Rein­hold Kulle worked as a jan­i­tor at a high school in the famous­ly lib­er­al town of Oak Park, Illi­nois, a well-known sub­urb of Chica­go. In 1982, when Kulle’s retire­ment neared, it was revealed that he had been a mem­ber of the SS and a guard at the con­cen­tra­tion camp Gross-Rosen. He had select­ed inmates for exe­cu­tion and par­tic­i­pat­ed in mass shoot­ings. The rev­e­la­tion shocked the world and caused a tumul­tuous response in a town that was home to many Holo­caust survivors.

Michael Sof­fer, a his­to­ry teacher at the school, cre­at­ed a les­son plan about Kulle. His stu­dents found the top­ic so inter­est­ing that Sof­fer did even more research, delv­ing into archival mate­r­i­al and con­duct­ing inter­views with com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers. The result is this fast-paced, crisply writ­ten book.

Our Nazi rais­es sev­er­al ques­tions about whether it is pos­si­ble to push aside hor­rors that took place decades ago in a for­eign land and under the stress of war. Can a war crim­i­nal remake him­self and become a mod­el, law-abid­ing cit­i­zen? And even if he does, can his neigh­bors — some of whom were sub­ject­ed to tor­ture in the camp in which he was a guard, and oth­ers of whom had fam­i­ly mem­bers who lost their lives because of his involve­ment in exe­cu­tions there — con­tin­ue to live with him in their midst?

Soffer’s book is a pow­er­ful mix of schol­ar­ship and mem­oir; his research is metic­u­lous and his sto­ry­telling mat­ter-of-fact. In order to help us under­stand Kulle, Sof­fer paints a clear pic­ture of his back­ground — his mem­ber­ship in the Hitler Youth, his moves up through the ranks, and his entry into the SS. Sof­fer writes with author­i­ty and grace about how the one­time Nazi dis­cov­ered allies in Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties, even after his evil past was revealed. Kulle’s sin­gle remark about his life as a Nazi was this: ​“My only regret is that Ger­many did not win the war.”

How much empa­thy should Kulle be giv­en? This book will linger for a long time in read­ers’ minds as they try to answer this ques­tion for themselves.