VIENNA, Austria: Austria has offered €50,000 (about US$69,000) rewards for information leading to the arrest of two fugitive Nazi criminals, including a key figure in the planning and execution of the murder of Jews during World War II.
A notice posted on the Justice Ministry's Web site this week features photos and physical descriptions of Aribert Heim, a concentration camp doctor, and Alois Brunner, the right-hand man of Adolf Eichmann, the Gestapo officer who organized the extermination of the Jews.
The notice, available in four different languages, states that individuals - not authorities who would have a duty to prosecute criminal acts - will be paid €50,000 (about US$69,000) for information enabling Austrian authorities to capture either of the men, both now in their 90s.
According to the notice, Heim is "strongly suspected of murdering numerous prisoners" in the Mauthausen concentration camp by injecting them directly in the heart with a deadly poison.
Brunner is "strongly suspected of being significantly involved in the deportation of Jewish persons with the aim of murdering them," the notice reads. It also states that Brunner is presumed to have mutilated hands and just one remaining eye.
Heim practiced medicine in Germany after the war and fled after the government charged him in 1962 with killing hundreds of concentration inmates in Germany and Austria with lethal injections. Brunner is believed to have found refuge in Syria.
Justice Minister Maria Berger, in an interview Friday with Austrian radio, said she hoped the reward offers would not just be a "symbolic act" and underscored that Austria would do everything possible to bring Heim and Brunner to justice.
"I know the odds aren't the greatest, but in particular given the ages and indications that both are possibly still alive, I think one should seize this potentially last opportunity," Berger said.
Berger acknowledged that Austria has been criticized for not doing enough to bring Nazi war criminals to justice but declined to point the finger at previous governments.
"For me it's important that we now do all that can still be done," Berger said.
An estimated 65,000 Austrian Jews perished in the Holocaust.
The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center welcomed Austria's move and noted that past financial rewards have "proven critical," as in the case of camp commander Josef Schwammberger, whose arrest in Argentina was facilitated by a similar reward offered by the German government.
"We congratulate the Austrian authorities for joining the important efforts to bring these leading Nazi war criminals to justice and hope that the added prize money will help make the difference in their apprehension," Efraim Zuroff, the group's Israel director and chief Nazi hunter, said in a statement.
Zuroff met with Austria's former justice and interior ministers in early 2006 to ask the Austrian government to match the prize of €130,000 (US$179,450) being offered by the German government for information leading to Heim's capture, according to the statement.
"The passage of time in no way diminishes the crimes committed by Brunner and Heim and, therefore, their prosecution remains just as important, if not even more important, today than it would have been years ago," Zuroff said.
In a follow-up telephone interview with The Associated Press, Zuroff said he hoped Austria would now continue to be "more attentive" to the issue of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice.
"We're running out of time," Zuroff said.
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