They call him the Butcher – a Nazi officer convicted of war
crimes and he remains at large. The families of his victims
think putting him behind bars is their last chance for
justice, but they face a battle against time and German
law.
Dutchman Klaas Carel Faber volunteered for the Nazi SS in
World War II. He tortured victims before killing them at
Westerbork Concentration Camp in the Netherlands, where diarist
Anne Frank was held.
“He systematically picked up people in the night. They had to dig their own graves,
and he was part of the firing squad which shot them,” said
Monique Brink from the War and Resistance Centre.
A Dutch court jailed Faber after the war for 22 murders.
He is suspected of many more, but in 1952 he escaped to Germany
where he was given full German citizenship. “He was basically
shielded and protected from extradition,” says war crimes
investigator Efraim Zuroff.
The Netherlands has applied time after
time to have Faber returned to serve his sentence, but Germany
does not extradite its citizens, no matter how horrific the
crime.
Prosecutor Alfons Obermeier, who ruled that Faber can stay
free, hates the German law which he has to enforce.
“I am a prosecutor, and prosecutors do not like criminals,”
he said. “I see no difference if somebody kills another person
in Germany or in Netherlands – these are criminals.”
Arnold Karsken’s family was murdered
in World War II by the Dutch SS. He confronted Faber and
asked him if he had any remorse. According to Karsken, who
is also a chairman of the War Crimes Research Foundation,
Faber responded with sneers and mockery.
That was four years ago. Neighbors
say Faber is now housebound and close to death. Arnold Karsken
believes it is a race against time for justice.
“Now you say, well he is 89, and people sometimes say ‘why
put him in jail now?’ But his victims never lived that long,”
he said. “And the second thing is he never felt sorry for
his deeds. If you go to Munich and try to talk to him, he
just does not want to talk at all.”
“If we do not put him in jail before
he dies, it will always hang as a dark cloud above Germany,”
Karsken added. “Why did not you put your very last real cruel
Nazi where he belongs?”
Last month, Germany convicted Ukrainian
American John Demjanjuk of Nazi war crimes on much weaker
evidence. Germany has one rule for its people, says Karsken,
and another for foreigners.
“They care about Demjanjuk, but he is from Ukraine. They
do not mind kicking him around,” he said. “But as long as
it is Germans or even Faber – they call him a German national
– they are very, very careful.”
The Dutch are making a final push
to put Klaas Carel Faber behind bars. They have recently
applied to have him serve out his sentence in Germany and
have asked the international community to help.
“Other countries must put diplomatic pressure on Germany
to prosecute Faber," says
Fred Teeven, the State Secretary for Public Safety and Justice.
“How can someone who committed such crimes not face justice?”
A court in Bavaria is expected to
rule on the issue in June. Activists say it is the last chance
to jail the Butcher of Westerbork.
rt.com
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