Gustavo Sierra told at the Book Fair the unknown story of the Argentine who killed a Nazi in Treblinka

In it Treblinka Nazi concentration camp 850,000 Jews and a single Nazi died: he who killed Meir Berliner, A young Polish -Argentine Jew That, even in hell, he managed to light a spark of rebellion doing justice on his own. “when the second Nazi boss, Max Bialas, was passing through the prisoners, selecting with a whip to those who were going to die that day, Meir Berliner He nails a knife and, a few hours later, Bialas dies, ”said the journalist and writer Gustavo Sierra Friday at CLARIN CULTURAL SPACE / Ñ of the International Book Fair of Buenos Aires. And he finished: “One between eight hundred fifty thousand and was Argentine. He had to tell that story.”

This is how he was born Berliner The Treblinka Avenger (Editorial tide, 2024), Sierra’s most recent book, on which the author talked at the fair with the also journalist and writer Gerardo “Tato” Young.

The novel follows the steps of This Argentine Polish Justicefrom the 20s in the Rosario de Pichincha neighborhood so far Cúlmine del Star, in the Polish city of Treblinka, when – in 1942– Berliner advises The deadly blow to Max Bialas, the senior SS officialgoing down as the hero of Treblinka.

The author, multipremized and with more than 40 years of experience In international journalism, as a special envoy and war correspondent for the most important means of the country, among them and very extensively, to Clarion, Gustavo Sierra covered war conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, followed in the footsteps of Osama Bin Laden on the Afghan -Pakistani border and was also a reporter in the Mexican narcoguerra.

Among his most outstanding books, that They cross journalism with literary narrative They are: Under the bombs (2003): War stories from the ground; Kabul, Baghdad, Tehran (2006): Chronicles of conflicts in the Middle East; The Bagram Cartel (2012): Research on drug trafficking and war; Sinaloa – Medellín – Rosario (2014): Analysis of drug trafficking in Latin America; ISIS boys (2016): Stories of young people recruited by extremism; 68 (2018): Reflections on the social movements of 1968.

Berliner Treblinka avenger, Posted in 2024, it is the result of some Ten years of disciplined workin which Sierra finds the hero capable of killing one of the highest and most fearsome SS officials but finds, also and of course, much more.

“I imagine that you will have gone through a thousand and a places where you could find stories, however, you found this in Buenos Aires,” said the author’s interviewer and friend, Gerardo “Tato” Young, another heavyweight of journalism. Recognized for their work in political and judicial investigations, Tato was editor chief of the research team of this newspaper until 2012 and great figure of the radio. “It is what happens to stories hunters, as is Gustavo: they appear at least you expect them,” he added.

“History crossed me going to the concentration camps in Poland”, Gustavo Sierra replied. “While there, in the Warsaw ghetto, I begin to ask myself something that is recurring in journalism: and the Argentine where is it? There always had to be an Argentine in the middle of any story, something that is an absurd but I can assure you that there is always one, and I had it in front, somehow. Then, I came to Buenos Aires and I met the historian Marcia Ras,” said Sierra.

Marcia Ras is an associate researcher of the Holocaust Museum of Buenos Aires and Teacher in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the UBA. In addition, he has been a fellow in international institutions such as Yad Vashem and the Meloial of the Shoah in Paris. “I asked her about the Argentines of the Holocaust and appoints me to go to Meir Berlinerthen it gives me to read some things and I find that it was a Polish immigrant who had come to our country in the 20s, like so many other immigrants and was probably 15 or 18 years old here, that is, he had become one more Argentine, ”Sierra said.

If the question is why Meir Berliner returned to Europe, in full war, there is an answer: “supposedly, He had gone to get his parents out of the Nazi persecution and find his wife and daughter confined In the Warsaw ghetto until at one time they go up to the trains and send them to the Treblinka concentration camp, ”argued the author.

Within the concentration camp, Berliner learned that his wife and daughter had been killed and decided to do justice by own hand. “Ochociento fifty thousand victims and one avenger, who turned out to be an Argentine. The question that you will have asked yourself a thousand times is why he and not another,” Tato Young wanted to know.

“Yes, I asked and tried to look for the background of Meir Berliner in Argentina,” Sierra replied.

Apparently, Berliner had military training, Maybe he had done military service in Argentina. The author sought and sought more about Berliner’s story and, when he was already determined to write the novel like this, without more, a fact that changes everything appears.

In the midst of the investigation, information about a network of trafficking of persons of Jewish -Polish origin that He had operated in Argentina from the end of the 19th century until the early 1930s. Initially known as the Israelite Society of Mutual Surfaces Warsaw, adopted the name Zwi Migdal in 1927, in honor of one of its founders, Luis Zwi Migdal

This organization was dedicated to recruiting young women, mostly Jews from Eastern Europeunder false promises of marriage or domestic employment in Argentina. Once in the country, They were forced to exercise prostitution in brothels controlled by the network. The Zwi Migdal came to have more than a thousand members and operated with impunity thanks to the corruption of officials, judges and police.

“There was a curator of surname Alsogaray, of the family of which we know that, together with a judge, they did an investigation to disrupt the network, A job that cost them the position“The author said and continued:” Commissioner Alsogaray wrote a book where he complains, bitterly, of everything that happened, “Sierra explained. In the end, in an edition of that book, I found by chance the list of 450 members of the Zwi Migdal, among them, was Berliner. And there I understood the true reason why Meir Berliner decided to return to Poland, ”Sierra concluded.

“Investigating who you imagined was a hero, the only type between 850 thousand victims of an extermination center that had dared to kill a Nazi boss, you suddenly discover that the guy integrated a criminal organization prior to that,” said Young and asked: “What did you feel when you discover it?”

“On the one hand, A lot of joy to finally find Berliner And on the other, a very large bewilderment because this new information gave history a very big lap, ”Sierra explained.

The investigation, then, turned towards prostitution In Rosario, where the Zwi Migdal was very strong and also in Buenos Aires. In both cities, “they had bought from God and Mary Most Holy,” says the author since “they had an extraordinary amount of money and could buy any will,” he said.

Finally, and Although many fat fish had time to flee, fortunately, things ended up falling by their own weight: The brave complaint of a woman named Raquel Liberman, who managed to escape from the Red led to the arrest of more than one hundred members of the organization.

The Argentine telenovela, Land of love and revenge It was based on this story, with Eugenia “La China” Suárez as the protagonist.