By MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press Writer

TALLINN, Estonia - Estonian newspapers published ads Thursday announcing a $10,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of aging Nazi war criminals.

Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center also published similar ads in the neighboring Baltic states of Latvia and Lithuania, but Estonia's campaign was delayed in January after police objected to their telephone number be listed on the ads, saying that would make it appear as if it were their campaign. The ads ran without a police number Thursday and instead urged readers to call the center.

Efraim Zuroff, director of the center's Jerusalem office, said the ads have resulted in the names of 217 possible war criminals. Most calls, he said, have come from Lithuania.

During the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation of the Baltic states, tens of thousands of Jews were killed, including more than 200,000 in Lithuania.

In Estonia, some 1,000 Estonian Jews were killed, while about 4,500 fled to Russia before the Nazis invaded. Several thousand Jews from other countries were sent to Estonia and killed there.

One ad, appearing in Estonia's Ohtuleht daily Thursday, included a picture of executed Jews in a killing field.

" During the Holocaust, local collaborators murdered Jews in Estonia as well as in other countries," the text read, urging anyone with information to contact the Wiesenthal Center.