By Etgar Lefkovits

A recent public campaign launched by the Los Angeles based Simon Wiesenthal Center to uncover any Nazis still alive in eight countries across Europe has spurred Croatian death threats on the life of the director of the center's Jerusalem office, Ephraim Zuroff, and against Jews living in Croatia.

" You are looking for a sword which will cut off your head. Jew-boy Zuroff what you are asking for is what you will get," read a letter sent out last week by the extremist Croatian group 'Anti-Jewish Movement.'

" If a single Croat is arrested, detained or maltreated in any way because of your sick Jewish ideas, we warn you: We will start to kill your Jewish compatriots in Croatia! We know your names and addresses," the 'Anti-Jewish Movement's' letter warned.

The letter, which was marked with the letter 'U' connoting the Ustasha, the Croatian fascist regime which was allied with Nazi Germany, was also sent to Croatia's Civic Center for Human Rights, where Zuroff launched the Croatian campaign last month, as well as to the head of the Helsinki Committee, and to the Croatian Justice Minister, Zuroff said.

Zuroff had introduced the Wiesenthal Center's public Nazi-hunting campaign, dubbed 'Operation Last Chance' in Croatia on June 30th.

The campaign starts with a press conference, and is followed up by advertisements in the local press offering a $10,000 reward to anyone calling a telephone hot line with information leading to the prosecution and punishment of a Nazi war criminal.

In the three weeks since the campaign was launched in Croatia, the Wiesenthal Center has attained a fully documented case against a 91 year old suspected war criminal, Milivoj Asner, who was a notorious police chief in northern Croatia during World War Two, and who is currently living in Croatia, Zuroff said.

In addition to the threatening letter, a Croatian Internet web site operated by suspected Nazi sympathizers offers a $25,000 reward to kill Zuroff, a $50,000 reward to blow up the offices of the Civic Center, and $75,000 to the undisclosed person "who started this whole business," he said.

Croatian police are investigating the threats, as well as the evidence against the suspected Nazi, Zuroff said.

The campaign, which is being sponsored by an American Jewish philanthropist who seeks to bring Nazis to justice, has been previously been introduced in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Romania and Austria, and was launched in Hungary earlier this month, (where a dispute is underway with Hungarian Government officials over its legality.)

Later this year, it is slated to be introduced in Argentina.

Since the campaign was launched two years ago, the names of 296 Nazi suspects have been accumulated to date, 73 of which have been submitted to local prosecutors, who have opened 19 murder investigations, Zuroff said.

The organization is close to paying out its first reward, to the Croatian man who uncovered the Croatian Nazi suspect.

No one uncovered by the campaign has been convicted of a crime to date. The advertising campaign has been criticized by some European Jews and government officials who are concerned it will only foster anti-Semitism, and will not succeed in uncovering any Nazis.
Zuroff rejects the charges, calling the campaign "the last chance to reach people who otherwise would not have come forward."

During World War Two, Croats were divided between antifascists who fought against the Nazis, and those loyal to dictator Ante Pavelic's Nazi-quisling state.

About 30,000 Croatian Jews - or 80 percent of the country's pre-war Jewish population - perished during the Holocaust.