The mysterious death of an SS officer: a Nazi true crime story | DW Documentary

An October day in 1980, near Sao Paulo. A man lies dead in his bathroom. It is Gustav Wagner, the dreaded "Beast of Sobibor”, as he was known during his tenure at the Nazi concentration camp. The police classify his death as a suicide.

How is it possible to live what seems like a normal life after orchestrating murder in a Nazi concentration camp? Three decades after the end of the Holocaust, Shlomo Szmajzner meets his former tormentor Gustav Wagner in Brazil. A short time later, the former SS man is found dead. Does Shlomo Szmajzner, one of the few survivors of the concentration camp, have anything to do with it? Or is the wish for belated justice just that - a wish?

In the Sobibor concentration camp, Shlomo Szmajzner had the macabre task of forging jewelry for the Nazis using the dental gold of murdered Jews. Gustav Wagner, known as the "Beast of Sobibor", was an ardent National Socialist. He was feared for his sadism and unpredictability. Some 250,000 people were murdered in Sobibor. Very few managed to escape, but Shlomo was one of them. Then he met his tormentor again 36 years later, on the other side of the world, in Brazil.

The film’s true crime format draws viewers into a world of guilt, revenge and justice. The question that Shlomo Szmajzner must wrestle with is still all-too-relevant today. Namely: Is atonement possible for crimes on this gigantic scale? 

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