Estonian police blocked local newspapers from publishing
an ad offering a $10,000 reward for information leading
to the conviction of Nazi war criminals. Similar ads
ran recently in Latvia and Lithuania as part of “Operation
Last Chance,” an effort sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal
Center to find and prosecute Nazi war criminals. The
ad that was supposed to run Tuesday in Estonia included
copy that read, “During the Holocaust, Estonians murdered
Jews in Estonia as well as in other countries,” according
to the center. Police officials maintain there is not
“convincing evidence” that Estonians were ever convicted
for the murder of Jews outside Estonia, and say the claims
made by the center may violate the Estonian Constitution,
the center ad ed. The police decision is “totally outrageous”
and provides “a sad reflection on the inability of far
too many Estonians to accept the sad reality of the complicity
of some of their nationals in the crimes of the Holocaust,”
said the center’s chief Nazi hunter, Efraim Zuroff.
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