O veredito de papel : o livro Inferno em Sobibor e a responsabilização de fugitivos nazistas no Brasil (1968-1979)

Abstract

This thesis investigates the circulation of the work Inferno em Sobibor (1968–1979), by Stanislaw Szmajzner, analyzing it as a central apparatus in the process of criminal accountability of Nazi fugitives in Brazil. The research problem lies in the transformations of this memorialistic account: from a survival narrative to a book used as a piece of accusation in newspapers and legal proceedings. The purpose of the study is to understand how Szmajzner's memory was transformed into a book and, through an editorial project, established itself as an instrument of justice that broke the silence surrounding the presence of war criminals on Brazilian soil. The methodology is based on the analysis of the editorial paratexts of the 1968 and 1979 editions, as well as the investigation of the work's circulation in newspapers and magazines (Jornal do Brasil and Manchete). The findings reveal that the success of Inferno em Sobibor was not merely literary, but the result of a symbiosis between the testimony and the media machine of the Bloch Group, which projected Szmajzner as the "witness who proves." The research highlights Szmajzner's centrality in the extradition process and the subsequent strategic use of his work in the trial of Franz Stangl, as well as in the public unmasking of Gustav Wagner. It concludes that the text integrates the inaugural movement of literature by Jewish survivors of World War II in Brazil, converting traumatic memory into an active instrument to combat impunity and a necessary ethical alert in the face of the recurrence of racial hatred in contemporary times.