‘Meet the Writer: Philippe Sands’

As a human rights lawyer, Philippe Sands defended some of the biggest cases at the International Court of Justice. By his own account, the cases of Augusto Pinochet and Saddam Hussein were the only ones he ever turned down. As a writer, Sands likes to get into the heads of Nazi leaders. The sequel to his multi-award winning East West Street, The Ratline, was recently released. At Bozar, he will be presenting his latest book and accompanying podcast. This time, Sands delves into Otto Wächter, the Austrian deputy to Hans Frank, who in turn was chief counsel of Nazi Germany. As governor of Galicia – then a Polish district – Wächter oversaw the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews and Poles. When Germany surrendered, he fled the country, eventually dying in Rome in 1949. Just as in the courtroom, Sands lets the facts speak for themselves and portrays Wächter as a human being, not a monster.

Sands will be interviewed by journalist Béatrice Delvaux from Le Soir.