38 Londres Street Audiobook By Philippe Sands cover art

38 Londres Street

On Impunity, Pinochet in England, and a Nazi in Patagonia

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In this intimate legal and historical detective story, the world-renowned lawyer and acclaimed author of East West Street traces the footsteps of two of the twentieth century’s most merciless criminals—accused of genocide and crimes against humanity—testing the limits of immunity and impunity after Nuremberg.

“Though nearly a decade in the making, this book could not arrive at a better time, because its subject is one of the most pressing themes of our era: impunity. . . . Sands has created an indelible and enthralling work of moral witness.” —Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing

On the evening of October 16, 1998, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested at a medical clinic in London. After a brutal, seventeen-year reign marked by assassinations, disappearances, and torture—frequently tied to the infamous detention center at the heart of Santiago, Londres 38—Pinochet was being indicted for international crimes and extradition to Spain, opening the door to criminal charges that would follow him to the grave, in 2006.

Three decades earlier, on the evening of December 3, 1962, SS-Commander Walter Rauff was arrested in his home in Punta Arenas, at the southern tip of Chile. As the overseer of the development and use of gas vans in World War II, he was indicted for the mass murder of tens of thousands of Jews and faced extradition to West Germany.

Would these uncommon criminals be held accountable? Were their stories connected? The Nuremberg Trials—where Rauff’s crimes had first been read into the record, in 1945—opened the door to universal jurisdiction, and Pinochet's case would be the first effort to ensnare a former head of state.

In this unique blend of memoir, courtroom drama, and travelogue, Philippe Sands gives us a front row seat to the Pinochet trial—where he acted as a barrister for Human Rights Watch—and teases out the dictator’s unexpected connection to a leading Nazi who ended up managing a king crab cannery in Patagonia. A decade-long journey exposes the chilling truth behind the lives of two men and their intertwined destinies on 38 Londres Street.

*Includes a downloadable PDF of maps, photographs, and sources from the book Crime Genocide & War Crimes Law Military Politics & Government War & Crisis Holocaust
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A master storyteller recounts in extraordinary but necessary detail the horrific crimes against humanity perpetuated by Pinochet and his henchmen in Chile from and after the coup that overthrew the democratically elected Allende government. Phillipe Sands has written a narrative of events for the ages, events that even 50 years later continue to unfold in Chile with international repercussions. It’s a more timely book than we probably would like to admit.

A towering achievement . . .

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The story is chilling, but its told in a captivating way. And the author is a good reader!

Phillipe Sands is a great storyteller

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