THE
Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre has hung posters
on the streets of major German cities seeking information
on the last perpetrators of the Holocaust still at large
nearly 70 years on.
The 2,000 placards displayed in cities including Berlin feature a chilling black-and-white
photograph of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and the
tagline: "Late but not too late".
Part of the Wiesenthal Centre's "Operation
Last Chance" to catch the surviving suspects behind World War II-era atrocities, the signs
offer a reward of up to 25,000 euros ($A35,891) for information
leading to the capture and conviction of such criminals.
"We expect to get
tips about people who served in the death camps or in
Einsatzgruppen (mobile death squads) and in that way
to help bring them to justice," the campaign's initiator, Efraim Zuroff, told AFP.
"But of course
you realise that such a campaign also raises public interest
(and serves) as a reminder of the importance to bring
those people to justice."
Zuroff heads the Jerusalem
office of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, the Los Angeles-based
organisation named after the Holocaust survivor who was
perhaps the best-known Nazi hunter until his death in
2005.
The posters, which will confront
Germans on their high streets, pack an emotional punch.
"Millions of innocents
were murdered by Nazi war criminals. Some of the perpetrators
are free and alive," they read. "Help us to bring them before a court."
Zuroff estimates that only
around 60 potential defendants are still alive. He dismisses
the idea that they should be shown clemency given their
advanced age.
"In my 33 years
of hunting Nazis I never once had a case of a Nazi who
ever said he was sorry," he said.
"Don't look at
these people and see a frail old man or woman, think
of someone who at the height of his physical strength
devoted his energy to murdering innocent women and men.
These are the last people on Earth deserving any sympathy
because they had absolutely no sympathy for their victims."
Zuroff said a precedent set
by the conviction in Germany in May 2011 of former camp
guard John Demjanjuk had opened the door to a renewed
effort to bring others to book.
A Munich court sentenced the
Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk to five years imprisonment for
helping the Nazis kill almost 30,000 Jews during his
time at the Sobibor extermination camp in German-occupied
Poland during World War II.
In a legal first, it found
that simply demonstrating Demjanjuk's employment at the
camp, rather than his involvement in specific murders,
was enough to implicate him in the killings committed
there.
Two recent cases, in Hungary
and Germany, underlined a new commitment by European
authorities to capture the very last of the alleged perpetrators
after decades of foot-dragging.
In June, acting on a tip from
Zuroff, Budapest prosecutors charged Laszlo Lajos Csatari,
98, with organising the deportation of 12,000 Jews to
death camps.
His trial is due to start
in September. He denies the charges.
German police in May arrested
alleged former Auschwitz guard Hans Lipschis, 93, on
charges of complicity in mass murder.
Lipschis insists he only worked
as a cook at the extermination camp.
His capture revived a charged
debate on whether a measure of justice can be too late
in coming.
theaustralian.com.au
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