How I led an Isreal death squad against Nazi butcher
THE ORGANISATION I joined was christened The Owl because owls hunt rats, our term for Nazis. It was created by survivors of the Holocaust who came from wealthy families and were well known in business circles.
They benefited, behind the scenes, from widespread and powerful support.
Members led a double life. While keeping up the façade of respectable businessmen, they waged a secret and ruthless war, tracking down Nazi war criminals who believed they were safe from human judgment.
This organisation of avengers had judged and executed the members of Shock Squadron 5 that had, under the leadership of Zorbach, Namsila and Lichtanker, massacred tens of thousands of Balkan Jews, including some of the relations of the founders of The Owl.
Other particularly bloody Nazi brutes, members of the fascist Arrow Cross Party, which reigned in Hungary during the war,paid for their crimes by meeting the same fate.
All the members of The Owl were Jewish. Many had survived the Holocaust, the names of my companions in arms have been disguised in order not to break the confidentiality of our organisation, which benefited from a limitless budget worthy of the largest secret services.
The facts I recount however are rigorously true but for reasons of confidentiality I omitted certain episodes.
“Remember, do not forgive, pursue step by step.”
That was the command given by The Owl and it perfectly sums up its character and mission.
At the end of the Eighties, having achieved most of its goals and, above all, fearing that its existence would eventually be exposed, the group decided to put an end to its activities.
Like all my comrades I was experienced in the techniques of secret warfare. I had taken part in the Yom Kippur war as a captain.
I had carried out several missions in Africa, the US and France. I also carried out missions in the Congo and in the Nineties trained special units of the Ethiopian army with a plan to save Ethiopian Jews.
I decided to recount my story of the hunt for Heim because of my children. Several Performing a partial U-turn he concedes what most sensible people will have been thinking all along.
Where possible the inquiry must be held in public. Only material that puts our national security at risk should be withheld.
Mr Brown has also conceded to a key opposition demand that witnesses can be made to swear on oath to tell the truth.
Air Marshal Sir John Walker, former Head of Defence intelligence, said: “There is only one reason that the inquiry was to be heard in private and that is to protect past and present members of this Government.”
Meanwhile, in a devastating comment on the Government’s plan not to publish the findings of the inquiry until after the election, Lord Butler, the former Cabinet Secretary, said: “I reluctantly conclude that the form of the inquiry proposed by the Government has been dictated more by the Government’s political interest than the national interest and it cannot achieve the purpose of purging mistrust.”
No wonder senior Labour figures are in despair that an announcement designed as a key part of Mr Brown’s political fightback has turned into a complete disaster.
Years ago my daughter was preparing for a school trip to Auschwitz. Before she left, our family watched a documentary about the Holocaust.
By the end of it she was overcome with emotion. Seeing her tears I said to myself that I owed it to her to tell my story, so that she would know that men had once risen up against forgetting and forgiveness.
I wanted my children to be proud of what we did.
ARIBERT HEIM was a rich man.
Today his widow and oneson still live in the superb home he shared with them in Baden Baden. After the war, and undetected, Heim became one of the prominent figures in the town where he opened a medical centre.
In 1962, however, the authorities discovered his past and moved to arrest him. On the night before he was to be taken into custody he received a phone call from a friend in high places (we will never know who) warning him... and the hunt that was to last 45 years was on.
The legend that Heim is still alive persists. There were alleged sightings in Latin America as recently as 2006. I know, because of my role in his capture, that Heim was killed in 1982.
He was snatched from a hospital in Quebec. I travelled with him in a private plane to Los Angeles and then on to the island of Catalina, just off the coast, where another group of comrades took over.
He faced trial and was then executed. Why, you may ask, did we make him stand trial?
It was felt that Nazis should be made to confront those they abused and tortured. I was not present when he was killed and I did not know where they disposed of his body.
It was essential that no trace should be left and no place marked where future generations of Nazis and other sick sympathisers could congregate. My work was done.
I had been one of those who had hunted him down, captured him and handed him on to meet his fate.
That is the end of the matter but it must be remembered that Heim kept his liberty so long because he was supported by powerful networks.
They cannot announce or confirm the death of their protégé without revealing their own existence and overturning considerable economic interests passed down in most cases from the Third Reich; money stolen from Nazi victims and still hidden from the authorities.
Some groups in Israel have denounced me for writing my book. They say the story I tell didn’t happen. They are wrong. I know that justice has been done and I’m proud of the part I played in it.
● The Secret Executioners, by Danny Baz, is published by John Blake, £17.99. To order a copy from the Express Bookshop, with free UK delivery, call 0871 521 1301 (calls cost 10p from a BT landline) or send a cheque/PO to The Express Bookshop, PO Box 200, Falmouth TR11 4WJ, or visit
www. expressbookshop.co.uk
