The Good Assassin: How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia

by Stephan Talty

Overview

The untold story of an Israeli spy’s epic journey to bring the notorious Butcher of Latvia to justice—a case that altered the fates of all ex-Nazis.

Before World War II, Herbert Cukurs was a famous figure in his small Latvian city, the “Charles Lindbergh of his country.” But by 1945, he was the Butcher of Latvia, a man who murdered some thirty thousand Latvian Jews. Somehow, he dodged the Nuremberg trials, fleeing to South America after war’s end.
 
By 1965, as a statute of limitations on all Nazi war crimes threatened to expire, Germany sought to welcome previous concentration camp commanders, pogrom leaders, and executioners, as citizens. The global pursuit of Nazi criminals escalated to beat the looming deadline, and Mossad, the Israeli national intelligence agency, joined the cause. Yaakov Meidad, the brilliant Mossad agent who had kidnapped Adolf Eichmann three years earlier, led the mission to assassinate Cukurs in a desperate bid to block the amnesty. In a thrilling undercover operation unrivaled by even the most ambitious spy novels, Meidad traveled to Brazil in an elaborate disguise, befriended Cukurs and earned his trust, while negotiations over the Nazi pardon neared a boiling point.

The Good Assassin uncovers this little-known chapter of Holocaust history and the pulse-pounding undercover operation that brought Cukurs to justice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781328613080
Publisher:	HMH Books
Publication date:	04/21/2020
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	368,382
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

STEPHAN TALTY is the best-selling author of The Black Hand,Agent Garbo, and A Captain’s Duty. His books have been made into two films, the Oscar-winning Captain Phillips and Only the Brave. He lives outside New York City with his family.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Apartment on the Avenue de Versailles ix

Part 1 The Aktions

1 The Club on Skolas Street 3

2 Zelma 15

3 First Night 22

4 Gogol Street 34

5 19 Waldemars 47

6 The Moscow Suburb 56

7 November 30 64

8 The Valley of the Dead 74

Part 2 Those Who Will Never Forget

9 A Latvian in Rio 87

10 "The Epitome of Humanity" 95

11 Anton Kuenzle 104

12 The Merciless One 112

13 The Late One 122

14 First Contact 127

15 The Campaign 135

16 "Our Own Thomas Edison" 140

17 The Plantation 145

18 Paranoia 156

19 The Sabras 167

20 "Certain Categories of Murder" 174

21 The Camera 182

22 "To Live With a Few Murderers" 188

23 The House on Colombia Street 199

24 The Wait 209

25 An Offer 215

26 The Legislator 221

27 The Asylum 235

28 The Trial 249

Acknowledgments 261

Notes 263

Photo Credits 286

Index 287

Editorial Reviews

01/20/2020

Journalist Talty (Saving Bravo) revisits the 1965 assassination of Latvian war criminal Herbert Cukurs by Israeli secret agents in this brisk and dramatic history. Soon after German forces pushed the Soviet Army out of Latvia in 1941, Cukurs, a renowned aviator, became second-in-command of the Arajs Commandos, volunteer paramilitaries who assisted the S.S. in carrying out mass killings. Eyewitnesses describe Cukurs murdering women and young children, and supervising the liquidation of the Riga Ghetto, which sent nearly 30,000 Jews to their deaths. In 1946, he fled to Brazil and started a successful boat rental and sightseeing business. Despite lobbying by Latvian Holocaust survivors and Brazilian Jews, local police refused to take action against Cukurs, and by 1965 the statute of limitations for prosecuting Nazi war criminals was set to expire in West Germany. In a plan approved by the Israeli prime minister, Mossad agent Jacob Medad, who’d helped to capture Adolf Eichmann, disguised himself as an Austrian businessman, befriended Cukurs, and brought him to Uruguay, where a team of assassins killed him. According to Talty, international publicity over the case helped push German legislators to extend the statute of limitations (it was formally abolished in 1979). Talty efficiently mines archival records for vivid details and tracks the complexities of Medad’s undercover mission with flair. The result is a captivating and gruesome real-life spy thriller. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

02/01/2020

In this thrilling account, Talty (A Captain's Duty) tells parallel stories of the Holocaust and its aftermath. Jewish college student Zelma Shepshelovich survived the massacre of Latvian Jews in 1941, and also Herberts Cukurs, a Latvian aviator, Nazi collaborator, and mass murderer who fled to Brazil after World War II. In Brazil, whose right-wing government sympathized with Nazi fugitives, Cukurs ran his own business until revenge caught up with him. Israeli secret agent Yaakov "Moi" Meidad posed as an Austrian investor, lured Cukurs to a safehouse in a neighboring country, and shot him dead after a struggle. The assassination of the "Butcher of Riga" reminded the world that many killers had escaped justice. That same year of 1965, under intense pressure by Western democracies as well as Nazi hunter Tuviah Friedman, the German parliament grudgingly voted to extend the statute of limitations on Holocaust-era crimes, enabling prosecutors to indict hundreds of Nazi war criminals. Bloodbaths, spy games, and personalities—fiery Zelma, reserved Meidad, scrappy Tuviah, paranoid Cukurs—are recounted vividly but not exploited for shock value. VERDICT A fast-paced, recommended work that enthralls, edifies, and reveals the disturbing extent to which Latvians and others participated in genocide.—Michael Rodriguez, Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs

Library Journal

2020-01-19
The compelling story of the pursuit of a man responsible for the murders of at least 30,000 Latvian Jews during World War II.

Talty, whose bestselling books include The Black Hand and A Captain’s Duty (which was made into the Oscar-winning Tom Hanks vehicle Captain Phillips), remains true to his technique, delivering thoroughly researched, engrossing nonfiction in a thrillerlike narrative style. The author has several stories to tell, including that of Latvian murderer Herbert Cukurs, who transformed from a heroic civil aviator to a brutal executioner; the Holocaust in Latvia in general; Zelma Shepshelovich, a young Jewish woman who managed to escape capture and deportation; a Mossad agent called Mio, who endeared himself to Cukurs before leading him to his death in a house in Uruguay; the battle against granting amnesty to Nazis some years after the war; and Nazi hunters Tuviah Friedman and Simon Wiesenthal. Talty weaves these stories throughout the text, creating a rich narrative fabric, and the tension increases substantially when Mio finds Cukurs, who is suspicious and cautious, in Brazil and convinces the murderer that he is looking to get involved in business deals with him. The intense climax of the action (the death of Cukurs) occurs more than 40 pages before the end of the text; the final pages deal with the immediate and later after-stories of the principal characters. The author reveals both the profound darkness of the time period and the slender rays of hope that occasionally split it. The Holocaust accounts—degradations, torture, murder, etc.—are difficult to read yet nonetheless important. “Cukurs was hardly unique; there were many men like him in Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, and elsewhere,” writes Talty. “But in his local context, he was the leading monster.”

As anti-Semitism surges once again, this page-turning history reminds us of the sanguinary consequences of unchecked hatred.

Kirkus Reviews

What a wonderful book. Stephan Talty’s fast-paced account of how Herbert Cukurs, the Latvian aviator turned Nazi war criminal, was eventually brought to justice by Mossad operatives is as gripping as any novel. Hard as it is to read the details of Cukurs’ horrific crimes, the outcome is both moving and uplifting, with the Latvian’s demise helping to bring other perpetrators of genocide to justice. Talty is at the top of his game.”—Saul David, author of Operation Thunderbolt and The Force
 
“Part Holocaust history, part detective case, part spy operation, The Good Assassin is an enthralling book. Stephan Talty paints vivid, often chilling, portraits of its vengeful hero, Mossad agent Jacob Medad, and the war criminal Herbert Cukurs he pursued to the bitter end. It’s a stunning, you-are-there kind of read.”—Neal Bascomb, New York Times bestselling author of Hunting Eichmann and Faster
 
“Stephan Talty’s The Good Assassin is a gripping chronicle of one of the most brilliant operations launched against an escaped Nazi war criminal, and a fitting memorial to the victims of the Holocaust in Latvia and to the brave Israelis who traveled halfway around the world to punish one of the key perpetrators of those crimes. At a time when Latvian ultranationalists are trying to rehabilitate Cukurs as a national hero, Talty explains why such a step would be a grave miscarriage of justice.”—Dr. Efraim Zuroff, chief Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal Center
 
“Stephan Talty masterfully recounts how the Holocaust engulfed the Jews of Latvia and how the architect of that genocide was hunted to his death by Israeli spies. It’s a page-turning account of a little-known episode of the Shoah and how justice was brought to one of its key perpetrators.” —Peter Bergen, author of Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden and Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos

“Stephan Talty has crafted a fast-paced account of an overlooked part of the Holocaust—and its broader impact on the postwar hunt for its perpetrators.” —Bill Geroux, author of The Ghost Ships of Archangel and The Mathews Men
 
“Talty efficiently mines archival records for vivid details and tracks the complexities of Medad’s undercover mission with flair. The result is a captivating and gruesome real-life spy thriller.”—Publishers Weekly

“Compelling . . . Talty remains true to his technique, delivering thoroughly researched, engrossing nonfiction in a thrillerlike narrative style . . . As anti-Semitism surges once again, this page-turning history reminds us of the sanguinary consequences of unchecked hatred.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Thrilling . . . A fast-paced, recommended work that enthralls, edifies, and reveals the disturbing extent to which Latvians and others participated in genocide.”—Library Journal

“The author brings his usual attention to detail, excellent research, terrific storytelling, passion, and dedication to this suspenseful recounting of a shadowy facet of the Holocaust, which continues to haunt the world.”—Booklist
 

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