The “Killing” series of historical events by authors Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard are fascinating, well-researched back-in-time accounts of different eras. Their most recent release of “Killing the SS”, the hunt for the worst war criminals in history, is simply captivating. For this reader, some of the story was known, and a lot was not. That around 10,000 former Nazi’s were allowed to immigrate to America following the war is mind boggling.And, then there is the role of the Vatican and the Red Cross, who assisted between 8,000-10,000 Nazi’s immigration to South America. The search for Adolf Eichmann in Argentina was especially interesting for this reader, who had walked the streets of Buenos Aires numerous times and could easily see the city of 1960 when the Mossad captured Eichmann and flew him out in the middle of the night.Even after all these years, it is hard to come to grips with the evil that the Nazi’s brought this world. As the authors suggest, one really can not really come to an understanding of these crimes against mankind, until visiting one of the concentration camps, as this reader and his wife did when they visited Dachau on a dark cold snowy December day, that continues to haunt us after seeing the ovens. We pray that God does not forgive these monsters.It was just not the men of the SS who were evil, but also the women guards at female concentration camps like Ravensbruck. One of those women was Elfriede Huth, who following the war immigrated to the United States and lied about her role at Ravensbruck and lived in San Francisco for over 30 years before she was found out and expelled back to Germany. She and other Nazi’s that immigrated to the U.S. and lied about their roles have collected over $20 million from Social Security. Crazy.As with all the “Killing” books, it is essential to have one’s iPad close by, as there is no shortage of googling that needs to be done to uncover additional information about these criminals and events. As usual, great job Mr. O’Reilly & Mr. Dugard!
