Charlotte author Jack Fairweather has won a National Jewish Book Award for his 2025 release, The Prosecutor: One Man’s Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice. The biography recounts the courageous life of Fritz Bauer, a gay Jewish judge and prosecutor in post-World War II Germany who put on trial everyday German citizens who were complicit in the Holocaust.
The 75th National Jewish Book Awards, announced Wednesday by the Jewish Book Council, are given to English-language books of Jewish interest that were published in 2025 and represent the best of Jewish literature and authors. It is the longest-running North American awards program for Jewish literature.
As Fairweather explores in The Prosecutor, Bauer’s biggest achievement was facilitating the capture of Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Final Solution to exterminate Europe’s Jews. Bauer helped the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, apprehend Eichmann in Argentina and eventually put him on trial.
Drawing from previously unpublished personal letters, newly declassified German files, and firsthand interviews with family members and descendants, Fairweather traces Bauer’s life from his early days as a young jurist and activist to his escape from Germany to his prosecutions of Nazis in the 1960s. Those public trials helped redefine Germany’s attitudes about its collective responsibility for the Holocaust, ultimately leading to the German law that makes Holocaust denial a crime in that country.
“This year’s National Jewish Book Award winners showcase the remarkable depth of Jewish literary tradition and the vibrancy of contemporary Jewish voices shaping our world today,” Elisa Spungen Bildner, president of Jewish Book Council, said in a press statement. “These winning authors weave together past and future, reminding us that Jewish storytelling remains a vital source of imagination, courage, and connection.”
Fairweather, 47, is a Wales-born journalist and former war correspondent in the Middle East. He previously penned The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Infiltrated Auschwitz, which won a 2019 Costa Book Award and is expected to be made into a limited television series. Fairweather chanced upon Bauer’s story while researching The Volunteer.
Jonah Platt, the award-winning podcaster and entertainer, will host the 75th National Jewish Book Awards Gala to celebrate the winners on Wednesday, March 25, in New York City.
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