10. The Boy Who Shot the Nazi (Season 2)

was wrinkled and stained. He couldn't look the secretary in the eye, but whenever she got a glimpse, she noted how young he seemed to be. Still, he persisted, you don't understand this is a matter of national security. I need to speak to the ambassador. I have to know your name and affiliation before I can. More people will die if you sit on this any longer. Now, do you want to help the Germans or do you want to sit on your ass and read headlines about what

you let happened. The secretary couldn't help but be shaken by the kid's intensity. She had signed up for the job at the embassy in Paris to do paperwork and schedule meetings, and now she was getting harassed by foreigners. Just hold on a moment. Who is it you need? I told you the ambassador well more moment. The boy's paranoia and anger grew as the secretary disappeared into a back office. He gazed around the embassy, pressed suits, nice furniture. Rage built inside of him as he looked at the

details of this other world. What infuriated him the most was that it wasn't even considered luxury or excess. This was considered normal, and he'd never been part of a normal world. You may go in. His stomach growled as he pushed forward. He hadn't eaten all day, and it was getting harder and harder to focus. It's nice to yes. Then reality began to set in. He was now standing in the office of a German official. I ah, you, what are you doing? Screaming? That's my secretary. They're busy here.

I I have an important document for for the Nazis. So I stricles a man with a lot of patients. If you have something, give it to me and didn't get out of here, you fifty bus in the name of the twelve thousand tooth. Here's what I have for you.

This is a special episode of Good Assassins. Back in episode one of this season, you remember I talked about Crystal Knock, the violent uprising against German Jews in November that historians regard as the opening to the eventual genocide of six million European Jews and then millions of others during World War Two. Today, we're delving into the story of a young man who is somewhat lost to history, but his story is right at the dead center of

the Holocaust. This young man became an assassin, and the assassination he committed on November in Paris is the spark that set off the inferno that was the Nazi Holocaust. This man's name was Herschel grin Spot and he was just seventeen years old. I'm Stephen Talty and from Diversion. This is Good Assassin's Season two, episode ten, The Boy who shot the Nazi. Life was never easy for the

grin Spond family. Parents, Sindel and Rivka, arrived in Hanover in northern Germany in nineteen eleven from their native Poland, hoping like many to make a better life for themselves. Like many Jews who lived in the pale of settlement, the green Spawn family escaped the pogroms there to go to what they thought was and indeed was a more civilized place at the time in the early twentieth century,

to Germany. That's Joseph Matthews, the author of an historical novel about Herschel grin Spawn called Everyone Has Their Reasons, who spent a decade researching Grinspon's life. So the Grinspond family arrived in Hanover, they were considered not just second class citizens because they were Jews, but third class citizens because they were Eastern Jews, not German Jews. They were Polish Jews, fairly observant, and they immediately faced the hostility

of Western Europe. Jews from the East, spoke Yiddish and often faced difficulty assimilating into German culture. Still, Zindel and Rivka made a family. Of the six children they had, only three of them managed to survive childhood, esther Mordechai, and their youngest born in Herschel. From an early age,

Herschel was different from the rest of his family. He was passionate, emotional, artistic, and seemed to have a deep respect for his orthodox religious beliefs, but these were treated as quirks, especially by anti Semites, and Herschel wasn't wont to step down from a fight. He reacted to insults with his fists, and he was apparently prone to schoolyard tussles and sometimes violent outbursts, much to the chagrin of his parents. Prougrin Star. He has given Herschel multiple opportunities

to better himself at school. Still he seems to insist on solving all his problems myth violence. I'm afraid he can do no more for him. Good luck to you. This, of course, was just one side of the story. Herschel was facing fervid anti Semitism in school. At a certain point in Herschel's schooling, Jews were moved to separate painted yellow benches in the schoolrooms author Joseph Matthews. Again, they weren't asked any questions by the teachers, they weren't allowed

to speak school. You know, the other children began to violently beat Jewish kids. School became, you know, a place that was insufferable, and Herschel left at age fourteen. There was just no point in continuing. While Herschel dropped out of school at the age of fourteen, he wasn't unintelligent or unsocial. Herschel was a decent student, nothing special, very

bright young guy. His parents sent him to Paris to live with his aunt and uncle and hopefully make a better life for himself, and the family understood that there was no future for Herschel in Germany. As you can imagine, it was a wrenching, horrible decision for the family to make, because they probably knew very well they'd never see Herschel again. Herschel grew insular in Paris, living among Yiddish speaking Polish

Orthodox Jews and learning almost no French. He didn't return to school, he couldn't work legally, and instead opted for a life spent on the streets where he mostly kept to himself, wandering Paris and sneaking into movie houses. He apparently tried repeatedly to apply for French citizenship, who was continually denied, and became what the French called a clandestine and a legal resident and in danger of being expelled

at any time. They and because he had a Polish passport, he would be deported to Poland, where he knew no one and he didn't speak Polish, so he had to keep his head under the firing line, and his uncle and Herschel continue to try to get papers regularizing his stay so that he could live there legally and work, and every at every step they were turned down. He didn't have training, he didn't have money. He you know, his aunt and uncle couldn't put up sufficient support for him.

He did, however, remain religiously devout and proud of his Jewish heritage. But in discrimination against Jews was ramping up. The Nazis already in the mid thirties into ninety eight, we're coming up with all kinds of laws to exclude Jews from public and private life, to force Jews to leave Germany. They could to create a Jew free space

in Germany in all different kinds of ways. A census taken in nineteen thirty three noted that over fifty seven percent of Jews living in Germany were Polish, a figure assumed to have grown by the Nazi Party took the increasing number of Eastern European Jews and fanned the flames of anti Semitism, erroneously claiming that they were being invaded by this new populace and culturally replaced. Thousands of Jews

fled to surrounding countries. In response to the influx of Jews coming back to Poland, the Polish government passed a law in October requiring Polish citizens living outside the country to get an endorsement stamp on their passports by the end of the month, or they'd have their citizenship revoked. It was an absurd declaration with an impossible deadline, and it left nearly seventy thousand Polish Jews in Germany without citizenship. They became a people with no country, no rights, and

almost no prospects. So now people like the green Spawn family were caught in this no man's land, which said, well, the Germans are going to expel you, but the Poles refused to accept you. What's going to happen And what happened in late October of Polish passport holding Jews in Germany, including all of Herschel's family, were rounded up in the middle of the night, put on box cars and shipped to the Polish border, where they were dumped unceremoniously onto

the border. On October, Nazis invaded the homes at Bis This is of thousands of these Jews from the East, stripped them of their possessions, homes and money, and forced some twelve thousand aboard trains headed to Poland. When the deportees arrived in Poland, some were allowed back into their country, but the vast majority were rejected at the border for not having the passport staff that protected their native citizenship.

These Polish Jews without a country were relegated to homeless camps along the border, where poor conditions, cold weather, and a lack of food dwindled their numbers. And among the Jews that were deported to this nomad's land the family of Herschel grin Spond. More than twenty years later, at the trial of Adolf eichman In, Herschel's father, Zendel grinch Spond described the Polish Jews forced deportation by the Nazis. The ss men used whips to hurry us across fields

to the Polish frontier line. Those who founded stuck, blood spurred it, Bundles were grabbed from people's hands. M Herschel received a postcard from his sister on November three and learned of his family's faith. She begged him to help. So you wanted to help his family, and you wanted to send money and you had a big argument with his uncle who said, don't send money because the German

well pocketed, and of course he was right. That's our man Furor, a journalist and historian who published a biography of greensponn in Germany in two thousand thirteen. But haswanta to do something, you know, so we wanted to set an example against the Nazis. Grinch Bond was outraged at how Germany and Poland were treating Jews, and he was desperate. He decided he'd take justice into his own hands. We'll hear how this goes horribly wrong after the break. Hi,

this is Stephen Talty, host of Good Assassins. The folks that helped me bring you this show have just launched another podcast that we think you'll like. It's called War Queens. Every episode of War Queens tells the story of a fearless, powerful female leader from history from Elizabeth Tudor and Golden my Years, high stakes wartime gambles. Twain Goola is Queen Najinga's willingness to shed and occasionally drink blood to defend her kingdom, to endear Gandhi's war, to solve a refugee crisis,

and so many more. These are super engrossing stories told by expert historians in a way that's accessible and interesting. It's great listening. Every episode of War Queens brings you the stories of extraordinary leaders, all of them legends. War Queens is out now. Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app, and wherever you listen to podcasts. After hearing about the deportation of his family from Germany,

Herschel grinch Bond became hyper focused on revenge. Assassination he believed would be the only appropriate method of enacting justice. The question then became who would be the target. There were some obvious choice is. Adolf Hitler would have been the optimal selection, but he was too powerful and locked behind the Nazi Party's highgates in Germany. Then there was Joseph Gebel's, the chief propagandist for the Nazis, who sat

at Hitler's right hand. But do you imagined Gebel's was also fiercely protected in a country away, Herschel needed a closer target there in Paris. He settled on Johannes van Belchik, the German ambassador to France. He would be accessible in his Paris office, and his death would be consequential enough to attract the attention to the plight of the Jews that Herschel desired. Belichick was everything Herschel needed in a target, a rich Nazi from an aristocratic family. The two couldn't

have been more opposite. I'd like to buy a gun. On November seven, nine thirty eight, just over a week after his family had been deported from Hanover by the Nazis, Herschel Grinshpond purchased a revolver from a Paris gun shop and took the train to the embassy. On the ride over, he wrote a postcard saying goodbye to his parents, assuming that after the assassination he'd be quickly executed by the Nazis. With God's help, my dear parents, I could not do otherwise.

May God forgive me the heart bleeds when I hear of your tragedy and that of the twelve Jews. I must protest, so that the whole world here's my protest, and that I will do forgive me. He was never able to send it, as he placed it in his pocket right before entering the embassy. Upon entering, grinch Band realized a major problem. He had no idea what Johannes von Belichick looked like. Flustered, he approached the Secretary's desk and mumbled that he needed to see the ambassador immediately.

He claimed to be a spy with intel that would help the Germans, but when pressed, he couldn't offer any details to what does the information PERTAINE? I cannot say who is in danger. I just need to speak to the ambassador. M Eventually, the secretary buckled to his demands, but Belichick had already left the office that morning for his daily walk. She instead passed grinchbonn off to a junior officer, Ernst Bombade, an ex paramilitary soldier in the

Nazi Army who now worked at the embassy. It's believed that grinch Bond did not know who he was assassinating. You, filthy bus in the name of the twelve thousand jo, Here's what I have for you. Grinch Bond didn't put up a fight after the shooting. He was taken into custody by the French police and spent two years in prison while his trial was subject to review. But while the cogs of the court system turned slowly for grinch Bond, The Nazis quickly leapt at this new opportunity to incite

violence against the Jews. The German official grinch Bond, had shot died two days after the attack. Nazi propagandist Joseph Gebel's wasted no time. Fanning the planes of Rod's assassination. He made inflammatory speeches, leveraging grinch Bond to quote demonstrate why every Jewish Man, woman and child in the world was a deadly enemy of the Third Reich unquote, and called on German citizens to take back their country against

what he referred to as the Jewish problem. When news of Rod's murder reached Germany, the Nazis revolted violently against Jews residing in the country. Hours after Rod's death, they formed up a grome that grew in size and power and swept through German streets and obliterated Jewish homes and businesses with arson and gunfire. It was an unstoppable blood bath and the first major defining outbursts of mass violence

against the Jews. In the period from November nine to November ten, Crystal knocked left bodies strewn in the streets. Nearly thirty thousand Jewish Men were ripped from their families and deported to concentration camps. Almost a hundred were violently murdered, some in their synagogues. German police and fire fighters were ordered not to engage in any rescue attempts. The Jewish parts of the country were meant to be burned to ash.

They took everything out they could. They started making fires in the synagogues and the next day they came and they took all the community, well known people. They had a clean up that would put signs on them jew and would put on all the stores signs on that nobody was of leuten uh judicious a chef, that nobody should come in and buy anything or do any business restricts. That's Herman Kompinski, a Holocaust survivor and former president of the Society of the Survivors of the Riga Ghetto, a

predominantly German Jewish group. Reflecting on his own experience of Crystal Knockt, Kompinski empathizes with greenspond after experiencing severe anti Semitism his own childhood. He was also outraged as parents have been deported from Hanofa. I believe it's like you like me, and I could understand. If I would have lived in Palace, maybe I would have shot the whole embassy, even at the age of ten years. But I was too young, and I think I didn't have the college

or the paper thing. The Nazis had succeeded in turning the country completely against the Jewish people, and they had used Herschel grinche Bond to do it. Americans are and should be indignant at the caramel out break of Jewish persecution in Germany and the drive against Christian faiths as well. It represented our breakup rural intolerance, which has no parallel in modern history except possibly the destruction of religious worship

in Russia by the Boatman. While American leaders condemned the violence at the hands of the Nazis, they feared major engagement. The United States immigration laws at the time strictly barred masses of German and Polish Jews from coming into the country. It seemed as though all American leaders were willing to offer with sympathy. Yeah. Meanwhile, grinch Bond was held in French custody for more than a year, but was eventually turned over to the Nazis directly in While he waited

behind bars. He tried to get a read on what the Nazis planned to do in his trial. Joseph Gebbels was hoping to use the teenager as a perpetual symbol for his quote Jewish problem. A high profile trial could result in dozens of crystal knocks, and that seemed to be exactly what Hitler wanted. The dryer was supposed to start exactly at the time when the first German extermination camps and in Poland where being big. So the trial was intended to justify this extermination of millions of Jews.

So it was very important for the Nazis and for the Nazi proper gun enowl. He was of govins Armid Purer again, the German journalist and historian. Yeah, but Hasher was a very tough and smart guy. I mean he was eight, but he was a very smart guy. He recognized this plan and he destroyed it with a trick. Gritchpan claimed that arms arm Rod was secretly a gay man and the murder was the result of a lover's quarrel. Well, when this news got back to Gebel's and to Hitler,

they blewe refused. That's Joseph Matthews again, the author, even if they could show that this wasn't true factually, just having it raised in international trial that this guy varm Wrath, when they had turned into a hero of Germany, was gay and had a gay relationship with a miner who was a Jew, well, you know, this was incredible, and Herschel actually brought the entire German propaganda machine to a screeching halt following grinch Bond's claim in prison, the Nazis

not wanting their martyr labeled as a homosexual. The Nazis abhorred homosexuality and violently persecuted gay people. Ultimately decided against a trial. Grinchmond was shipped off to a concentration camp where he was summarily executed. At least that's what most people believed for more than seventy years. But in two thousand sixteen, our men furor the German journalists we spoke to, made an amazing discovery. I'll tell you about it after

the break. Ultimately, there are many things we don't know about Herschel grinch Spond. No one can say for certain if the claims about vom Rot and some kind of relationship prior to the assassination were based in fact, or if this was just a fabrication invented to protect the

teenager in court. While most historians believe that Greenspond wasn't gay, some reports at the time of bomb Rod's death do seem to allude to his sexual orientation prior to when grins Bond made his defense, but these have been hired to authenticate. Intriguingly, there's a longstanding mystery as to what happened to grinch Bond once he was sent off to

the camps. For decades, most believed he was another victim, one among the six million murdered by the Nazis, but there were always rumors in the fifties sixties uh that he survived and lifted the Peris or lifted in Edinburgh, but there was never any proof of it. Throughout the post war years, eyewitnesses continue to make claims of Herschel grinch Bonds sightings in France, in Israel, even in Germany. None of these claims were ever substantiated, and eventually, in

nineteen sixty greens Bond was declared legally dead. Popular consensus settled on his likely execution in ninety two at the hands of the s S. The last official confirmation of his existence until almost seventy years later in May sixteen, that was invited to give a lecture an Hashort in Vienna again arm in Fur. And after this lecture a woman approached me. My name was the Stop Polkish, and she was the director of the archive of the Jewish Museum in Vienna, and she was very interested in this

Hashort story. And she had read many books I was thinking more than me. But she saw that they were all bad because most of them didn't work with documents, which is true, and they copied from each other. So she said, the first book that convinced her was my book, because I used thousands of documents and I found, for example, in in Unique, I found four thousand pages of new

documents that were completely unknown until then. And so she asked me what do you can Can you come tomorrow to my office and I said okay, and I went there the next day and she showed me a photo without any comments. I immediately explained, oh my god, this is Harshal, this is hactual Gridge span and she said, yes,

I think too. So this photograph Armed Feurer finds in two thousand sixteen is taken after the war, and it seems to show grin Span demonstrating with other Holocaust survivors against being barred from emigrating to Palestine, which would fit what we know of grinch Bond. The photo, taking in when he would have been twenty four, has been the subject of debate among historians, with some claiming the similarities between the man and the photo and grinch Bond are

too great to ignore and some seeing only a passing resemblance. Purer, though, is completely convinced. I really I don't have any adults that treative, Purer says. The photograph confirms something that took place during a trial in nineteen sixty when vom Rat's family suited. Journalists would accuse the diplomat of being gay. During the trial, and Writtness claimed that Hasherd was alive in one and that he could also appear in the

court room. He also said he saw a photograph, and he described the exact photograph found in the photographs election. At the time of the photos discovery, the Alreadian wrote a face recognition test on the photograph, taken on July three in a camp for displaced persons in Bamberg, Southern Germany returned a nine likelihood, considered the highest possible match. But that being said Joseph Matthews, who has also researched the subject extensively, doesn't put stock in the photo. I

don't make much of it. The idea that Herschel survived the war and never got in touch with his family seems utterly absurd given what we know of how much Herschel was dedicated to his family. And secondly, there was no evidence after about nine two or forty three of Herschel's continued existence, so we don't have any records, and remember the Nazis were meticulous record keepers that he survived.

The picture was taken in a relocation camp in southern Germany, which is a place he was never imprisoned anywhere near there, so the idea that he somehow was relocated there doesn't make any sense. And finally, this matching of the photographs, all they had were newspaper photos from when he was sixteen years old seventeen years old to compare with a grainy photograph of a guy in a relocation camp. This is not like comparing high resolution photography, where facial recognition

has a much higher degree of accuracy. So, you know, for so many reasons, it's just and the story quickly faded. None of the historical serious historians of Herschel's story um took it seriously. When we spoke with armand Furrer, we explained Matthew's point of view. Fur though remained steadfast in

his belief that the photo was indeed of Herschel. Grin spond that that maybe some angry Jews would kill him because some of them, many of them, thought that he was responsible for the whole of course, but of course nonsense. But many many Jews people said so. In other words, Grinchman might have stayed away because he didn't want to endanger his family, or perhaps he did make contact with his family and they kept a secret in order to

protect him. In any case, Matthew's infurior agree on one thing. To be absolutely certain that Herschel survived the war, we

need more evidence, and for for I don't know. If we do not find any other stuff which tell us that hasn't really really survived, we can't say for one, you know, so whether Grinchmond did indeed survive the war or perish in a concentration camp or somewhere else is still unknown, but more importantly, Herschel grinch Bond's place in history will also continue to be a topic of debate.

Some have unfairly placed the blame of the Holocaust squarely on his seventeen year old shoulders, while others believe his actions were justified and that he was a young freedom fighter of the highest degree. The Nazis were always planning an extermination of those they deemed undesirable, and grinch Bond is one of many who stood up to the threat

of the Third Reich. It's simple to make grinch Bond a scapegoade for the evils of the Holocaust, a misguided way to compact a horrendous genocide into a neat, digestible timeline. As Hannah A. Rent once wrote on the conditions of tyranny, it is far easier to act than to think. But I like to think that this young man was instead a desperate hero, acting in the only way he knew how, fighting the enemy he saw so clearly in front of him, and refusing to bend to the whims of racism of fascism.

Jonathan Kirsch is the author of The Short Strange Life of Herschel Grins bond, a boy avenger, a Nazi diplomat, and a murder in Paris. Kersch explained in an interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books that Herschel carried out the first act of armed Jewish resistance against Nazi Germany under remarkable circumstances that really entitle him to be regarded as a hero. And yet he has really been written out of history and his acts of heroism have

been suppressed. Herschel Grinspond's story is a reminder of every individual's place in this world. One day he was living on the fringes of Paris, a cast away from society, with no nation to call home, and the next day he was making headlines that change the course of history.

And then I also try to grapple with some of the larger issue shows, the most uncomfortable and awkward of which is uh with so much emphasis placed on finding evidence of Jewish resistance, of answering the question why did so many Jews seemed to go so passively to their deaths. Why was this young man who didn't go passively, who was willing to fight back, Why was he overlooked in

the history of resistance to the Holocaust. It's fascinating to think of the ripple effects of our actions, both big and small, and how quickly one life can be thrown into the limelight, where their humanity has suddenly taken on a new enormous form. While we may never know what really happened to Herschel Greenspond he etched his name into history, a seventeen year old assassin who took justice into his own hands and became the pond of an international war machine.

If you have questions for us about Good Assassins or any comment on the podcast, we'd love to hear from you. Please email us at Good Assassins at Diversion Audio dot com. Make sure you spell assassins correctly. Again, that's good Assassins at Diversion Audio dot com. We'll try to answer your questions on a future episode. Find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Diversion Pods. Good Assassins is a production

of Diversion Audio in association with I Heart Podcasts. This season is hosted by Stephen Talty and written by Cede Carpenter, Produced and directed by Kevin Thompson for Real Jet Packs Productions. Story editing by Jacob Bronstein, with editorial direction from Scott Waxman. Additional research and reporting by Sophie McNulty. Theme music by Tyler Cash, featuring the voices of Nicola Esquerdo, Raphael Corkill, Lenna Klingerman, Brandon mckinness, John Pirkas, Andrew polk Or, Locassidy

Mono Felciano, Sean Gormley, and Steve Rautman. Sound design, mixing and mastering by Paul Goodrich, Sound editing by Justin Kilpatrick. Executive producers Jacob Bronstein, Mark Francis and Scott Waxman for Diversion Audio Diversion Audio S