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The task of ferreting out those suspected of involvement in World War II atrocities was the responsibility of a group of lawyers and historians who worked in the Office of Special Investigations (OSI). During its thirty years of existence, the OSI investigated more than fourteen hundred suspected Nazi collaborators and won dozens of deportation cases. Cenziper focuses on the case of Jakob Reimer, whose Nazi identification number was 865. He came from a German ethnic area within the Soviet Union and was captured by the Germans after the invasion of Russia in June 1941. He was then sent to the Trawniki camp near Lublin, Poland to be trained by the SS in the art of mass killing of Jews.

It is not unusual for a journalist or historian to think of his or her topic of investigation to be of transcendent significance, and Cenziper is no exception. She continually emphasizes the importance of the OSI’s work and concludes her book by quoting Peter Black, an OSI historian and the volume’s leading protagonist: “If legal consequences for mass murder and mass atrocity become habitual to political and judicial behavior in the twenty-first century, perhaps we can prevent mass murder in the future.” Based on recent history, there is little likelihood that this will occur.

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Debbie Cenziper is an investigative journalist, professor, and author based in Washington, D.C. A contributing reporter for the investigative team at The Washington Post, she has won many major awards in print journalism, including the 2007 Pulitzer Prize. Cenziper is the co-author of the critically acclaimed Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality. She was recently named the director of investigative journalism at the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism.