The boys from Brazil door Ira Levin

The story 1.1 Dr. Mengele and his SS buddies are having a meeting in a Chinese restaurant in Sao Paulo. They are talking about a plan of killing ninety-four men in several countries. These men are all sixty-five years old civil servants. They don’t know that a young American, Barry Koehler, has bribed a waitress and is now taping them. When they find out they go after him to kill him. It’s already to late, because Barry already told a part of his story to Yakov Liebermann, a nazi hunter. Liebermann doesn’t know exactly what to do with this story. Therefore he asks Sydney Beynan, a journalist, to help him. He has to send Liebermann newsreparts about deaths of sixty-five year old men. Meanwhile the murders have started. When Liebermann is holding a lecture at Heidelbergs University, he tries to use the students to solve his problem. So he asks the students the answer to a ‘hypothetical’ problem. They also don’t know the answer, but they give him a lot of useful suggestions. The killings are proceeding by schedule, but the Kameradenwerk (a nazi organisation) finds out Liebermann knows something. They’re not happy, but Mengele wants to proceed (it’s his life work). Liebermann is still guessing why those men are being killed. Now he gets help from Klaus von Palmen. A student from Heidelberg who was at the lecture. Liebermann now visits the widdow and son of the murdered Mr. Döring. He doesn’t discovers anything useful there, at this moment. Mengele now wants to kill Liebermann (even more than ever), because Liebermann is disturbing his work. Liebermann and Klaus continue the investigation. When Liebermann is in the U.S. he also visits the widow of Mr. Curry. There he sees they’re son is a sort of duplicate of Dörings son. Now he starts to see a connection. Also because Mengele always had a big interest in twins. He contacts Klaus and finds out there are more connections. All the men had a younger woman, around fourty years old. All had a son from about thirteen or fourteen. And all the boys look exactly the same. Liebermann also discovers all the boys were adopted and that Frieda Maloney, a nazi, was involved with it. Liebermann is now going to talk to Frieda Maloney in the prison she’s in. He finds out that Frieda worked for Mengele and arranged the adoptions in the early sixties. He also discovers the next victim in the U.S. will be Mr. Wheelock. Now Liebermann is determined to get the killer at this occasion. Mengele is furious. He finds out that some top Nazis have terminated his plan, because it is too dangerous. Therefore Mengel goes away to finish his plan and Liebermann. Therefore he pretends to be Barry Koehlers dad and finds out that Liebermann has planned to go to Washington. Klaus and Liebermann are going to talk to a biology professor. Liebermann is told that the boys are all clones. First they think mengele cloned himself. Soon they discover that the boys are clones of Hitler. Hitler also had a father who was a civil servant who died at the age of sixty-five. Liebermann immediately goes to New York, to the Young Jewish Defenders. That’s a militant organisation led by Rabbi Moshe Gorin. Mengele quickly discovers Liebermann went to N.Y and is going to talk to Mr. Wheelock. Mengele quickly goes to Wheelock, impersonates Liebermann and kills Wheelock. When Wheelock arrives at Wheelocks home he doesn’t know Wheelock is dead and Megele is there, Mengele now impersonates Wheelock. Slowly Liebermann realises ‘Wheelock’ isn’t Wheelock. When he discovers it’s Mengele it’s already too late. Mengle has pulled his gun and tells Liebermann exactly what is going on and how he managed to clone Hitler. Then Mengele shoots Liebermann. But Liebermann manages to set free Wheelocks guard dogs. The dogs let Mengele drop his gun and they guard him. Then Wheelocks son arrives. Mengele tries to convince him to let him go, but the boy chooses to believe Liebermann. He unleashes the dogs to Mengele, and so Mengele is dead. Liebermann asks the boy to give him the list of names from Mengeles cote. Then some members of the Young Jewish Defenders arrive. Liebermann is brought to the hospital where he recovers. When Liebermann is released from the hospital he goes to talk with the YJD and Gorin. Gorin wants to kill al the boys. Liebermann thinks that will make them just as bad as the nazis, so Liebermann quickly flushes the list of names through the toilet. At the end we see one the boys who is painting. The boy likes it that his dead is death. He is painting himself inside a big stadium and everybody is cheering to him. It’s a bit like those old Hitler movies. He likes it… Backgrounds 1.2 The author: Ira Levin (American) was born in New York . His first novel, the crime story "A kiss before dying" (1952) was an big success. It was followed by "Rosemary's Baby" (1964), a hair-raising fictitious account of modern deviltry and witchcraft. It was made into a film starring Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes. Levin's third novel "This Perfect Day" (1967) is a futuristic anti-utopia set in a computercontrolled world. "The Stephord Wives" (1972) was another popular success. "The Boys from Brazil" has also found a wide reading public.
Main characters: Yakov Liebermann (main character) Liebermann is exactly the opposite of the classic hero. He is an old man. He isn’t strong anymore(physically). He needs a lot of help. His glory days have long passed away. But he keeps on chasing his goal: make the world safer and remove all remaining Nazis. Dr. Mengele
Mengele is a nazi, and he got help from Hitler to clone him into little boys and now he's trying to give the boys the same situation as Hitler had. The fathers of the boys have to be killed at the age of sixty-five, because Hitler's dad died at that age too. Mengele is also very cold, he doesn’t know the word mercy. He also wants to realise his dream: let the third Reich live again. Other characters
Barry Koehler
Barry is an enthusiastic young man who wants to work for Liebermann. He is also naive. He thinks he can finish of Mengele and the remainings of the SS. Therefore he has to pay with his life. Klaus von Palmen
Klaus is a clever student who wants to help Liebermann. That help is a sort of debt, because his parents were Nazis during the war. This boy is very clever and not so naive as Barry. You could say he is the opposite of Barry. Rabbi Gorin
Gorin is the opposite of Liebermann. Gorin is in his glory days, he has a lot of support and a lot of successes. Gorin also wants to use extreme violence to solve the problem, while Liebermann doesn’t like that. Theme Should we use violence when it seems to guarantee a quick removal of the dangers threatening society. This theme is represented by the militant organization and by Liebermann. Should they kill the little Hitters or shouldn't they. Liebermann doesn't want to kill them because he doesn't want to become a child-killer like Mengele but the members of the organisation insist on killing the little Hitters to protect the world.