“Such as?” asked Miller.
“Well, for example, all crimes committed by the Nazis and the SS in Italy, Greece, and Polish Galicia are investigated by Stuttgart. The biggest extermination camp of all, Auschwitz, comes under Frankfurt. You may have heard there’s a big trial coming up in Frankfurt next May of twenty-two former guards from Auschwitz. Then the extermination camps of Treblinka, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Maidanek are investigated by Dusseldorf-Cologne.
Munich is responsible for Belzec, Dachau, Buchenwald, and Flossenburg.
Most crimes in the Soviet Ukraine and the Ledz; area of former Poland come under Hanover. And so on.”
Miller noted the information, nodding. “Who is supposed to investigate what happened in the three Baltic States?” he asked.
“Hamburg,” said Dorn promptly, “along with crimes in the areas of Danzig and the Warsaw sector of Poland.”
“Hamburg?” said Miller. “You mean its right here in Hamburg?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Well, it’s Riga I’m interested in.” Dom grimaced.
“Oh, I see. The German Jews. Well, that’s the pigeon of the SAG’S office right here.”
“If there had ever been a trial, or even an arrest, of anyone who had been guilty of crimes in Riga, it would have been here in Hamburg?”
“The trial would have been,” said Dom. ‘the arrest could have been made anywhere.”
“What’s the procedure with arrests?”
“Well, there’s a book called the Wanted Book. In it is the name of every wanted war criminal, with surname, first names, and date of birth. Usually the SAG’s office covering the area where the man committed the crimes spends years preparing the case against him before arrest. Then, when it’s ready, it requests the police of the state in which the man is living to arrest him. A couple of detectives go there and bring him back. If a very much wanted man is discovered, he can be arrested wherever he’s discovered, and the appropriate SAG’S office informed that he’s being held. Then they go and bring him back. The trouble is, most of the big SS men are not living under their own names.”
“Right,” said Miller. “Has there ever been a trial in Hamburg of anyone guilty of crimes committed in Riga?”
“Not that I remember,” said Dom.
“Would it be in the clippings library?”
“Sure. If it happened since 1950, when we started the clippings library, it’ll be there.”
“Mind if we look?” asked Miller.
“No problem.” The library was in the basement, tended by five archivists in gray smocks. It was almost half an acre in size, filled by row upon row of gray steel shelves on which reposed reference books of every kind and description. Around the walls, from floor to ceiling, were steel filing cabinets, the doors of each drawer indicating the contents of the files within.
“What do you want?” asked Dom as the chief librarian approached.
“Roschmann, Eduard,” said Miller.
“Personal index section, this way,” said the librarian and led the way along one wall. He opened a cabinet door labeled ROA-ROZ, and flicked through it.
“Nothing on Roschmann, Eduard,” he said.
Miller thought. “Do you have anything on war crimes?” he asked.
“Yes,” said the librarian. “War crimes and war trials section, this way.” They went along another hundred yards of cabinets.
“Look under Riga,” said Miller.
The librarian mounted a stepladder and foraged. He came back with a red folder. It bore the label WAR CRIMES TRIAL. Miller opened it. Two pieces of newsprint the size of large postage stamps fluttered out.
Miller picked them up. Both were from the summer of 1950. One recorded that three SS privates had gone on trial for brutalities committed at Riga between 1941 and 1944. The other recorded that they had all three been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Not long enough: they would all be free by late 1963.
“Is that it?” asked Miller.
“That’s it,” said the librarian.
“Do you mean to say,” said Miller, turning to Dom, “that a section of the State Attorney General’s office has been beavering away for fifteen years on my tax money, and all it’s got to show for it is two postage stamps?”
Dorn was a rather Establishment figure. “I’m sure they’re doing their best,” he said huffily.
“I wonder,” said Miller.
They parted in the main hall two floors up, and Miller went out into the rain.
The building in the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv that houses the headquarters of the Mossad excites no attention, even from its nearest neighbors. The entrance to the underground garage of the office building is flanked by quite ordinary shops. On the ground floor is a bank, and in the entrance hall, before the plate-glass doors that lead into the bank, are an elevator, a board stating the business of the firms on the floors above, and a porter’s desk for inquiries.
The board reveals that in the building are the offices of several trading companies, two insurance firms, an architect, an engineering consultant, and an import-export company on the top floor. Inquiries for any of the firms below the top floor will be met courteously. Questions asked about the top-floor company are politely refused an answer. The company on the top floor is the front for the Mossad.
The room where the chiefs of Israeli Intelligence meet is bare and cool, white-painted, with a long table and chairs around the walls. At the table sit the five men who control the branches of Intelligence. Behind them on the chairs sit clerks and stenographers. Other nonmembers can be invited for a hearing if required, but this is seldom done. The meetings are classified top secret, for all confidences may be aired.
At the head of the table sits the Controller of the Mossad. Founded in 1937, its full name Mossad Aliyah Beth, or Organization for the Second Immigration, the Mossad was the first Israeli Intelligence organ. Its first job was to get Jews from Europe to a safe berth in Palestine.
After the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, it became the senior of all Intelligence organs, its controller automatically the head of all the five.
To the Controller’s right sits the Chief of the Aman, the Military Intelligence unit whose job is to keep Israel informed of the state of war-readiness of her enemies. The man who held the job at that time was General Aharon Yaariv.
To the left sits the Chief of the Shabak, sometimes wrongly referred to as the Shin Beth. These letters stand for Sherut Bitachon, the Hebrew for “Security Service.” The full title of the organ that watches over Israel’s internal security, and only internal security, is Sherut Bitachon Klali, and it is from these three words that the abbreviation Shabak is taken.
Beyond these two men sit the last two of the five. One is the Director General of the research division of the Foreign Ministry, charged specifically with the evaluation of the political situation in Arab capitals, a matter of vital importance to the security of Israel. The other is the director of a service solely occupied with the fate of Jews in the “countries of persecution.” These countries include all the Arab countries and the Communist countries. So that there shall be no overlapping of activities, the weekly meetings enable each chief to know what the other departments are doing.
Two other men are present as observers, the Inspector General of police, and the head of the Special Branch, the executive arms of the Shabak in the fight against terrorism inside the country.
The meeting on that day was quite normal. Meir Amit took his place at the head of the table, and the discussion began. He saved his bombshell until last. When he had made his statement, there was silence as the men present, including the aides scattered around the walls, had a mental vision of their country dying as the radioactive and plague warheads slammed home.