Wiesenthal Center Launches “Operation: Last Chance” Ad Campaign Tomorrow in Austria

The Simon Wiesenthal Center and Targum Shlishi Foundation today announced that their ad campaign in Austria for “Operation: Last Chance,” which offers financial rewards for information which facilitates the conviction and punishment of Nazi war criminals, will be launched tomorrow in the mass circulation daily Kronen Zeitung.

In a statement issued today in Jerusalem by the Center’s chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center noted that the ad campaign was the critical stage of “Operation: Last Chance” which would afford all those with pertinent information an opportunity to come forward and tell the truth in order to assist in bringing those guilty of the crimes of the Holocaust to justice. “In that respect, this is really the last chance for Austria, which has not convicted a Nazi war criminal in more than a quarter of a century, to finally take legal action against Austrian Nazi murderers while justice can still be achieved,” said Zuroff.

“Operation: Last Chance” was initially launched by the Center and the Targum Shlishi Foundation of Miami, Florida founded and directed by Aryeh Rubin, in July 2002, in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Among its features were ad campaigns in the media, which stressed the role played by local Nazi collaborators in the Holocaust.

To date, the Center has received the names of 253 suspected Nazi war criminals from the Baltics and the Ukraine, 67 of which have already been submitted to local prosecutors in Lithuania, Latvia, the United States and Canada. At present, at least eight murder investigations against more than three dozen suspects are currently being conducted in the wake of “Operation: Last Chance.”

In September 2003, “Operation: Last Chance” was expanded to Poland, Romania, and Austria. Similar ad campaigns will be launched during the coming weeks in Poland and Romania

For more information call: +972-51-721-4156.

Leave a Reply