The Zwi Migdal's Reign of Terror
White Slavery and Jews
Zwi Migdal was an organized-crime group, founded in Poland and based mainly in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that trafficked in Jewish women from Central Europe (mainly from Warsaw, Poland) for sexual slavery and forced prostitution. The organization, whose operators were also Jewish, functioned from the 1860s to 1939. After the First World War, it had four hundred members in Argentina. Its annual turnover was fifty million dollars at the turn of the century.
The Zwi Migdal Organization reached its peak in the 1920s with four-hundred and thirty ruffians, or pimps, controlling two-thousand brothels with four-thousand girls and women in Argentina alone. The organization's success stemmed from the fact that its members were bound by rules that were based on order, discipline, and honesty. The network was well organized and members cooperated closely to protect their interests.
The organization lured girls and young women from Europe in several ways. For instance, a well-mannered and elegant-looking man would appear in a poor Jewish village in Poland. He would advertise his search for young women to work in the homes of wealthy Jews in Argentina by posting an ad in the local synagogue. Fearful of pogroms and often in desperate economic circumstances, the parents would send their daughters away with these men, hoping to give them a fresh start. Another popular ruse was to find pretty girls and marry them, usually in a ceremony known as a stille chuppah, a Yiddish expression, meaning a quick wedding ceremony. The girls bade their families farewell and boarded ships to Argentina, believing that they were on their way toward a better future. The rape of the girls and abuse as sex slaves often started on the ship. Some of them were married off to local men so that they could obtain entry visas. Prostitutes who failed to satisfy their clients were beaten, fined or sent to work in rural houses. Every business transaction was logged. The ruffians held a meat market where newly arrived girls were paraded naked in front of traders in places such as Hotel Palestina. These activities went on undisturbed because government officials, judges and journalists frequented the brothels. City officials, politicians and police officers were bribed. The pimps had powerful connections everywhere. The largest brothels were in Buenos Aires, in the Jewish quarter on Junin Street.
Source – Wikipedia
Sadie's Sin
The Zwi Migdal's Reign of Terror
Neil Perry Gordon
​Sadie Wollman, a young Jewess in 1924 Warsaw, Poland, has fallen in love with the handsome university professor—Alexander Kaminski. But when her traditional parents learn about this possible unholy matrimony to a gentile, they hastily arrange a brokered marriage to a wealthy Argentine Jewish business man—Ezra Porkevitch.Â
Believing they sent their daughter off to a glamorous life of wealth and luxury, this young woman instead faces a new reality of becoming a Polaca, a sex slave to the Zwi Migdal, a Jewish organized-crime group trafficking young women into forced prostitution throughout brothels in Buenos Aires.Â
When her lover Alex, a war hero of Poland, learns of the deception, he, along with his life-long friend Jan Mazur, seek to rescue Sadie from the grips of this wicked group of men protected by the Argentine political and law enforcement establishment.Â
Sadie’s Sin is an epic-romantic tale of an innocent woman's torment as she is sold to the city's most prestigious brothel—The Tango, and the hero's journey across three continents, seeking her rescue.Â
From Warsaw to Buenos Aires Gordon takes us on an exhilarating journey that reflects the best and worst in human nature. A high octane romantic thriller where love, honour and organized crime come crashing together to deliver an intelligent and instantly engaging read.
​Masterfully maintaining an ever-present balance between tension and suspense Gordon shuns excessive detail in favor of crisp prose, authentic dialogue and powerful social commentary. Imbuing his characters with a real sense of presence as he confidently weaves multiple plot threads without the need to revert to genre tropes.
​Gordon certainly has a knack for creating characters with real gravitas. He clearly demonstrates this in his previous novels The Bomb Squad and Hope City and once again in Sadie’s Sin. Alex and Sadie are highly memorable and well-conceived. But Gordon still allows them room for growth as events evolve and it makes for superb fictional dynamics.Â
​Authentically capturing a bygone era in which women were viewed as the prizes in a male game Sadie’s Sin is a showdown between its style and story. Combining Gordon’s slick, high-tension writing with the values and sexual stereotyping of yesterday whilst reminding us of loves sometimes harrowing consequences in times past.
​A compelling and persuasive read that explores the foundations of unconditional love, the dictates of faith and the ever resounding echo of hope, Gordon has delivered a gem of a page-turner that is recommended without reservation.
