Not Past It Podcast

The Nazi Hunter.We told you about the fall of 1945, about how WWII just ended and how the Allied Powers put several captured Nazis on trial in Nuremberg.

0:20
Commit crimes against peace, war, crimes, and crimes against humanity.One of these war, criminals, Adolf Eichmann charge of overseeing.What was going to happen to the Jews.I commend went on the run right after the war ended and was nowhere to be found.

0:38
We're looking for him and then I have a photo so he disappeared, enter Holocaust, Survivor and self-proclaimed Nazi Hunter, Simon, wiesenthal.I know what I'm doing against this criminals.It's not the answer for the tragedy, but this is a warning for the murderers of tomorrow.

1:00
Simon suspected that Eichmann had ended up somewhere in Argentina, that pig at off, Eichmann, is living in Buenos Aires.And this is where things start to get very 007.

1:23
From gimlet media.This is not past it a show about the stories.We can't quite leave behind every episode.We take a moment from that very same week in history and tell you the story of how it shaped our world.I'm Simone polenin 62 years ago this week on May 11th, 1960, Israeli, agents captured, Adolf, Eichmann to bring him to Justice.

1:50
This is part two of the story to hunt down.One of the architects of the Holocaust for part 1.Check out the link.In the show notes.Today's episode sounds, a whole lot like an international spy Thriller, with a team of secret agents acting on behalf of a new government and a showdown between the Nazi on the run and the man assigned to bring him to Justice.

2:14
This message will self-destruct after the break.

2:28
One of the secret agents that hunted Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina.Was Peter Malkin.I went for my mother as I'm going to Paris.This is mocking from an oral history.Housed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

2:44
He became a secret agent, as a young man.So secret even his own mother didn't know about it.She said you really got to Paris.What are you going to do this time that she never knew.I was in the second service before Malkin became Israeli.

2:59
James Bond.He was a Jewish kid growing up in Poland in the 1920s and 30s.Malkin says he learned very quickly about the inescapable reality of being Jewish.I felt there's a big difference between me and the Polish because you couldn't describe yourself free.

3:20
You always felt that you are Jewish.Nobody let you forget.I did sensing this hostility in 1933 Peter and most of his immediate family.Got out of Poland and made their way to what was then British Palestine.

3:36
But his older sister and her husband and kids stayed behind.They were killed.Which would later haunt Malkin.It Happened.One Thing.My relatives have been killed my sister and featured in the product being killed.

3:52
We call it all.Holocaust other European Jews, began fleeing to British Palestine for safety growing up there.Falcon was just another kid getting into trouble stealing from a local shop, sprinting off and leapfrogging Over The Old City walls to get away.

4:09
This kind of Mischief would later end up making him the perfect candidate for the new state of Israel's intelligence agency called Mossad.Initially Malkin was assigned to travel to Israeli embassies in other countries and train their staff and how to detect bombs, eventually.

4:28
He also got real deal.Assignments of counterespionage, you know, badass spy shit.Then in 1960, Malkin was assigned by his Mossad Chief, to his next very important, very secret mission because me, and he said you're going to South America.

4:51
And I told him, what is it, you know, because the that time to go to South America was like, to go to the stars at first Malcolm, couldn't imagine why he would be sent to South America.Was it just another one of those Embassy training missions.

5:07
He said, Now you have been selected and chosen to go to capture Irishman.I said I wasn't to do it myself.Adolf Eichmann was an Austrian kernel.And Hitler's Third Reich.At first, he was more of a pencil Pusher, but then in 1942 Eichmann was given a very specific job, the discussions and meetings that were undertaken to find out.

5:34
How do we mass murder quickly?We're Germans.Is were very efficient.We build Great Cars.We could probably kill people really well, too tarou College, distinguished, professor and writer Thane Rosenbaum.As a son of Holocaust Survivors, a personal story that inspired him to study the Holocaust and Adolf Eichmann.

5:55
He was sort of the Nazi operative that made the literally made the trains run on time.So, the concept of moving Jews.Remember a lot of this was resettlement, right?Yeah.Resettlement.The Nazis needed to resettle people in order to kill them and move people en masse this plan for transport and extermination was called the final solution.

6:23
Supporting people to concentration camps or extermination camps.And this was eichmann's job.He was responsible for creating organizing and managing all this Transportation, shuttling Millions to their death.Many people attribute to Iseman this sort of The Mastermind of the final solution.

6:43
After World War Two ended, Eichmann disappeared, and evaded being punished for his part in the Holocaust.But forces in the newly-formed, Israeli government, wanted to change that the operation to kidnap and return Eichmann to Israel to be prosecuted for mass murder of the Jewish people was called operation finale.

7:05
It was a way of closing the loop on that.Euphemistic language operation finale was also an opportunity for Israel.It could potentially help establish a strong reputation for its new government and its first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.

7:26
In 1948, Israel was just barely 10 years old, a new country, without a story.But bringing Eichmann to justice, that could be a story.If we capture Iseman, and bring him to Israel.We are no longer a baby country.

7:42
Maybe we should invest some resources in this.We're busy with other things, but maybe this could be the kind of thing.That sends a message to the world that this is almost the signature.Into in our statehood, it's hard to imagine.

7:58
But at this time the greater world didn't have a real strong grasp of the atrocities committed by the Nazis.The term Holocaust wasn't even being widely used.Then the horrific details were quickly lost in a world that was just desperate to recover and rebuild.

8:15
If Eichmann was put on trial in Israel, he would have to account for all the murders.He was responsible for and that could establish a strong identity.T for this new country, they basically said essentially, Israel is a nation of badass Jews.

8:32
We're not a nation of victims.In order to establish this identity Israeli, agents would need to track down Nazis who had fled Europe and Runa.Gorski is a former Newsweek foreign correspondent and editor.

8:48
He's also the author of the book, the Nazi Hunters.He says that many Nazis ended up in Argentina because of its leader.Juan Peron, who is a very far-right dictator had a lot of Sympathy for the Nazis and there was a large German community.

9:04
They are that they could Of the absorb into see Juan Peron the Argentinian dictator wasn't just a Nazi sympathizer.Andrew says he also believed in that whole cliché of German industrious.

9:20
Nastas.He saw these German Nazis as a way to pull a struggling old-world Argentina and to a modern industrial Powerhouse.But when Mossad tracked, Eichmann down to Buenos Aires, they had to be discreet.So, as not to alert Argentinian officials, yes, and to keep Eichmann from finding out and disappearing completely.

9:43
Israeli Prime, Minister Benjamin considered all these ramifications.He made the call.He spoke with only a few Mossad directors, kept it all hush-hush.Mossad was going to go to Argentina and kidnap Eichmann and then sneak him back to Israel.

10:02
Operation.Finale was a go.A whole team of Mossad Agents from various places under various pseudonyms, various fake, passports, fake, nationalities, all of whom have to come in in under false, pretenses to Argentina in April of 1960, Mossad, agents got their assignment.

10:26
They packed their bags, grab their guns, their notebooks, their fake passports, they're fake mustaches, and they boarded flights.That would land them all the way.Sunny, when Osiris they have several cars because the cars in our continued at the time where real rickety, jalopies and they couldn't, they were who they're afraid of them breaking down and they staked out eichmann's house.

10:54
At least what they thought was, eichmann's house.They come to the house and the house is empty, except for some painters inside and it's Clear that whatever family is there to have moved out and I said, oh my God, we may be too late when they looked around the house where Eichmann was supposed to be.

11:16
There was no Eichmann not even a trace and they asked these painters.What's going on here?Didn't somebody live here recently and said, oh yeah.Yeah, there was this German family.They moved out a couple of weeks ago.

11:33
The Mossad agents did have one lead.They knew that Aikman son, worked at an auto repair shop nearby.The painters, gave them the address.And when the agents got there, they found a young German looking man working there.

11:49
They suspected.He could be Eichmann son, but they had to confirm his identity first.So they came up with a plan and oddly romantic one.He sent someone pretending to deliver a package for him.Saying, this is from an old from a girlfriend.

12:06
And she asked me to pass it along and at first he's kind of suspicious, but then they follow this guy home.Want to this other suburb, the agents found a new house and in it.A man who fit eichmann's description.Peter Malkin says, they never let him out of their sight.

12:25
So this time we went there but she for people and we start to photograph the man over the course of weeks. Malkin and the rest of the team confirmed that the man was Eichmann, but the question remained, how did Eichmann get all the way from Germany?

12:43
Across Europe, across the Atlantic, all the way to Argentina without anyone knowing well, it was all thanks to something called the ratline.The ratline was for those High Nazi officials, say they were identified and captured that they were going to face the consequences after World.

13:07
War Two ended Nazis.Like Eichmann went on the run and they Help there was a network of Nazi sympathizer from Germany, usually through Austria, and then Italy.

13:22
And then they get them on ships where they can inconspicuously under assumed names with fake papers supplied by fellow Nazis.And they would sail to places like Argentina many high-ranking.

13:37
Nazis were helped by members of the Catholic Church, including some in the Vatican.Eichmann himself, made it through the ratline with the help of a Catholic priest.He boarded a ship in Genoa, Italy, sailed for almost a month, across the Mediterranean, and through the Atlantic.

13:55
And finally landed on the coast of Oregon guy on a summer night in 1950, Eichmann stood, on the bow of the ship looking across the water where he could see the big blinking lights of Buenos Aires and the distance he'd cross over the next day.

14:13
And Start a brand new life in hiding.Four weeks, Mossad, held, close, watch of the family in this new house in the suburb of San, Fernando just a few miles Drive outside of Buenos Aires.

14:31
Mossad agents, like Malkin hit out and far-off parked cars.Turning the knobs on their binoculars focusing in on Eichmann, as he went about his daily routine. They noted, which bus he took to, and from work, what time he came home.They scribbled down notes.

14:47
Documenting his every move, I same and it comes.He plays with small boy, is six years old.Suddenly.You see a family, man.You don't seem uniform seeing playing this child.They had snapped photos of Eichmann with his relatives playing with his kids being this Loving Family, Man.

15:07
Such a contrast to the war criminal.They knew this man to be finally, the Mossad Chief pulled the trigger and ordered the kidnapping on May 11th 1960 with the safe house.Paired, Malkin.And three other agents gathered together in two separate cars.

15:28
On a gloomy evening, they drove in silence out to San Fernando and park the cars in your quiet.Road named Garibaldi Street.The main guy should be very near to the scene in the rain and the Thunders horribly the park.

15:45
You two cars along this block with one of the cars, a few car lengths away from the other on the first car.They pop the hood to make it look like it had broken down, even walk through.Dodge's house, you will see a parking car.

16:01
The hood is up like something happened in the Rain.The plan was once Eichmann past the first car.The agents would confirm his identity to the second car.Then as he kept walking and got closer Vulcan would grab him with everything in place.

16:19
All they needed was Eichmann.They knew that every day.I couldn't left work and got on the same bus, that would drop him off at Garibaldi Street at Thirty P.M--.It was about around 7:30.Every half hour was a bust.The bus pulled up, and there was no Eichmann.

16:43
Suddenly, it happens.It didn't arrive.And we didn't see I kept my feelings to myself.The agents worried that Eichmann had somehow caught wind of their plan and bolted before they could capture him if that were the case, without any clues as to where he ran off.

17:05
They would have to start their hunt all over from scratch.They had to make a decision.Do we call it or do we wait?Oh my gosh.I'm so sorry you guys.My spy phone is ringing.

17:21
I'll be right back.Yes.Agent, pull on in here.What's that?The bus came but no Eichmann, uh-huh.Copy copy.

17:38
You want me to tell him that?All right?Okay.Hey y'all, welcome back before the break.We left the Mossad agents just as they were waiting for Adolf, Eichmann the Nazi official, who had escaped to Argentina, but on the day of operation finale, Vulcan and the other agents were going to kidnap Eichmann from the bus.

18:00
He got off of every day.He was nowhere to be found.So they waited several minutes later, the next bus rolled to the stop.The door is rattled open and a woman and a man stepped off.

18:16
Onto the Rainy sidewalk Malkin. Squinted through the rain.There was a woman there and she left other place and he starts to move.Step by step.I could hear the noise of his boots.

18:34
There was Eichmann getting closer and closer to Malkin and the waiting car, his boots crunching along the sidewalk.When he finally got Within Reach, Malkin sprung into action as they went along with Tito, I could see his eyes.

18:51
It was frightened and started in a way to retreat.One step.I said to hell with everything.I jumped on him.In a failed to get into the ditch and I pushed him near my near me and hold his head in studying her help out.

19:14
I cry the other agent in the car, slammed on the gas and revved up the engine to drown out.Eichmann's cry.I hold back is head that he could open his mouth.And I took him on my shoulders and brought him up.

19:31
The ditch, put him into the car, close the car, when we put him rear side and we move.The agents took Eichmann to the innermost secret room of the Mossad safe house, but I knew from the beginning, I have to know what he has to say about many things.

19:54
Inevitably, there was time to kill time when Malkin and Eichmann would be alone together one on one is said to me.Are you the man who kept in me?I told him.Yes.I'm The Man.Who captured you.And then the conversation started and I said, you know, I've Seen you many times through the window playing with you, boy.

20:17
I said, oh, what happened to my boy.Did you kill him?My family, no Mossad.They were just after Eichmann, but it was gnawing at Malkin. This man, before him was a frail middle-aged, father.

20:33
How could he be the same man behind the murder of millions of malkin's? Own family members.I thought him really a family, man.I want to ask you.Why is it?Did the child 6 years old of my sister is dead and your son is alive.

20:53
And he said to me, wasn't he Jewish?Look, my order was to bring all the jewels onto the trains children woman ever.I couldn't do it.Otherwise, and then when he reflected little bit he said, what about you?

21:10
You didn't come through in order to catch me.I said, yes.But do you make the you compare my catching you to the oldest that you got new, fulfill them.

21:26
But chances did you give to my assistant children or to the others?More than a week would pass before it was time for the next stage of operation finale.Getting Eichmann out of Argentina and over to Israel, but that wasn't going to be straightforward.

21:49
First of all, they had to keep this all on the DL.Plus Israel's one passenger.Airline.El.Al didn't have a direct flight to Buenos Aires.So according to former Newsweek editor and correspondent Andrew Nagurski, massage.

22:05
Agents had to get creative.They devised a plan of getting the Israeli government to send a delegation over a special plane for the 150th anniversary of Argentine Independence, which was coming up in May.

22:21
This anniversary flight made for the perfect cover this way.An El Al flight with only a few Israeli delegate passengers.Could fly to Buenos Aires and get Eichmann back to Israel with without setting off alarm bells and they said, okay, what we'll do is we'll have this official delegation come and then will smuggle him onto the plane.

22:46
Now that they had the flight, they had to figure out how to get him onto the plane without looking suspicious.The agents prepared disguises colorful pants buttoned up dress shirts, and these cute little colorful vests.

23:03
They put Eichmann in the same.Get up.They looked like regular El, Al flight attendants, but there was one last thing.They didn't want Eichmann acting up for trying to call for help as they transported him.So they drugged him.

23:19
They didn't totally knock him out, but they injected him with enough stuff to get him.Real loopy.Real Weekend at Bernie's.They propped Aikman up between two agents and left the safe house for the airport and then when they got him out of the car.

23:35
Short distance, just to the steps to go and go into the plane.They serve had him basically work.Not dragging him but have them lift it up enough so they could get him up the stairs.And they say, oh, you know, he had too much of a good time in Buenos Aires, you know, it's a fun town after all, they walked a drugged-up.

23:56
I commend to the back of the plane, the flight crew, you not to ask questions, the agents communicated with the pilot, making sure everything was a go.And just before midnight, they left for Israel.

24:12
We're finally the Holocaust architect Adolf, Eichmann would be tried over a year.Later.Eichmann was found guilty and later executed.I got to say this story, feels like it's ripped from the pages of some spy Thriller.

24:33
But the moment that sticks with me isn't the Espionage, the screeching cars.The secret kidnapping.It's a much quieter moment.Those few hours Adolf, Eichmann and Peter, Malkin, shared in that cramped room and the safe house.

24:49
Eichmann nervously, trying to avoid eye contact.Malkin staring at the man who helped shuttle his own relatives.Their deaths trying to wrap his head around eichmann's actions.I was very disappointed at the last moment.I looked at him.

25:05
I never could describe in the monster and even in the moment.I saw him standing there.I felt To hell with you.How did it happen?Death and destruction on an unfathomable scale?

25:24
This is what hovered over the men.As they talked in that small room, the hugeness of a devastating history, and a moment.So small, so personal.It was a confrontation that in the end seemed to change very little and eichmann's mind when I it was standing then said, the Jews had been microbes to Germany and we had to kill them after all this, he didn't change.

25:57
He believed what he has done is right, but he said, it's not me, but they did.I was only the instrument.I was an excellent instrument.

26:36
Not passed it as a Spotify original produced by gimlet and zsp media.This episode was produced by Ramon A Philip next week.Not past it turns one year old.So we're looking back on a Year's worth of lessons learned.It's not a straight line.

26:52
It's not a to be equal C, but it's a circuitous line, but that's what history is.The rest of our team is producer, Sarah Craig, our associate producer is truly Carly.Laura Newcomb is our production assistant.

27:09
The supervising producer is Erica Morrison, editing by Zach, Stewart Ponte and Andrea be Scott fact-checking by Jane.Ackerman sound design and mixing by Hans Dale.She original music by Sachs kicks, Ave.Wheelie Green, Jay bless, and Bobby.Lord.Our theme song is Toko Liana by Coco, Co with music supervision by Liz Fulton, technical Direction by Zach Schmidt, show art by Elysee hard.

27:31
Evan and Talia Rahman, the executive producer and DSP media is Zach Stewart Ponte the executive producer from gimlet as Matt schulze.Also for more of and Runa gorski's work.Check out his latest World War Two Chronicle.Saving Freud, The Rescuers who brought him to Freedom?

27:49
Special.Thanks to Michael Birnbaum.Dr. Patricia had Borough rice the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum the Jeff and Toby her oral history archive and to Lydia Pole, Green Abbie.Ruzicka, Dan.Hard gen hon, Emily wiedemann, list Styles and Joshua Bianchi follow not past it.

28:07
Now to listen for free exclusively on Spotify.Click the little bell next to the follow button to get notifications for new episodes.And while you're there, why don't you write the show?Five stars?Come on, don't be shy.You can follow me on Twitter at some on palana in.

28:22
Thanks for hanging.We'll see you next week.I remember years ago, they kidnapped a rocket scientist, and they they got, they got Really did, no one wants to talk about how they did it.He ended up in an Israeli prison.They got him out of a train, a train.

28:39
I don't know what they did.