For those who believe that the Nazi atrocities and the rise of Hitler are impossible in our time, "In Hitler's Shadow" summons a monumental wake-up call. The book follows the true story of Yaron Svoray, a former paratrooper in the Israeli Defense Force and detective in Israel's Central Police Command.

While on a personal hunt for hidden World War II treasure in Germany in September 1992, he stumbles across a neo-Nazi contact who introduces him to an old SS officer who served at Buchenwald concentration camp. Returning home, Svoray decides to go uncover as a journalist and explore the German underground of National Socialism. What he found will profoundly disturb you, and Svoray has taped conversations and pictures to back up his story. Posing as a right-wing journalist from America, Svoray infiltrates the darkest depths of the modern Nazi Party, proving that the Nazis never went away, they simply moved underground. Along the way, he befriends a number of committed Nazis, some of them members of the European Parliament, some of them office holders in city governments, and all of them with their eyes on the Reichstag and the Chancellorship of Germany.

This book will mesmerize you because it reads like a spy-thriller, yet it's a true story with no names changed! All those who cherish freedom and loathe bigotry and racism need to read this book. It will remind us all of the personal role we must play in making sure that the horrors of the Holocaust are "never again"...

Britt Gillette
Author of "Conquest of Paradise: An End-Times Nano-Thriller"

When I was a senior in college, I had the distinct pleasure of attending one of Svoray's lectures and meeting him afterwards. As soon as I could get my hands on it, I bought a copy of "In Hitler's Shadow." Whether or not you have seen the HBO film, "The Infiltrator," which is based on this book, you should buy the book. Those who have not seen it will benefit from learning about this brave Israeli's heroic infiltration of Germany's growing neo-Nazi movement, and their apathetic response to what Svoray uncovered. Those who have seen the movie were not done justice--the book is far better. Learn just how scary the neo-Nazi movement is, how it has begun its rise once again, and how far reaching it is in society.

The author of the book, a Jew and former Israeli paratrooper, took the unbelievable plunge into the world of German neo-Nazism. Far from being dead after the collapse of the Third Reich, Nazism is still alive in the fatherland and is yearning for a come-back. This book chronicles the unbelievable journey Svoray took into the heart of the modern Nazi movement. Yaron Svoray deserves a medal for bravery because of the extremely dangerous assignment he undertook. Because of his courage, the world has been given an urgent warning about the viper that sits curled under its table.

Blood from a stone is an amazing story that, gives the reader great insight to the mindset of our American fighting soldier during World War II as well as the inner workings of the children and secret workers of the holocaust. There is no doubt that this part of the novel leaves a lingering effect on the reader. The novel provides a large amount of history behind the diamond trade spanning from India to Africa and a fairly good account of the death camps throughout the Third Reich's empire. Bar none the most well written part of the book is Sam Nyer's recollections of his experiences throughout the war, to include, finding the diamonds with his partner Tommy Delion and hiding them. After this, the book becomes a billboard.

A critical reader will notice that the two major diversions from the story read more like an advertisement for Svoray's two other books, than an absolute nessisity(?)to the featured story I found myself under the intense urge to skip ahead--but i didn't, for fear of missing something. The novel reads more like an autobiography of Yaron Svoray than an all-out, hollywoodesque treasure hunt at times, and it borders on killing the readers interest, but the story does prevail.

I bought this book immediatley after watching the special on the History Channel and am very pleased that i did. It is truly the treasure hunt of the 20th century.

This book is really good and interesting.The first time i read the back i was hooked.I had to know what happened.I also loved the documentary of it on the History channel.Get this book it is worth your time!!

This is not a serious expose of the Neo-Nazi movement in Germany, it's simply a play by play of Savoray's adventures within the movement, and it doesn't even do that very well.
It's easy reading, I'll give it that, in fact it reads like a dime store spy novel. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, and maybe it's even based on real events, although the word for word exchanges stretch credibility pretty far. Those looking for mind candy should consider it, but those looking to learn about the actions and motivations of Neo Nazi's should look elsewhere.

Svoray's book has an interesting concept of an Israeli man taking up the challenge and going into the midst of the Neo-Nazism movement in Germany, putting his life in danger. However, his book does not really have much depth. It is more descriptive than anything else, and doesn't explore what is more importannt -- the reason why Nazism has been able to flourish even after the horrors of the Holocaust have been revealed. The characters he meets are also unreal, there's the extreme of the totally anti-Nazi students, and the other extreme, the right-wing haters of diversity and anything un-German. After awhile, everyone you encounter in the book -- even the people in Yad Vashem -- come off as character types, rather than real people. Svoray also comes across as self-congratulatory, like, WOW, I HAVE DONE SUCH A BIG THING, I SHOULD BE HAILED AS A HERO. If revealing Neo-Nazism and its pervasiveness in present Germany is his purpose, then perhaps he should cut the posturing. An OK book for superficial facts, but other books would have to be consulted on deeper significance behind the German psyche, the sense of dislocation after reunitfication (some say annexation) and the success of the Neo-Nazi movement.

Svoray's and Taylor's account of the former's investigation in reunified Germany is fast-paced and at points breathtaking, shocking. Svoray certainly uncovers some interesting and repulsive goings-on in the neo-Nazi milieu, and puts himself in considerable danger to do it. The book often seems almost like a movie, with Svoray as the lead.

In fact, not far into the book, the reader may get the impression that, just as in a movie, reality often yields to fiction. Is it plausible, for example, that the head of a trans-Europe smuggling operation would drive alone for five hours through Switzerland and southern Germany to present--personally--an exotic and illegal collection of recording devices and firearms to a complete stranger...all this for a few hundred dollars, and with no prior assurances as to the identity of the buyer? But this is just the beginning of a long row of incomprehensibly stupid acts of blind trust by various Europeans who should have a lot to hide.

Even if much of the cloak-and-dagger stuff is made up, the results of Svoray's investigation ring true: he finds a divided but potentially dangerous neo-Nazi movement in Germany with numbers greater than the German government would like to admit. It is the responsibility of German government and society to stop these fascists, and until they do, watchdog organizations from outside must remain ever vigilant.

However, Svoray goes too far in his criticism of "ordinary Germans." While some Germans may indeed have greater affinity to the far-right's positions than they let on, there are in fact more than a few German people who despise their country's past and who eschew the ideology of Nazism in all its forms, past and present. I cannot think of a single German who is portrayed positively in Svoray's book, though. It goes without saying that the neo-Nazis should be portrayed as they are: vile, ignorant, and repulsive. But no one gets good marks. A student named Stefan, an anti-fascist, serves as Svoray's translator for a while. When the two attend a neo-Nazi celebration, Svoray describes Stefan as unwilling to leave; the insinuation being that Stefan has begun to enjoy the company and ideas of Nazis after just a few hours among them. Towards the end of the book, Svoray and several other Americans have a meeting with the German authorities. The Americans are seated facing a window, squinting and blinking in the bright light...as if the Germans had intentionally reproduced a Gestapo interrogation scene. In short, Germany comes across as a hell-hole populated by people who are usually rude and always Nazi, covertly or overtly.

Svoray and Taylor present us with an interesting book. One only wishes they had aimed for a bit more objectivity.

That "Gods of Death" [is] a sensationalist puff-piece written like a very slow spy novel.
There is a lot of speculation over the validity of snuff films and while there's certainly a possibility that they do exist Mr. Svoray doesn't present a very compelling argument. The one thing he NEVER acheives is to convince us of a worldwide underground for this stuff. More to the point, he actually acheives the opposite with his bumbling investigation, which is convince the reader that snuff films are not so much an industry unto themselves but rather an isolated occurance.
Throughout his investigation he askes the reader to accept a lot without giving us any real incentive. The "I know it doesn't look like much but you'll just have to trust me" method is the main device that is employed throughout this book.
While you certainly won't find any meaty informative value in this book one might be so inclined as to read it just for morbid curiousity, especially in the light of recent movies like "8mm", and I can tell you in all seriousness that it falls flat in that avenue as well. "Gods of Death" [is] more or less like a pulp spy novel. The only problem is that it is too dreadfully paced and full of macho bravado to even entice the most desperate spy novel geek. And as it pertains to its main character, Mr. Svoray, he tries to put himself over but instead comes across like an irredeemable [idiot].
While I'm certain that some reviewers are of the skeptic camp I'm also sure that there were a great many more that were like myself who went into it with a "show me" attitude. I was willing to accept a possible theory as long as there was sufficient evidence to back it up. Needless to say, there wasn't. As it seems "Gods of Death" makes its entire case on hearsay.
If you are waiting for an intelligent and believable look into the world of snuff pornography I suspect you'll have to wait a while longer. If it's just perverse entertainment you're into then rent "8mm". It's more enjoyable and ultimately more realistic than Yaron Svoray would have you believe.

Israeli Yaron Svoray, the man who exposed Nazis in "In Hitler's Shadow," this time searches for "snuff" films, filmed records of actual murders. Though there is an aspect of journalism here, the book reads more like a spy novel, albeit not an especially well-written one. Because of the thriller-esque nature of the book, saying whether Svoray actually finds a snuff film would, in a sense, give away the ending, and I will not indicate whether he is ultimately successful.

What I will say, however, is that the existence of actual snuff films has been a topic of much speculation. Many view such films as "urban myths," stories that many believe are true but are not. Others, particularly anti-pornography feminists such as Catharine MacKinnon (who is mentioned in the book), seem to have an abiding faith that such films really do exist. The existence of actual snuff films would do much to support the sex-violence link of pornography and to support the arguments of many feminists. But the issue is not of concern merely to feminists; certainly any rational person should be disgusted if snuff films do exist.

"Gods of Death" is Svoray's search for such a film, and it is a search that nearly costs his life and finances. Svoray recounts accurately (one presumes) the many dead ends and false leads he encountered, and therein lies part of the problem with the book. From the very first word of the book, there is one overriding question: Did he find an actual snuff film? The answer can be summarized in a single word (either yes or no), but the answer is a long way off. The book, therefore, reads like a frustrating tease. No doubt Svoray felt that way himself throughout the process, but it bears mention to note that part of the art of journalism is sifting out the extraneous details. The story, therefore, becomes less about the existence of such films and more about an obsessive search for them.

One thing that the book does make clear is that if such films exist, they are indeed very hard to find. To this extent, Svoray at least implicitly discounts much of the urban myth in that the extraordinary lengths to which he went indicate that the average person would not be able to find an actual snuff film.

Admittedly reads more like a potboiler thriller at times, and I strongly suspect it was written with the big screen in mind - understandable, since much of the book is comprised of the author's financial concerns & what his obsession with finding out the truth behind snuff films drives him to do and spend, both monetarily and emotionally.

When his investigation came to end, the author had a problem (another reviewer already gives away the ending, so I don't think I'm divulging any secrets): he hadn't managed to come up with the goods - he'd finally gotten his hands on a tape, but it was stolen from him while he was detained in a Serbian police station. So what do you do? His answer is to make a book out of the subjective experience of hunting down the truth - what he goes through, how it affects his family life, his psychological state, the potentially life-threatening situations he encounters, the characters he meets & how he gets on with them. This makes some sense, because the reader wants to understand the mental and moral state of people who could actually make, enjoy, or be in any way involved with these films, as well as what effects such images have on 'normal' people - as Svoray says, once you've seen them, there's no going back. Unfortunately Svoray doesn't have the psychological insight to make much of this (a much better example of real insight into monstrosity and evil is Christopher Browning's "Ordinary Men," which looks at a single battallion in Poland as a case study to understand how so many people could have committed the Holocaust) - great credit to him for his investigative skills, but his constant efforts at casting himself as moral judge disallow him from genuine understanding, and his portraits come straight from stock characters from standard thrillers. This problem potentially undermines the book's veracity, but one can also argue that he merely understands these people on the same terms borrowed from Hollywood, or that his co-writer (a screenwriter) compressed his character portraits to make for a fast read.

The book is a very quick read and compelling at times, and the reader must admire the author's bravado. So, in the end, does his claim to have seen real snuff films stand up? What proof does he offer? Here's something: he claims to have set up a viewing for the actor Robert De Niro and a friend of De Niro's; he recounts a conversation between the two men in which they say they believed the film was real; and De Niro's press agent has confirmed the viewing. So, while Svoray couldn't come up with any hard evidence, the De Niro story is pretty convincing that such films do in fact exist, and that there is indeed pure evil (in Svoray's terms) in the world.