"Breathe." "We should never forget how young they were." "My father, Stephan Gold, was the youngest unit commander in Mossad." "David Peretz had his 29th birthday while on the mission." "When my mother crossed through the checkpoint, into Soviet-controlled East Berlin," "she was only 25." "They'd had the courage to confront an unimaginable evil." "A man whose sadistic experiments left thousands disfigured or dead, who became known by a name which defiles the annals of medicine," "the Surgeon of Birkenau." "Their mission had been to capture him and return him to Israel to stand trial." "Instead, it ended on the streets of East Berlin." "These three dared to relive Israel's greatest nightmare, her greatest pain." "And in the simple act of facing the monster, they helped to vanquish it." "This book is dedicated to my inspiration, my mother, Rachel Singer." "Mother." "Mother," "I'm so very proud to be your daughter." " David Peretz?" " Yes." "You were expecting me?" "Yes, I was expecting you." "Would you come with me, sir?" "Let's go." "Are you all right, sir?" "Sorry, I think I..." "When are you going to stop?" "Stop what?" "The smoking." "I gave up alcohol." "What more do you want?" "Okay, soon." "I hope so." "Do it for your grandson." "I've marked the place." "Perhaps from Chapter 11." "Good." "Thank you." "You must be very proud." "Yes, I am." "It's a great achievement." "I'm very proud of her." "And I'm sure you were invaluable in the research." "Actually my mother withstood all interrogation." "My father was the talker." "I'm the only journalist in Israel she won't speak to." "I thought he couldn't come." "Sit down." "So did I." "My God, it must be election season." "Papa, you came." "I came." " Rachel." " Stephan." "Okay." "So, you're the expert." "Maybe you can tell me something." "Who is the handsome devil on this cover?" "It went well?" "She was wonderful." "That's good." "Good, good." "That's very good." "I just want to thank you all for coming to celebrate the launch of this wonderful book." "And I'm sure we are all particularly thrilled to have two of the heroes of the story here with us tonight." "And even more thrilled that one of them has agreed to read for us." "Miss Rachel Singer." ""On the evening of the 31st of December," ""it began to rain more heavily." ""So isolated had they become from the outside world," ""that it was only when she looked out of the window" ""that Rachel remembered that it was New Year's Eve."" ""There were fireworks in the sky," ""and everyone else in Berlin was celebrating."" "What's so important?" "Where are we going?" "We're going to David's apartment." "David?" "I know he came to see you yesterday." "What's this?" "The jealous ex-husband or the intelligence officer?" "What did he want?" "He told me that he'd been traveling, that he'd been teaching." "We spoke for a few minutes, and then I had to go." "If you don't believe me, ask him yourself." "Why did he do it?" "My car is waiting outside." "Come down!" " I'm David." " I'm Rachel." "Stephan." "This is Rachel." " Where do I sleep?" " You're in my room." "I'm moving in with him." "You're at the end there." "What do you think of your new wife?" " She's too young." " Very pretty." "You didn't notice." "You know what I've noticed?" "You don't notice women." "I've noticed that." "How long have I known you?" "I don't know." "Two years." "All the places we've been to, you never look at women." "Is there anything you have to tell me before I get into that bed?" "I think you just noticed." "Yes?" "Now from behind." "Where have you come from?" "Argentina." " Really?" "Whereabouts?" " Córdoba." "What were you doing there?" "My husband is an industrial chemist." "He does look like a chemist." "She's not going to break, David." "Move." "What were you doing before this?" "Before Argentina we lived in Hungary, where my husband studied chemistry." "In Mossad, what did you do?" "Liaison." "And what did you do in Liaison?" "Translator." "Translator?" "So, first time in the field?" "Good." "That's good." "Welcome to the mission." "The West Berlin Transit System." "When the Wall was built, some stations ended up on the wrong side, in the Eastern sector." "They're closed and guarded by soldiers." "They will shoot to kill to prevent any escape." "This is where we get him out." "It's a ghost station." "West Berlin trains pass through the station on this track," " but don't stop." " Usually." "One, two, three, four..." "Fourteen seconds per train." "The station is guarded at all times." "And the stairs to the platform are sealed off" "Our train driver makes an unscheduled stop under the bridge." "The last two carriages will be around here." "They will be empty." "Once the train is stopped, the guards won't be able to see this fence, or anything that happens beyond it." "And on the other side of the fence is a postal depot." "The vans come and go all day long." "We're just one more van with one more parcel." "And once we're in West Berlin, there will be transport to Tempelhof air base, and a private charter to Israel." "That's the wrapping." "Now all we need is the present." "Try this on." "How does it feel?" "Very nice." "Here you are a Mossad agent, all those years of training, the highest levels of marksmanship and krav maga, and your first big mission is sewing." "Black belt in dressmaking" "I never argue with an armed woman." "Sorry." "What is it?" " It doesn't have a name." " Shit." "Now it does." "Today is my birthday." "...and study the Mishnah." "At 15, you study the Talmud." "By 18, stand under the wedding canopy." "We're too late for all of those." "You're 29?" "In your 20s, you have to pursue your life's goals." "What are you pursuing, Rachel?" "I don't know." "I'm waiting to find out." "Youth." "What about you, old man?" "Have you got a goal?" "Yes, we believe in goals in my family." "We're very driven men." "My father was Director of Collections by the time he was 50." "So what's your goal?" "Director of Collections by 40." "What about you, David?" "What life goal are you pursuing?" "This is it." "This is it?" "This is all you want?" "No, tell me." "What do you want out of life?" "I want to get Vogel." "I want him to be put on trial, and I want the world to watch so everyone knows what he did." "I want them all to know the truth." "And I want another drink." "Forget about it." "Forget about what?" "I've spent two years with him and I don't know him." "Nobody knows him." "He's alone." "What about family?" "All of them?" "All of them." "Maybe it's not always a blessing to survive." "Frau Roget." "Are you all right?" "His identity's confirmed." "We have a green light." "The day after tomorrow." "It's a brave thing you're doing." "I'm not brave." "I'm terrified." "But you're doing it anyway because you know how important it is." "David..." "It's whiskey." "You're so beautiful." "We have to get him on the train." "Help me with him." "We're going!" "Now!" "Not without her." "Go!" "Go!" "Jump!" "Down!" " Is he dead?" " Who?" "The guard." "The one who saw your face." "Is he dead?" "No." "How did Vogel come round?" "How the fuck did that happen?" "You gave him the full injection?" "Did you give him the full injection?" "I don't know." "I thought I did!" "We failed our mission." "It's not over." "We failed our country." "We failed our families!" "We still have him!" "It's not over!" "We still have him!" "You made contact?" "Is there a plan?" "What did they say?" "It's going to take time." "They need to open up a new route." "They need to find political help." "They're going to try the Americans." "So, we work in shifts guarding him." "We feed him at the end of each shift." "We take him back alive." "You've been seen." "You don't leave the house." "We can do this." "We'll take him back to Israel." "We'll show the world what he did." "Fuck." "You can't talk to him." "I didn't say anything." " You can't listen to him." " I know." "I'm not angry, I'm just telling you." "We don't talk to him." "We don't listen to him." "He isn't there." "He isn't a human being." "We've been given a date." "Ten days' time." "The Americans are going to help." "Good." "No." "You should try lemons, for the morning sickness." "They say it helps." "What's your name?" "Hannah?" "Sarah?" "Rachel?" "Esther?" "You Jews stay close to your roots, don't you?" "It's a good thing." "Very good." "I understand you perfectly." "You weren't lying at the clinic when you told me about your mother, were you?" "About her death?" "I'm very sorry for your loss." " What happened?" " Nothing." "Nothing." "What's the matter?" " He can understand us." " What?" "He just spoke to me." "He knows what we're saying." "He knows what we're thinking." "It's all right." "It's all right." "This will be over soon." "Why didn't you go?" "At the station." "You could have got away." "Why didn't you?" "What did they say?" "Stephan?" "It's not happening." "What the fuck does that mean?" "The Americans have pulled out." "Has he been fed?" " Oh, God." " Did you feed him?" " What's the plan now?" " We just need to get him to the air base." "I'm asking you." "What's the..." "I'm talking to her!" "Supposedly it's her shift now, but instead of doing what she's supposed to be doing, she's out here with you." "Now, answer the fucking question!" "Did you feed him?" "Yes, I fed him." "There's no plan." "There's no fucking plan!" "The police are everywhere." "They're searching houses." "We killed a man, and now the Americans want to pull out." "They won't have anything to do with us." "It's a fucking mess and they're backing away from it as quickly as they can." "No." "They can't leave us." "Yes, they can." "Because we fucked it up." "We fucked it all up, and now we're on our own!" "No." "Were you followed?" "Could you have been?" "Stephan." " Stephan." " Stephan." "If it's them, he dies." " Move!" " You're not doing this." "He's not getting away from me." "Move." " This isn't the mission." " Move!" " You are not doing this." " Get out of the way." "This isn't what we came for." "I decide what the mission is." "We're finishing this." "Get out of the fucking way!" "It was the lady from the basement apartment." "She invited us to a New Year's Eve party." "We'll get out." "They'll come up with another plan." "What are you doing?" "It's your shift." " Did you know about this?" " About what?" "His mouth is taped." "You want him to suffocate?" "I was sick of seeing his face." "Go back in there." "You don't do it again." "You don't give orders, David." "It's your shift now." "So go back in there." "Go on." "Stop it!" "We're not animals." "You remember what we are." "You remember what we are not." " What are you doing?" " I have to get out." "You can't." "Get out of my way, please." "I'm going out." "She wants to go out." "A few minutes." "I won't be seen!" " Tell him, David." "I just want to walk." " Rachel..." "You can't go out." "I just want some air!" "I can't breathe!" "Rachel..." "Get off me!" "Thank you, David." "If I had a choice, I would prefer Rachel to feed me." "So gentle." "In another life, the makings of a nurse, I think." "How is she today?" "You should let her get more rest." "It's a dangerous time, the first month or two of the pregnancy." "You didn't know." "And you're not the father." "I thought it would be you." "I thought..." "I don't know." "The way you look at her." "The way she looks at you." "That must be hard." "I wouldn't have taken Stephan as a family man." "Too ambitious, too..." "I don't know." "Whereas you, David, I see you with children." "Shut up." "I'm expressing my sympathy for your sufferings." "What does a monster like you know about suffering?" "I'm a doctor, David." "You blind children trying to change the color of their eyes." "You inject people with petrol." "You replace hands and legs and you watch as they..." "This isn't medicine." "This is sickness." "This is disease." "So we were all insane?" "Is that the answer?" "There is no answer." "I'm not looking for an answer." "I'm not looking to..." "You're trembling." "I think you're the one that is afraid, David." "Afraid of the monster." "Why do you think it was so easy to exterminate you people?" "Your weakness." "I saw it." "Every day I saw it." "Every one of them thinking only of how to avoid being flogged, or kicked or killed." "Every one thinking only of themselves." "Why do you think it only took four soldiers to lead a thousand people to the gas chambers?" "Because not one out of thousands had the courage to resist." "Not one would sacrifice himself." "Not even when we took their children away." "So I knew then that you people had no right to live." "You had no right..." " Are you going to be all right?" " Yeah." "Out!" "Out!" "Nothing." "Not a trace." "Nothing at all." "He might go to the house, try and get a message..." "He's not going to the house!" "He's gone!" "Fifteen years it took to find him." "He's gone and no one's ever going to find him again." "So we what?" "Are you going to make the phone call?" "Are you going to tell them how he got a fucking piece of broken bowl?" "Wonderful." "Don't try and take me down with you." "I've done nothing wrong!" "Remember that." "This can't happen!" "This is never going to go away!" "It's my fault." "It was my shift." "This happened because of me." "I let him go." "And no one's ever going to find him again." "No one's ever going to find him again." "What if he didn't escape?" "What are you talking about?" "Only four people know what happened in this room, us and him, and he's not talking." "No one will ever hear from him again." "No." "Nobody needs to know what happened." "He escaped." "That's the truth." "But that doesn't have to be the truth we take home." "The truth can be anything we want it to be." "The truth is Vogel tried to escape." "You struggled with him and got hurt." "The truth is seconds before he got away," "Rachel got the gun and shot him." "The truth is we got rid of him." "Got rid of the body." "Got rid of every trace of the Surgeon of Birkenau." "We can't lie about this." "No, you know what?" "We have to." "We have to!" "This isn't about us." "This is about Israel." "This is a national humiliation!" "We can't be seen to fail!" "And in the end, Vogel rots away his life in some jungle, always looking over his shoulder, waiting for a bullet." "Who's to say?" "Maybe that's a worse fate." "Maybe that's..." "The important thing is justice." "Justice is seen to be done." "He's gone." "What does it matter?" "He's gone." "He's right!" "It makes no difference." "No difference!" "All we have to agree is that we never talk about this." "No matter what happens, we never tell anyone." "The truth stays in this room, between us." "Agreed?" "Say it." "I need to hear you say it." "Say it." "Agreed." "David." "Rachel, say it." "It's an oath." "Say it." "Say it." "How could this happen?" "You said he would never speak!" "You said he would never be heard from." "We don't know it's him!" "Oh, God." "If you read it, you'll see that..." "He's alive!" "He's in the Ukraine!" "What else is there to read?" "It's a little Internet story." "Psychiatric patient claiming to be the Surgeon of Birkenau!" "Some crazy old man." "How did you find it?" "David comes back after all this time, I want to know why," "I have his apartment searched, we find that on his computer." "Did he say anything to you about it last night?" "Rachel, did he say anything?" "Why?" "Why did he kill himself?" "Because he couldn't handle it." "I told him we had to deal with it, and he couldn't handle it." "He thought the whole story would come out and he panicked." ""Deal with it"?" "What does that mean?" ""Deal with it."" "I told him to find Vogel." "I told him to finish it." "Did you know he'd been ill?" "You did, didn't you?" "You knew he'd been ill." "You knew it!" "Fuck David." "You knew that he wasn't strong enough!" "He took the coward's way out." "You could have just left it alone!" "It was an old man in a hospital." "Nobody would have believed it." "Nobody would be listening." "There's a journalist from a newspaper in Kiev." "Yuri Titov." "He heard about the story and he wants to interview Vogel." "Then it all falls apart." "We don't know which hospital he's in, but the journalist does." "You have to find out where he is." "What are you talking about?" "David has taken himself out of the equation, I can't do it." "You're the only one left." "Are you insane?" " We can't..." " Well, I can't do it." "I can't!" "Look at me." "I'm not capable." "I haven't been an agent for 30 years." "You're insane." "No, I can't do it!" "You have to do it, Rachel." "Because for 30 years you've been taking the credit for it." "And there's Sarah." "I'm not doing this!" "Fuck!" "I knew this would happen." "I knew we'd be punished." "I knew we'd have to pay." "I thought I'd been punished already." "God doesn't plant car bombs." "I wasn't referring to the wheelchair." "If I could go back, Rachel, I would change it all." "But there's one thing I would never change." "She isn't going to find out." "She can never find out." "Come down!" "At that moment, when I was lying on the floor," "I don't think I was thinking about myself at all." "I was thinking about my mother." "I was thinking about how she had suffered in Europe during the war." "The same question to Mr. Peretz." "Fuck him." "Fuck him." "Hurry up." "Go to bed, Sarah." "Welcome." "You both look so beautiful." "I'm spoiled for choice." "Are we still on for Sunday?" "My own party, and you're the only friend I have." "All Stephan's friends." "Stephan's girlfriends." "Don't even think he's interested in them." "He's just trying to punish me." "For what?" "Everything." "For getting pregnant." "For not loving him." "For you, David." "I thought the silence was for the soldiers, not for me." "David, I'm talking to you." "I'm leaving." "What?" "Leaving Mossad?" "Yeah, Mossad." "Israel." "Where are you going?" "I don't know." "Greece at first, and then I don't know." " When?" " Tonight." "Don't be crazy." "Rachel..." "Don't be crazy." "Tonight?" "Why would you?" "Rachel..." "Rachel..." " You can't leave." "You can't just..." " I have to." " Why?" " Because I can't do this anymore." "Any of this." "If I stay..." "I don't know." "This is about today." "About the talks?" "Don't do them anymore." "Stephan doesn't..." "Come with me." "What?" "Come with me." "I can't." "You can." "You can." "Such a beautiful photograph, Rachel." "It's beautiful." "You look like a pair of angels." "She's so lovely, Stephan." "You like it?" "I took that one." "Good to know you have another career." "In case you fall from favor." "It could be sooner than you think." "Rachel, will you come and say hello to Michael?" "He was asking after you." "Yes." "Oh, no." "I'll tell you something, at that moment when I was on the floor," "I didn't think about myself at all." "I was thinking about my mother and what she had suffered in Europe." "And I think that was what gave me the strength to get up again." "Does Stephan know you're here?" "I expect so." "Things became very bad between us." "What are you doing here, David?" "He's in the Babenko Hospital." "It's just outside of Vinnycja." "About 250 kilometers southwest of you." "What name is he going under?" "Ivan Schevchuk." "He's the right age." "And when is Titov supposed to interview him?" "Tomorrow." "And he knows what I look like." "This will be over soon." "And when..." "What are you doing here, David?" "Have you met anyone else?" "There was someone, but he went away." "And I never heard from him again." "I wrote you letters." "But you never sent them." " Rachel..." " What is it, 25 years?" " I wanted to see you." " All that time and not a word." "I was ill for a long time, Rachel." "I was in a kind of hospital." " Where?" " In Mexico." "What were you doing in Mexico?" "I traveled a lot." "South America, North Africa." "I kept moving." "Looking for him." "Why?" "What would you have done if you had have found him?" "I would have told the truth." "I would have gone to a newspaper and said," ""This is the Surgeon of Birkenau."" "And I could finally have seen him face trial." "And what would have happened to us?" "We'd be free." "Whatever happened to us, it seemed to me we would be free." "Don't you agree?" "Aren't you tired of lying?" "If you had found him, isn't that what you would have done?" "Maybe." "Twenty years ago." "But now?" "Anyway, it isn't just us, there's Sarah." "She hasn't done anything wrong." "She wrote a book." "Did you know that?" "Yes." "If the truth were to come out now, it would destroy her." "So no." "I would not have told the truth." "But you never found him." "No, I never did." "The book launch is tomorrow." "Could you come?" "I don't know if Stephan..." "What if we could go back?" "If I had waited for you." "If you had come." "Would it be different?" "We can't go back." " Yes?" " It isn't him." "Wait a second." "This is a family matter, if you'd give me a moment, please." "Thank you." " You're sure?" " It isn't him." "It's some old man who's heard about him." "Thank God." "Thank God, this is wonderful." "This is..." "And you're okay, Rachel?" " You were wrong." " Well, thank God I was..." "About David." "You were wrong about him." "About David?" "He didn't kill himself because he was afraid the story might come out." "When he came to see me, he was asking for something." "What?" "My permission." "And I didn't give it." "I wouldn't let him tell the truth, and he was tired of living with a lie." "Truth is a luxury, Rachel." "Some people have to put other things first, their country, their people, their children." "Sarah is so proud of you, Rachel." "I want her to be proud of me." "Of course you do." "I want to do something to make her proud of me." "Vogel must have been here, Stephan." " Rachel..." " People have to know the truth, Stephan." " Rachel, listen to me." " Goodbye." "Sir, the Cabinet meeting has started." "Yeah." "Why did you come?" "Why did you have to come?" "Was it Schevchuk?" "I know I shouldn't have talked to him." "I can stop him." "I won't tell him anymore." ""My name is Rachel Singer." ""Please publish what you are about to read." ""In 1965," ""I was part of a mission to kidnap Dieter Vogel," ""the Surgeon of Birkenau," ""and bring him to Israel to stand trial." ""We have always claimed that Vogel was killed trying to escape." ""But this was a lie." ""A lie I have lived with for 30 years." ""And now I understand that I must tell the truth.""