The Odessa File

A freelance reporter Miller comes across the diary of Salomon Tauber, a German Jewish survivor of the concentration camp at Riga. The diary describes the horrors committed by the Nazi commandant of the camp, the Butcher of Riga, Eduard Roschmann. Miller’s father had been a member of the German army during World War II and had been reported killed in action with no details.

 Incidentally Roschmann had been responsible for Miller’s father’s death and Miller was shocked to read an account in the diary of the quarrel between his father and Roschmann before Roschmann shot him. He then resolves to find Roschmann, without telling anybody the real reason. Agents of the Odessa, a secret organization of former Nazi SS men, try to discourage him, particularly as Roschmann is overseeing a project for developing a device for use by Egypt in destroying Israel. In the course of Miller’s search, he barely escapes death on two occassions. Miraculously, he uncovers a file of fugitive Nazi men. He also finds Roschmann who had changed identity twice, and confronts him with the murder of his father. Roschmann however manages to escape to Argentina, leaving his precious project to collapse.

January 28, 2015. Review initially written in 1991. Novel first published in 1972 by Hutchinson, this Transworld (Corgi Books) edition being published in 1990, ISBN 0-552-09436-6.