She looks like someone’s harmless grandmother waiting for
the man to come to read the meter or repair the boiler.
But this little old lady is one with a dark past and a
unique claim to infamy.
For Frau Erna Wallisch, 85, ranks number seven on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s
list of Nazi war criminals still at large.
Tracked down by British historian and author Guy Walters for his book 'Hunting
Evil', about the escape and pursuit of Nazi war criminals,
she lives in a small apartment on the bank of the Danube
in Vienna. Incredibly, her surname is printed on the bell-push
for her apartment.
When found by Mr Walters last
Friday, Wallisch refused to comment on his investigation
into her past as a brutal concentration camp guard.
Other residents in her apartment
block said they knew nothing about her history, and most
told Mr Walters that they supported the Austrian government’s
decision not to prosecute her.
"It’s all in the past
and should be forgotten," said Frau Durchhalter, one of Wallisch’s neighbours. "People should learn to forgive."
"I do not find this
attitude surprising," said Mr Walters. "For too long, the Austrians have been unacceptably lenient with these evil men
and women in their midst. I suspect their reluctance to
confront these criminals is because it would only highlight
the extent of Austrian complicity with Nazism."
Rarely leaving her home, Wallisch
is cared for by her family who bring her groceries and
sit drinking coffee and making small talk with their elderly
relative.
Born Erna Pfannenstiel, the daughter of a postal clerk in eastern Germany in
1922, Wallisch joined the Nazi party when she was still
a teenager and became a camp guard at the Ravensbruck women’s
concentration camp near Berlin - where British SOE agent
Violette Szabo was among the tens of thousands murdered
.
Wallisch later transferred to the Majdanek death camp in Poland where she was
based between October 1942 and January 1944. Some inmates
claim she beat prisoners to death.
The testimony of at least four
has been gathered in a bid to bring justice for her victims.
They allege that Wallisch used "violence
and illegal threats for reasons of race and nationality,
against women and children weakened physically and psychologically,
from peoples within regions under civil occupation ...
she treated them in an inhumane way."
In Lublin she had a romance with
Georg Wallisch, a Nazi guard, who she later married in
March 1944.
Jadwiga Landowska, a former prisoner,
recalled how the then-pregnant Wallisch beat people to
death.
"The pregnant Nazi
monster woman who went crazy and attacked us did not appear
among those tried in Duesseldorf after the war. The pregnant
one hit a young boy lying on the floor with something harder
than a whip. Blood was pouring from his head and he gave
no sign of life or reaction. The sweating, breathless face
of that monster was something I will never forget."
But Austria’s Justice Ministry
has officially informed the head of the Wiesenthal Centre,
Dr Efraim Zuroff, that Wallisch’s crimes come under the
statute of limitations and she would therefore not be prosecuted.
This reinforces the Centre’s claims,
and those of other Nazi hunters, that the Alpine republic
has been a haven for Nazis who settled there with little
fear of being called to account for their crimes.
In his meeting with Justice Minister
Gastinger, Dr Zuroff argued that Wallisch had admitted
participation in the mass murder of inmates at Majdanek.
But Austria says it can take no legal action against her.
As a result, Dr Zuroff has appealed
to the Polish authorities to take action against her based
on her own admission that she had committed crimes in Poland
and against Polish citizens. There is no statute of limitations
for such crimes in Poland.
Dr Zuroff said: "It
is unthinkable that a person who was part of the mass murder
of at least thousands of innocent civilians should be protected
by Austrian law, and we therefore urge the Polish authorities
to try to achieve justice in this case."
telegraph.co.uk
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