Lies That Matter

A federal prosecutor and child of Holocaust survivors, tasked with stripping US citizenship from aged Nazi collaborators, finds himself caught in the middle

Allan Gerson

• Publisher: Vellum
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781734865950
• eBook ISBN:
  9781955835121
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Biographies
• Index: Law

The true story of a DOJ prosecutor's complicated quest to deport Nazis: "The lessons that Mr. Gerson learns, and shares, could not be more timely." —Seth Waxman, former US Solicitor General
As the son of Holocaust survivors, federal prosecutor Allan Gerson thought his professional assignment to investigate and deport those who persecuted his family and others like them would make his parents proud. But their reaction was not what he expected. This is his memoir of the experience—and the complex emotions and questions it provoked.
"It takes a young attorney whose Holocaust survivor parents and uncle had to lie in order to gain admittance into the U.S. to recognize the double-edged dangers of pursuing aging Nazi functionaries with the blunt instruments of American immigration law. Can the same laws be turned against his parents and other Jews like them? Allan Gerson tells the gripping story of his two years at the Department of Justice office charged with investigating and deporting aging Nazis living quietly in our midst. His interrogation of suspected perpetrators forces him to uncover secrets of his family and other anguished victims that he never wanted to know . . . This narrative reads like a bildungsroman, a coming of age story of a lawyer who went on to seek American legal remedies for historic crimes and injustices committed elsewhere." —Samuel Norich, President, The Forward

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword by Wolf Blitzer
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Tormentors, Victims, and the Lies That Enabled Entry into Post-War America
• Chapter One: A Most Unusual Offer
• Chapter Two: Zamość: Poland’s Urban Gem, My Ancestral Home
• Chapter Three: Rockler, Rostow, Talleyrand and “Zeal”
• Chapter Four: Pawns in a Transcontinental Struggle
• Chapter Five: Rockler’s Mind: Mired in the Past
• Chapter Six: Surviving the War
• Chapter Seven: Miami Chills
• Chapter Eight: The Remnant
• Chapter Nine: A Calculus of Evil
• Chapter Ten: Never Forget, Never Forgive
• Chapter Eleven: Leap of Faith
• Chapter Twelve: True Identity
• Chapter Thirteen: Trial and Consequences
• Chapter Fourteen: Civiletti’s Argument
• Chapter Fifteen: Like Actors on a Stage
• Chapter Sixteen: Fedorenko’s Verdict
• Chapteer Seventeen: Till the Ends of Justice
• Epilogue: Encountering History
• Photo Gallery
• About the Author