Yaron Svoray

Who is Yaron Svoray?

Yaron Svoray is an Israeli author and investigative journalist whose six-month infiltration of Germany’s neo-Nazi groups was documented in his book In Hitler’s Shadow, co-written with Nick Taylor.

Svoray's father, Yehuda Sobersky, was born in Germany, and moved to Mandate Palestine with his family in 1938. His mother, Rachel Stern, was born in Egypt and moved with her family to Romania when she was a child. Most of her relatives were killed in the Holocaust, and she fled to Mandate Palestine with some of her family in 1943. Svoray was born in Israel, and was conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces. He did his military service in the Paratroopers Brigade, and later worked as a detective in the Israeli Central Police Command.

In the early 1990s, he spent six months in Germany masquerading as a neo-Nazi and infiltrating neo-Nazi groups. Svoray's investigation brought him into contact with key neo-Nazi leaders, and his book revealed a surprisingly large network of seemingly normal middle-class citizens who subscribe to the Nazi platform of racial hatred and superiority, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. In addition Svoray discovered several instances of police collaboration with the extremists. Furthermore, there was evidence that the German groups had managed to forge links with similar groups in South America and the United States.