E.M. is an 83-year-old Parkinson's patient who is fed intravenously at the Vienna hospital where he is being treated. Sixty years ago, he was a policeman in an SS battalion responsible for the destruction of the Bialystock ghetto in Poland. During the dismantling of the ghetto, mass executions were carried out, including the burning of hundreds of Jews who were forced into the local synagogue, which was set ablaze. When asked about it today, he mumbles: "The Jews, the Jews, they all died."

The man's name is on a list of 47 Austrian citizens suspected of being Nazi war criminals. The list was prepared by the Simon Wiesenthal Center on the basis of information collected over the past five years. The only thing the center is sure about is that they all served in SS units that participated in the murder of civilians, and because of their age at the time, they could still be alive.

Dr. Ephraim Zuroff, a Nazi hunter at the Wiesenthal Center, presented the list of suspects to the Austrian ambassador in Tel Aviv, Kurt Hengel, on August 14 but has not received any response. However, Martin Gurtner, a spokesman for the Austrian Embassy in Tel Aviv, said the list is being reviewed and that Zuroff would receive a report on all actions taken in connection with the suspects in a year's time, but may request information at any time.

Marianne Enigl, a journalist for the popular Austrian weekly Profil, became interested in the matter after a press conference Zuroff held in Vienna on September 16. The journal decided to make the list of suspects this week's cover story, and four journalists were sent to locate the 47 people. The policeman from Bialystock was one of them. Prior to the entry of the journalist in his room, he told one of the nurses: "They came to ask me how many Jews I killed." To the reporter, E.M. insisted he knew nothing, that he was just a cog in the wheel.

Another suspect, H.H., is 85, living in the district of Karinthia, whose governor is the leader of the Freedom Party, Joerg Haider. During World War II, H.H. was an officer in the Heinrich Himmler SS Division, which massacred Italian civilians. The journalist interviewing him was surprised by his clarity of mind and his aggressive tone: "I know them all here. Policemen, judges, officials, and they all know me. They never asked me any questions about what I did in the war and I was never interrogated."

H.H. stressed he was not an anti-Semite and said he recently "gladly" met a group of Israelis who were from the district or their offspring.

It is unusual for an important Austrian journal to give this subject such weight. "This is a groundbreaking report," says Shmuel Lester, a Jewish media expert living in Vienna. "This is a subject that has not been addressed for years."

The second part of the Profil report deals with all that has been done - and not done - in the past 58 years in Austria in an effort to bring Nazi war criminals to justice. The report concludes very little was actually done.

During the first 10 years after the war, 10,900 people were tried for their role in the Nazi regime, and 6,200 were convicted, 137 of them for war crimes. Thirty of those convicted were hanged. Since Austria regained its independence in 1955, only 48 people were tried for war crimes, and 20 were convicted.