Jerusalem - Half a century after the Adolf Eichmann trial, one man who has made it his life's work to bring Nazi war criminals to justice says his mission is still not accomplished.

Efraim Zuroff, 62, the Israel director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, says that as long as the murderers continue to live among us, he owes it to the victims to go on.

His book, Operation Last Chance: One Man's Quest to Bring Nazi Criminals to Justice, was published in paperback last month.

Before Eichmann, the senior SS officer who played a central role in carrying out the 'final solution,' transporting millions of Jews to eastern European death camps, was put on trial, 'the prosecution of Nazi war criminals had more or less come to a halt.'

'There's no question,' says the Nazi hunter, that the 1961 trial in Israel gave new impetus.

But has enough been done since?

'There's a very big discrepancy between the activities and the efforts being made in different countries,' says Zuroff.

Germany should arguably bear the biggest responsibility ensuring justice be done.

'This past year, Germany for the first time ever, received the highest grade,' said Zuroff, referring to the Wiesenthal Center's Annual Status Report, which sums up work and grades relevant countries for their efforts to prosecution.

During the year under review, Germany produced two convictions of Nazi war criminals, three indictments, and new investigations against more than one hundred suspects, the result of a 'significant' change in German prosecution policy.

'So on the one hand, certain German prosecutors are doing really excellent work and deserve all the credit,' says Zuroff.

'On the other hand, there are cases, which are simply incomprehensible.'

He mentions those of Dutch Nazi Klaas Faber, an SS officer who executed prisoners at the Westerbork concentration camp, as well as members of the Dutch resistance and those who hid Jews, and of the Danish Nazi Soern Kam, whom Denmark wants extradited for the murder of a Copenhagen newspaper editor during World War II.

Faber and Kam, now both 89, received German passports in the 1950s under a Nazi-era law that granted citizenship to foreign collaborators. They live in the German state of Bavaria despite the extradition requests, amid debates about their involvement, evidence and statutes of limitations.

Zuroff says 'there is no sense of morality' in that such persons 'should be protected by the German authorities and spared punishment.'

'It's ridiculous. It's outrageous. I can't even begin to express my sense of frustration with these cases.'

That Austria, despite its large potential for prosecution, has the worst record, us 'terrible' and a 'disaster,' says outspoken campaigner.

But he also points a finger at eastern European states, not least the Ukraine, 'which never even investigated a single Nazi war criminal since it became independent,' the Baltics, and South America, which has seen only six extraditions.

Did the Eichmann trial send a signal to the guilty that no matter where they were, they too could one day face justice?

'In a sense it sent that signal,' says Zuroff. The reality however is that only a small number of ex-Nazis were exposed in South America in its aftermath.

But it was also a question of who did the searching.

'It is not clear how much Israel invested in the search for Nazis. Israel had some other very pressing issues to deal with, like its existence,' he says. The onus, he believes, should be on the countries of the perpetrators.

Is the hunt for Nazis as relevant today as it once was?

Zuroff calls it 'misplaced sympathy' to think that some of those who are getting old should be left alone.

'I've never heard a case of a Nazi criminal expressing regret.'

The stature and ranks of those who can still be caught are lower than those who could have been brought to justice, therefore 'it can't be as relevant as it was.'

On the other hand, that efforts are still being made so many years after the war, 'sends a very powerful message.'

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