But Voss's most lucrative transaction would occur late in the war and in the last country to be ravaged by the fires of the Holocaust: Hungary. When Eichmann arrived in Budapest, he had one goal—finding each and every one of Hungary's 825,000 Jews and sending them to their deaths at Auschwitz. His trusted aide, Kurt Voss, wanted something else.
"The Bauer-Rubin industrial works," said Lavon. "The owners were a consortium of highly assimilated Jews, most of whom had either converted to Catholicism or were married to Catholic women. Within days of his arrival in Budapest, Voss summoned them and explained that their days were numbered. But as usual, he had a proposition. If the Bauer-Rubin industrial works were transferred to his control, Voss would make certain that the owners and their families would be granted safe passage to Portugal. As you might expect, the owners quickly agreed to Voss's demands. The following day, the managing partner, a man named Samuel Rubin, accompanied Voss on a trip to Zurich."
"Why Zurich?"
"Because that's where the vast majority of the firm's assets were held for safekeeping. Voss pulled the company apart piece by piece and moved its holdings to accounts under his control. When his greed was finally satisfied, he allowed Rubin to leave for Portugal and promised that everyone else would follow in short order. It never happened. Rubin was the only one to survive. The rest ended up in Auschwitz along with more than four hundred thousand other Hungarian Jews."
"And Voss?"
He returned to Berlin on Christmas Eve 1944. But with the war all but lost, Voss and the rest of Eichmann's desk murderers were treated as outcasts and pariahs, even by some of their colleagues in the SS. As the city shook beneath the Allied air raids, Eichmann turned his lair into a heavily guarded fortress and began hastily destroying his most damning files. Voss the lawyer knew that concealment of such vast crimes was not possible, not with evidence scattered across a continent and thousands of survivors waiting to come forward to tell their stories. Instead, he used his remaining time to more productive ends—gathering his ill-gotten riches and preparing for his escape.
"Eichmann was woefully unprepared when the end finally came. He had no false papers, no money, and no safe house. But not Voss. Voss had a new name, places to hide, and, of course, a great deal of money. On April 30, 1945, the night Hitler committed suicide in his bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery, Kurt Voss shed his SS uniform and slipped out of his office at 116 Kurfurstenstrasse. By morning, he had vanished."
"And the money?"
"It was gone, too," said Lavon. "Just like the people it once belonged to."
26
AMSTERDAM
Gabriel Allon had confronted evil in many forms: terrorists, murderous Russian arms dealers, professional assassins who shed the blood of strangers for briefcases filled with cash. But none could compare to the genocidal evil of the men and women who had carried out the single greatest act of mass murder in history. They had been a constant if unacknowledged presence inside Gabriel's childhood home in the Jezreel Valley of Israel. And now that night had fallen over Amsterdam, they had crept into the suite at the Ambassade Hotel. Unable to bear their company any longer, he stood abruptly and informed Eli Lavon and Chiara that he needed to continue the conversation outside. They drifted along the banks of the Herengracht through yellow lamplight, Gabriel and Lavon shoulder to shoulder, Chiara trailing several paces behind.
"She's too close."
"She's not tailing us, Eli. She's just watching our back."
"It doesn't matter. She's still too close."
"Shall we stop so you can give her a bit of instruction?"
"She never listens to me. She's unbelievably stubborn. And far too pretty for street work." Lavon gave Gabriel a sideways glance. "I'll never understand what she saw in a fossil like you. It must have been your natural charm and cheerful disposition."
"You were about to tell me more about Kurt Voss."
Lavon paused to allow a bicycle to pass. It was ridden by a young woman who was steering with one hand and sending a text message with the other. Lavon gave a fleeting smile, then resumed his lecture.
"Keep one thing in mind, Gabriel. We know a great deal about Voss now, but in the aftermath of the war we barely knew the bastard's name. And by the time we fully understood the true nature of his crimes, he'd disappeared."
"Where did he go?"
"Argentina."
"How did he get there?"
"How do you think?"
"The Church?"
"But of course."
Gabriel shook his head slowly. To this day, historians bitterly debated whether Pope Pius XII, the controversial wartime pontiff, had helped the Jews or turned a blind eye to their suffering. But it was Pius's actions after the war that Gabriel found most damning. The Holy Father never uttered a single word of sorrow or regret over the murder of six million human beings and seemed far more concerned about the perpetrators of the crime than its victims. Not only was the pope an outspoken critic of the Nuremburg trials, he allowed the good offices of the Vatican to be used for one of history's greatest mass flights from justice. Known as the Vatican ratline, it helped hundreds, if not thousands, of Nazi war criminals to escape to sanctuaries in South America and the Middle East.
"Voss got to Rome with the help of old friends from the SS. Occasionally, he would stay in small inns or safe houses, but for the most part he found shelter in Franciscan monasteries and convents."
"And after he arrived?"
"He stayed at a lovely old villa at Number 23 Via Piave. An Austrian priest, Monsignor Karl Bayer, took very good care of him while the Pontifical Commission of Assistance saw to his travel arrangements. Within a few days, he had a Red Cross passport in the name of Rudolf Seibel and a landing permit for Argentina. On May 25, 1949, he boarded the North King in Genoa and set sail for Buenos Aires."
"The ship sounds familiar."
"It should. There was another passenger on board who'd also received help from the Vatican. His Red Cross passport identified him as Helmut Gregor. His real name was—"
"Josef Mengele."
Lavon nodded. "We don't know whether the two men ever met during the crossing. But we do know that Voss's arrival went more smoothly than Mengele's. Apparently, the Angel of Death described himself to immigration officials as a technician, but his luggage was filled with medical files and blood samples from his time at Auschwitz."
"Did Voss have anything interesting in his luggage?"
"You mean something like a Rembrandt portrait?" Lavon shook his head. "As far as we know, Voss came to the New World empty-handed. He listed his occupation as bellman and was admitted to the country without delay. His mentor, Eichmann, arrived a year later."
"It must have been quite a reunion."
"Actually, they didn't get on terribly well in Argentina. They met for coffee a few times at the ABC Cafe in downtown Buenos Aires, but Voss apparently didn't care for Eichmann's company. Eichmann had spent several years in hiding, working as a lumber-jack and a farmer. He was no longer a young god who held the fate of millions in the palm of his hand. He was a common laborer in need of work. And he was seething with bitterness."
"And Voss?"
"Unlike Eichmann, he had a formal education. Within a year, he was working as a lawyer in a firm that catered to the German community in Argentina. In 1955, his wife and son were smuggled out of Germany, and the family was reunited. By all accounts, Kurt Voss lived a rather ordinary but comfortable middle-class life in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires until his death in 1982."