| As the seat of Nazi
power and the initiator of the Final Solution, Germany’s
role in the crimes of the Holocaust is obvious and overwhelming.
Thus any project to help facilitate the prosecution and punishment
of Holocaust perpetrators should naturally focus on Germany.
While it is true that Germany is one of the few countries
which to this day continues its efforts to bring Nazi war
criminals to justice and has a special agency (Zentral Stelle
der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklarung von NS-Verbrechen)
for this purpose, the fact remains that numerous Germans
who actively participated in the atrocities of the Holocaust
were never investigated, let alone prosecuted, for their
crimes. To date, Germany has indicted close to 100,000 individuals
for crimes against civilians during World War II, but only
7,000 of them were actually convicted.
Under these circumstances, “Operation: Last Chance” seeks
to uncover new cases, hereto unknown to the authorities,
and thereby facilitate the prosecution of those who actively
participated in the mass murder of European Jews during the
Holocaust.
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