The Nazi Hunters

How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World’s Most Notorious Nazi

Neal Bascomb’s The Nazi Hunters reads like a fictional spy thriller but tells the very real story of the hunt for and capture of top Nazi Adolf Eichmann. The book is intended for YA readers and the author treats them and the subject matter with respect. It’s well-written, well-researched and neither dumbed down nor juvenile.

Bascomb writes different versions of the same books for adults and younger readers. Nazi Hunters was the first, an adaptation of his book Hunting Eichmann. An editor from Scholastic suggested it would make a great book for young adults and Bascomb ran with the idea. He now has a few sets of books for different age groups.

So if you’re an adult reading this review, why read this book instead of Hunting Eichmann? Bascomb explains:

To adapt the book for younger readers, I focused more on the narrative of events than the layers of history that surrounded it. I wanted to get to the center of who these individuals were who captured Eichmann and explain why they risked their lives to bring him to Israel. Everything else hit the cutting room floor. One could say that Nazi Hunters is truer to the events than the much longer adult book!

The Nazi Hunters is enthralling. The war is over and Israel is a new nation, a haven for Jewish people. Most survivors don’t want to talk about what they went through, and the world seems to have moved on from the Holocaust. But behind the scenes the hunt is on.

Bascomb is a natural storyteller with a journalistic style. The fact that we know that Eichmann was caught and ultimately hanged in Israel does nothing to take away from the power of this story. Bascomb manages to balance the details of the entire operation – from hunt and capture to the flight from Argentina to Israel – with personal tidbits about everyone involved.

Eichmann is depicted as a pathetic figure, having escaped from Europe to live in poverty and squalor in Argentina. He went from the heights of the Reich to an existence without running water or electricity. Pathetic for sure, but he still had his family and he was free.

The hunters were not all trained operatives, but they were smart and highly motivated. Some were survivors and others lost family in the camps. Avenging their families was high on the list of reasons they signed up for the job. As the story moves forward you learn more and more about the Israeli team and those who helped them. Bascomb gives just enough detail to bring the reader closer to the heart of the story.

The Nazi Hunters isn’t just text: it’s packed with photos and documents, including Eichmann’s passport which the author located himself! The photographs are especially compelling, even haunting, and they literally bring more life to the book. I found myself flipping back to them as I read, as well as to the handy ‘List of Participants’ the author provides.

The flight from Argentina to Israel is one of the more harrowing parts of this book. It reminded me that back then pilots flew their planes without GPS, instead relying on navigational maps, the stars and lots of math. The crew and team definitely felt the tension of being in the same space as the Nazi – sedated and strapped to his seat – all while trying to get to their destination without running out of fuel or being caught in the act. If they ever turn this book into a movie this is the scene that will have the audience on the edge of their seats.

It was interesting to learn (in a book full of interesting things) that the public trial was a catalyst that enabled survivors to speak and write about their experiences, to finally feel free to tell the world what happened to them.

The further we get from WWII and the Holocaust the more important it is to seek out history, biography and memoir. This week the Lt. Governor of North Carolina, Mark Robinson, won the Republican primary nomination for governor. He is a Holocaust denier who said “Hitler disarming MILLIONS OF Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash.” And people voted for him anyway.

Never forget. Never again.

And another thing: The feeling of indignation The Nazi Hunters elicits is palpable. The audacity of these people, these Nazis and perpetrators, who ran and hid after the war, who got to go on with their lives. I felt the same rush of emotion when I watched the 2020 documentary Final Account. The filmmaker interviewed 300 of the last living perpetrators and participants currently living in Germany and Austria. They were soldiers, guards, farmers, workers, all members of the Third Reich who just picked up where they left off after the war. It was infuriating to watch but demands to be seen.

Read more about Final Account here https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/sep/03/final-account-review-german-war-testimonies-luke-holland-documentary