The Wiesenthal Center announced today that it had submitted an official request to the Polish judicial authorities to expedite the investigation of a suspected Holocaust murderer who was recently discovered alive in Poland by the grandson and nephew of his victims. The case in question is that of Jozef Radczuk, currently living in the village of Przegaliny near the town of Komarowka in the vicinity of Lublin, who is suspected of participating in the murder of Gitel Lerner (then 45 years old), five of her children (ages 13 to 22 – two daughters and three sons) and two additional Jews on the night of October 30, 1943. Radczuk and his accomplices apparently carried out the murder in order to rob their victims who were hiding from the Nazis in the village. The crime was exposed by Israeli businessman Ronny Lerner, who is the grandson of Gitel and the nephew of her murdered children, and discovered Radczuk’s current whereabouts in the course of research on the life of his father Yosef who survived the war in Warsaw posing as a non-Jew.
In a letter sent yesterday by the Center’s chief Nazi-hunter , Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, to Dr. Janusz Kurtyka, president of the Polish Institute of National Memory, which is responsible for the prosecution of Holocaust crimes, Zuroff stressed the need to expedite the Radczuk investigation. In his words:
“Having carefully read the testimonies of Mr. Lerner and a summary of Mr. Radczuk’s admissions on film, I believe that it is abundantly clear that this case is undoubtedly worthy of a comprehensive investigation. I would add, moreover, that given the age of the suspect, it is imperative to expedite the efforts to fully clarify the culpability of Jozef Radczuk with a view toward his possible prosecution and punishment as quickly as possible.”
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