Nothing is Too Late: The Hunt for a Holocaust Swindler

Nothing Is Too Late tells the true story of the mysterious and treacherous Lucian Kozminski, a survivor of four Nazi death camps and an alleged SS collaborator, who embarked on a scheme to steal huge sums of money that the postwar German government had set aside as restitution for Holocaust survivors. After the war, Kozminski escaped fraud charges in Germany, emigrated to the United States, and established a phony business as a counselor to aid applicants to the German fund. Doggedly pursued by then–Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Kalmansohn and U.S. Postal Inspector Lou Kinzler, Kozminski was accused of bilking more than $1 million dollars from some 3,000 Holocaust survivors worldwide and was convicted of mail and bankruptcy fraud. In 1982, an unrepentant Kozminski was sentenced to a jail term that should have kept him behind bars for most of his remaining years. Just a few years into Kozminski’s sentence, however, Kalmansohn discovered that Kozminski may have duped even the corrections system. Government records purported to show him "incarcerated" at the same time he was seen walking the streets. Then Kalmansohn heard reports of Kozminski’s death but found compelling evidence that Kozminski had faked his own death and might still be alive. Kalmansohn asks, Why does Kozminski’s death certificate bear another’s Social Security number? Why did his ex-wife say he was buried, while his death certificate declares cremation? Why is he absent from the crematorium’s records? Why were Social Security payments deposited in his bank account for years after his supposed death? Why have multiple witnesses reported seeing Kozminski long after his official date of death? These and many other haunting questions will keep the reader turning the pages of this stirring account.