The hidden story of Lothar Hermann, the forgotten hero in the capture of Eichmann in Argentina

Lothar Hermann It was a German of Jewish origin that was born in 1901 and before the Second World War It was held in the Dachau concentration camp. There he was tortured by the Nazis until he losing his eyes. In 1938, he arrived in Buenos Aires, first He lived in Olivos And then almost two decades passed in Coronel Suárez, a town near Bahía Blanca.

In The forgotten hero (South American, 2025) Alejandro Parisi The story of This late man recognized for his fundamental role as a complainant For Israeli commands to specify the kidnapping of Nazi Criminal Adolf Eichmann, refugee in Argentina with false nameswho was prosecuted and sentenced to gallows in the state of Israel in 1962.

In the book Parisi tells how Liliana Hermann, Lothar’s granddaughter’sone of the most ruthless genocides of the twentieth century, the main responsible for implementing the mortal machinery of the concentration camps where they had killed their own relatives.

Thanks to the detailed story of the woman you can now access, through the pages of the novel, the legacy of whom He risked life to face Nazism and seek justice For its millions of victims. Clarín spoke with the author about the details of the writing process.

– How was your link with Liliana Hermann and his work during the investigation to write The forgotten hero?

– I known Liliana a few years ago, when they summoned me to write the script of a documentary based on its history. That was the first time I heard about Lothar Hermann. However, in that first meeting I was moved by Liliana’s own life: how it was that, carried by the need to meet her grandfather and her paternal family, she discovered from a locker in the province of Buenos Aires that her uncle grandfather had been accused of being (Josef) Mengele – Nazi war and criminal of war that also lived in Argentina – when he was really a survivor of the holocaust who occupied a key role in Adolf Eichmann in the country. Finally, that project did not prosper, but within a few months Liliana herself communicated with me to propose to write her story.

“I am not a historian or political scientist; I am a narrator,” says Parisi. “That’s why I proposed to her to write a novelas long as he could count on total freedom to capture the story. ”The author – who already investigated and wrote about the subject in books such as those that make up his Holocaust trilogy, THE GHETTO OF THE EIGHT DOORS (South American, 2009); The girl and her double (South American, 2014) and Leg (South American, 2017) – He then made contact with The information that Hermann’s granddaughter had collected for a decade.

“First it was to know their family roots, his identity, and then so that his uncle grandfather was recognized For all organizations as Eichmann’s first complainant, ”he says, and adds that it was“ a lung work, without further motivations or resources than the need for justice ”.

As for the work modality, he explains that The woman shared with him “the interviews she had made to distin people who had been close to Lothar Hermann During the 60s in Coronel Suárez, as well as the official documents that had made Israel and Argentina decrsioning to be able to assemble the history of their uncle. ”

A lot of these documents, which They were of great importance for the arrest of Eichmanntoday they are coming to light, but the woman, Parisi says, had managed to gather them and keep them from a long time.

“We add dozens of talks to that reading of the archive that Liliana had armed, a large number of meetings that allowed me to know and understand their history and that of her uncle. That process lasted almost a year; only then came the most beautiful stage: write the novel,” he says.

– What were the peculiarities of this story that distinguish it from others from similar themes you already wrote?

– I wrote three novels based on the testimony of three surviving women of the Holocaust who passed through the ghettos and the concentration and extermination fields. But Lothar’s story was completely different, because although he had managed to escape from Europe before the war -unlike his parents, brothers and nephews, who were killed by the Nazis -some Germans had also persecuted him in Argentina. There was something different from the other resilience stories that he had already written: by chance, Lothar had identified Eichmann in Vicente López, and for more fears that he had, life and his family were played so that the executioner had the punishment he deserved. In times when many preferred to shut up and move on, leaving everything in the hands of diplomacy and international politics, Lothar began that the murderer should be judged, however protected he was, and began an almost irration He condemned loneliness.

– What did you surprise you most during the investigation?

– That tenacity with which Lothar insisted that Eichmann had to pay his crimes, and Liliana’s own tenacity to discover his identity first and then return to his uncle grandfather the place he deserved in history.

– Why write about Lothar Hermann at this time?

– Lothar’s life seems to me a good example in these times, where everything is accommodating, where personal convenience and individualism seem to be imposed on the values ​​of humanity and solidarity. And Lothar lost everything for not giving up his notion of justice.

– Who do you think the readers of the book will be?

– I hope the book can be read in all areas. Above all, in schools, so that boys know that no one can steal or deny them identity. For a generational issue, because I was born in 1976, I know that there are still people of my age today who do not know that they were appropriate children for the dictatorship to those who denied their real identity. I can’t stop relating Liliana’s search to that topic. She wanted to know who, how, where her paternal family was, and the first thing she found was a document from the General Archive of the Nation in which it was said that Lothar had been imprisoned accused of being Mengele. What would have happened if Liliana had stopped there? It would be another person. But no: with courage -it is not easy to face family darkness -she kept looking for, and thus discovered that her grandfather uncle was not Nazi, but she had also suffered in Germany concentration camps for being Jewish, and then had been persecuted for denouncing Eichmann. They hinted at the figure of a culprit, when Lothar was really a hero that nobody wanted to recognize.

– What place would you like to occupy the book and what place has for you, among which you have written?

– It is difficult to think about that. Each story I write, either fiction or based on real events, I take it in the same way, so that it can be read as a novel and move readers. Now it is up to them and to say what place occupies The forgotten hero Among the novels I wrote.

• He was born in 1976 in the city of Buenos Aires. Deliveryhis first novel, was originally published in 2002 by Editorial Sudamericana (and an anniversary reissue in 2023) and in 2007 he was translated into Italian by E/O Edizioni.

• Then he published THE GHETTO OF THE EIGHT DOORS (South American, 2009), A gentleman in Purgatory (South American, 2012), The girl and her double (Argentina: South American, 2014; España: Lumen, 2016; Italy: Piemme, 2017), With the blood in the eye (Grijalbo, 2015), His face in time (Argentina: South American, 2016; Spain: Lumen, 2017), Leg 753 (South American, 2017) and The black birds (South American, 2021).

The forgotten heroby Alejandro Parisi (South American).