The Nazi Hunters

Chapter 2 skips to mid-June of 1945; the war in Europe is over. The story follows the efforts of Simon Wiesenthal in accounting for, and tracking Nazi war criminals. Imprisoned at the Mauthausen concentration camp, and having lost his mother and wife, Wiesenthal has dedicated his life to going after those responsible. Having identified ninety-one Nazi war criminals, he is tipped off to the name "Adolf Eichmann" by a captain in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army. Although the Nazis have made efforts to conceal or destroy the records of the Holocaust in the final days of the war, Wiesenthal and other investigators at the OSS (the Office of Secret Intelligence, the forerunner to the CIA), have located Eichmann's name in their searches. However, a visit to Eichmann's parents’ residence turns up nothing; he has either fled the country, is living under an assumed identity, or both.

However, the Nazi hunters are already on Eichmann's trail. By 1947, the Jewish agent Manus Diamant has tracked down Eichmann's former mistress, Maria Mösenbacher. She reveals that her ex-boyfriend, "Adolft," was indeed, a high-ranking SS officer. She has no idea of his current whereabouts, and reasons he likely died in the war. Agent Diamant is able to acquire a picture of Adolf Eichmann from her. Astoundingly, Diamant makes contact with Eichmann, his wife, Vera, and his three sons. They, too, cannot or will not provide any information. It is at this time, late in 1947, that the creation of the state of Israel is underway; Diamant and many of the other hunters saw this as an obligation to "move on" and prioritize the future. The growing tension with the Soviets, which would develop into the Cold War, also sapped the attention of the Western governments. The trail seems to go cold until during a chance encounter in 1953, when an old Austrian baron reveals to Simon Wiesenthal a rumor that many former SS officers, including Eichmann, escaped to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Wiesenthal is electrified by this news, but few in the fledgling Israeli government are willing to devote resources to this rumor. By the end of 1954, Wiesenthal consolidates the last of his Eichmann files, feeling himself a failure. However, less than two years later, the efforts of a young girl and her father would change things dramatically.

In 1956, Sylvia Hermann and her father, Lothar, are living in Buenos Aires. Sylvia brings a boyfriend, Nick, home to meet her parents. Believing the Hermanns to be expatriate Germans, Nick boasts that his father was a high-ranking officer in the German Army. Like many others in the Bueno Aires community, Nick Eichmann does not know that Lothar Hermann is half-Jewish. Lothar was imprisoned at Dachau for socialist political activities, and was blinded during a beating by the Gestapo in 1936. Lothar takes notice of the boy's name, Eichmann; a few days later, Sylvia reads that Adolf Eichmann is still at large. Having made the connection, they contact a war crimes' prosecutor, Fritz Bauer. Still, the link is tenuous, and circumstantial. Bauer, savvy to the growing rumors that Eichmann and other high-ranking SS officers have escaped to Argentina, supplies the Hermanns with photographs of Adolf Eichmann, his wife, and his three sons. It falls to teenage Sylvia to confirm whether or not Eichmann is alive, and living with his family at 4261 Chacabuco Street. Sylvia meets Vera Eichmann, Nick's brothers, and an older man in his sixties, who, when she asks, tersely answers that he is Nick's "uncle."Although this would not be clear until years later, teenaged Sylvia Hermann has found Adolf Eichmann.

Chapter 3 introduces Isser Harel, Chief for the Institute of Intelligence and Special Operations—the Israeli Mossad. Born to Orthodox Jews in Vitebsk, in central Russia, Isser Harel's career in intelligence began in the days before the creation of Israel, and in the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary organization. There, Isser operated a network of spies and informants before being recruited to the Shai, the formal intelligence service. Using these instincts and resources to predict the Arab Legion's moves against the Israeli state, Harelis promoted to run the Shin Bet, the internal Israeli security service. In 1952, he transitions to the Mossad.

In September of 1957, Isser Harel learns directly from the Israeli Foreign Minister that the infamous Nazi Adolf Eichmann is alive and living in Buenos Aires. Pulling together the associated material, Harel concludes that Eichmann will not be taken through normal channels, and resolves that, in order to bring him to justice, extraordinary measures must be undertaken. However, Eichmann's identity must still be verified. The Hermann's testimony—provided through the prosecutor Fritz Bauer—is not immediately believed, as agents can’t believe Eichmann livesin the "wretched" house on Chacabuco Street, and there’s no verification connecting the man Sylvia met to Eichmann. The Hermanns have no access to fingerprints or photographs, the only sources of information the Mossad is willing to accept as genuine. In May of 1958, Lothar Hermann declares that Eichmann can be found under the alias "Francisco Schmidt," believing this to be alias Eichmann has adopted in Argentina. However, this is quickly proven to be the landlord of the address at Chacabuco Street. At this wrong turn, the Israeli intelligence agents lose faith in the Hermanns.