Charlotte Observer and has won many major awards in American print journalism, including the 2007 Pulitzer Prize. Cenziper is the co-author of the critically acclaimed,
Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Won the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality. She is currently on faculty at the George Washington University and is a contributing reporter for the Investigative Team at the
Washington Post.



Robert Fass is a veteran actor and twice winner of the prestigious Audie Award. He has earned multiple Earphones Awards, including for his narration of Francisco Goldman's Say Her Name, one of AudioFile magazine's Best Audiobooks of 2011.