Schultz.”
“So, Ms. Coontz,” I say, “I can hardly hear you.”
“I have to whisper,” she says. “He’s listening. He always manages to come into the room when I start trying to tell people who he really is . . .”
As she goes on and on, I wait to hear the word Nazi or even World War II. We’re the division that prosecutes cases against people who have committed human rights violations—genocides, torture, war crimes. We’re the real Nazi hunters, nowhere near as glamorous as we’re made out to be in film and television. I’m not Daniel Craig or Vin Diesel or Eric Bana, just plain old Leo Stein. I don’t pack a pistol; my weapon of choice is a historian named Genevra, who speaks seven languages and never fails to point out when I need a haircut or when my tie doesn’t match my shirt. I work in a job that gets harder and harder to do every day, as the generation that perpetrated the crimes of the Holocaust dies out.
For fifteen minutes I listen to Miranda Coontz explain how someone in her own household is stalking her, and how at first she thought the FBI had sent him as a drone to kill her. This is red flag number two. First of all, the FBI doesn’t go around killing people. Second, if they did want to kill her, she’d already be dead. “You know, Ms. Coontz,” I say, when she breaks to take a breath, “I’m not sure that you’ve got the right department . . .”
“If you bear with me,” she promises, “it will all make sense.”
Not for the first time, I wonder how a guy like me—thirty-seven, top of his class at Harvard Law—turned down a sure partnership and a dizzying salary at a Boston law firm for a government pay grade and a career as the deputy chief of HRSP. In a parallel universe I would be trying white-collar criminals, instead of building a case around a former SS guard who died just before we were able to extradite him. Or, for that matter, talking to Ms. Coontz.
Then again, it didn’t take me long in the world of corporate law to realize that truth is an afterthought in court. In fact, truth is an afterthought in most trials. But there were six million people who were lied to, during World War II, and somebody owes them the truth.
“. . . and you’ve heard of Josef Mengele?”
At that, my ears perk up. Of course I’ve heard of Mengele, the infamous Angel of Death at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the chief medical officer who experimented on humans and who met incoming prisoners and directed them either to the right, to work, or to the left, the gas chambers. Although historically we know that Mengele could not have met every transport, almost every Auschwitz survivor with whom I’ve spoken insists it was Mengele who met his or her transport —no matter what hour of the day the arrival took place. It’s an example of how much has been written about Auschwitz, how survivors sometimes conflate those accounts with their own personal experiences. I have no doubt in my mind they truly believe it was Mengele they saw when they first arrived at Auschwitz, but no matter how much of a monster the guy was, he had to sleep sometime. Which means that other monsters met some of them instead.
“People believe Mengele escaped to South America,” Ms. Coontz says.
I stifle a sigh. Actually, I know that he lived, and died, in Brazil.
“He’s alive,” she whispers. “He’s been reincarnated, in the form of my cat. And I can’t turn my back on him, or go to sleep, because I think he’s going to kill me.”
“Good God,” I mutter.
“I know,” Ms. Coontz agrees. “I thought I was getting a sweet little tabby from the shelter, and one morning I wake up to find scratch marks bleeding on my chest—”
“With all due respect, Ms. Coontz, it’s a little bit of a stretch to think that Josef Mengele is now a cat.”
“Those scratch marks,” she says gravely, “were in the shape of a swastika. ”
I close my eyes. “Maybe you just need a different pet,” I
“So, Ms. Coontz,” I say, “I can hardly hear you.”
“I have to whisper,” she says. “He’s listening. He always manages to come into the room when I start trying to tell people who he really is . . .”
As she goes on and on, I wait to hear the word Nazi or even World War II. We’re the division that prosecutes cases against people who have committed human rights violations—genocides, torture, war crimes. We’re the real Nazi hunters, nowhere near as glamorous as we’re made out to be in film and television. I’m not Daniel Craig or Vin Diesel or Eric Bana, just plain old Leo Stein. I don’t pack a pistol; my weapon of choice is a historian named Genevra, who speaks seven languages and never fails to point out when I need a haircut or when my tie doesn’t match my shirt. I work in a job that gets harder and harder to do every day, as the generation that perpetrated the crimes of the Holocaust dies out.
For fifteen minutes I listen to Miranda Coontz explain how someone in her own household is stalking her, and how at first she thought the FBI had sent him as a drone to kill her. This is red flag number two. First of all, the FBI doesn’t go around killing people. Second, if they did want to kill her, she’d already be dead. “You know, Ms. Coontz,” I say, when she breaks to take a breath, “I’m not sure that you’ve got the right department . . .”
“If you bear with me,” she promises, “it will all make sense.”
Not for the first time, I wonder how a guy like me—thirty-seven, top of his class at Harvard Law—turned down a sure partnership and a dizzying salary at a Boston law firm for a government pay grade and a career as the deputy chief of HRSP. In a parallel universe I would be trying white-collar criminals, instead of building a case around a former SS guard who died just before we were able to extradite him. Or, for that matter, talking to Ms. Coontz.
Then again, it didn’t take me long in the world of corporate law to realize that truth is an afterthought in court. In fact, truth is an afterthought in most trials. But there were six million people who were lied to, during World War II, and somebody owes them the truth.
“. . . and you’ve heard of Josef Mengele?”
At that, my ears perk up. Of course I’ve heard of Mengele, the infamous Angel of Death at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the chief medical officer who experimented on humans and who met incoming prisoners and directed them either to the right, to work, or to the left, the gas chambers. Although historically we know that Mengele could not have met every transport, almost every Auschwitz survivor with whom I’ve spoken insists it was Mengele who met his or her transport —no matter what hour of the day the arrival took place. It’s an example of how much has been written about Auschwitz, how survivors sometimes conflate those accounts with their own personal experiences. I have no doubt in my mind they truly believe it was Mengele they saw when they first arrived at Auschwitz, but no matter how much of a monster the guy was, he had to sleep sometime. Which means that other monsters met some of them instead.
“People believe Mengele escaped to South America,” Ms. Coontz says.
I stifle a sigh. Actually, I know that he lived, and died, in Brazil.
“He’s alive,” she whispers. “He’s been reincarnated, in the form of my cat. And I can’t turn my back on him, or go to sleep, because I think he’s going to kill me.”
“Good God,” I mutter.
“I know,” Ms. Coontz agrees. “I thought I was getting a sweet little tabby from the shelter, and one morning I wake up to find scratch marks bleeding on my chest—”
“With all due respect, Ms. Coontz, it’s a little bit of a stretch to think that Josef Mengele is now a cat.”
“Those scratch marks,” she says gravely, “were in the shape of a swastika. ”
I close my eyes. “Maybe you just need a different pet,” I
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