The stories of how notorious war criminals like Mengele and Eichmann comfortably escaped Europe and enjoyed freedom - just for a limited amount of time though, in the case of Eichmann - are well known but the extent of the networks that helped those who commited serious crimes against humanity from all over the world during WWII survive is horrendous. It´s awe and horror that you experience while reading the well documented The Real Odessa. How Nazi Criminals Escaped Europe by Argentinian journalist Uki Goñi.
What it´s revealing in this case is the combination of factors that helped those criminals to escape: from the lack of knowledge among the Allies about who their prisoners were and thus, letting them escape, to the diplomatic support they got for getting fake passports after the war to the open support the Vatican offered to various fugitives. The Cold War and the rivalities between the US and the Soviet Union were at play as well, hence the help some former Nazis - of all colours from Germany to Eastern Europe - received. Argentina, their most important hub after the war - another one is the Middle East with countries like Syria or Egypt equally helping them to settle in exchange of their military and scientific knowledge - is still coping with the consequences of the decision of Juan Peron to support the settlement of war criminals: the young generation and intellectuals were tortured by the military junta whose methods were inspired by those applied in various concentration camps (The Middle East, nurtured by the same anti-democratic and antisemitic ideology missed more than once the chance of a real revival and the wellbeing of their citizens).
Goñi describes the most notorious such examples tracing the routes, sources of revenue and supporters. Thus, one can perfectly understand what social categories and political entities were part of the system, why they decided to be part of the network and what were the expected results. It is a very dark side of the Cold War that costed dearly democracy - as in the case of Afghanistan, but at a different extent. It may explain why nowadays, we keep talking about the ideologies of the righ and why in many places in this world - including Germany, the IIIrd Reich remains such popular: the perpetrators of the ideology were never discontinued, they kept spreading their mindset.
The pathways opened by Uki Goñi in his book and previous researches do however give a reason for hope: with so many open archives - Red Cross (a generous provider of fake passports for Nazi fugitives), the Vatican, various articles and public information - the role of the researchers is to continue revealing more and more information and exposing the culprits. Democracy is an everyday fight.
Rating: 5 stars
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