THE world’s most wanted Nazi war criminal — who helped send 15,700 Jews to their
deaths at Auschwitz — has been tracked down by The Sun.
Sadist Ladislaus Csizsik-Csatary, 97, was a police commander in charge of a Jewish
ghetto in Kassa, Hungary, during World War Two.
He took pleasure in beating women with a whip he carried
on his belt, according to devastating documents uncovered
by the Nazi-hunters at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem.
Csizsik-Csatary also forced them to dig ditches in frozen
ground with their bare hands, made dissenting Jews take up
stress positions for hours, hit them with a dog lead and
oversaw a shoot-on-sight policy if they tried to escape.
He fled Kassa — now renamed Kosice in Slovakia — after the
Allied victory and was sentenced to death for war crimes
in his absence in Czechoslovakia in 1948.
But Csizsik-Csatary created a new identity, turning up as
an art dealer in Canada.
When his cover was blown there — in 1997 — his citizenship
was revoked and the government began to build a case against
him. He fled before deportation papers could be served.
For 15 years his whereabouts have been a mystery.
But a Sun team tracked him down to a two-bedroom apartment
in a smart district of Budapest, Hungary.
Our investigators were given details of where he might be
by the Holocaust campaigners at the Wiesenthal Centre.
The human rights organisation had been given a tip-off after
launching Operation Last Chance, aimed at bringing World
War Two Nazis to justice before they die.
Once our team found Csizsik-Csatary they were able to establish
he was the Nazi collaborator — Number One on the Wiesenthal
Centre’s most wanted list. We confronted him at the flat
where he had been living quietly among families unaware of
his chilling past.
Csizsik-Csatary, who speaks English with a Canadian accent
after decades living in Montreal and Toronto, answered the
door in just socks and underpants.
When we asked if he could justify his past, he looked shocked
and stammered “No, no. Go away.” Questioned about his deportation
case in Canada he answered angrily in English: “No, no. I
don’t want to discuss it.” Our reporter asked: “Do you deny
doing it? A lot of people died as a result of your actions.”
He replied: “No I didn’t do it, go away from here,” before
slamming the door.
The atrocities that made him the most hunted Nazi war criminal
still alive were detailed by the Canadian government when
it stripped him of citizenship.
The Justice Department’s war crimes unit said he was a “commander”
in the Royal Hungarian Police in Kassa in charge of officers
who guarded the ghetto.
He supervised the drawing-up of lists of its inhabitants,
conducted personal searches of Jews and confiscated valuables.
The police transferred the Jews from the ghetto to a brickyard
at the end of April 1944 and loaded them on to freight trains
to Auschwitz and other camps.
In a summary of its case against Csizsik-Csatary the Canadian
Government stated: “For at least two transports, he was present
for the embarkation, checking the Jews’ names on a list.”
Of the approximately 12,000 Jews gathered in the brickyard
and deported, just 450 survived.
During the case, Csizsik-Csatary admitted to some involvement
in the “ghettoisation” of Jews and said he had played a “limited
role” in the movement of Jews to the brickyard.
He also admitted handing over at least two Jews to the Germans
and to attending the last mass deportation of Jews out of
Kassa.
But his lawyers claimed he “did not know where the Jews were
to be deported”.
Before confronting him we had watched as he took a leisurely
four-hour stroll through town, savouring the long life thousands
exterminated in Auschwitz had been denied.
Csizsik-Csatary left his apartment dressed smartly in khaki
trousers, a shirt, a grey and white checked jacket and
flat cap and took a tram to a nearby shopping mall.
He browsed shops and bought a right-wing paper from a kiosk.
He sat in a public seating area and casually browsed through
it before a red-haired lady friend arrived to meet him.
They sat chatting and spent almost two hours in deep conversation
before he left to shop for groceries.
The pensioner left the store carrying two shopping bags before
returning home. He moved into his apartment just weeks ago
from another flat a mile away where neighbours called him
“Papa Csatary”.
At the apartment his door buzzer was labelled “Smith”. But
behind a security door, his old mailbox had the hand-written
name “Smith L Csatary”.
Holocaust campaigners last night hailed our investigation
and called on Hungarian prosecutors to arrest him so he can
finally face justice.
Dr Efraim Zuroff, director of the Wiesenthal Centre, said
time should never diminish the crimes committed in the Holocaust
— or excuse those responsible from facing punishment.
He said: “Now that The Sun has found this war criminal he
must be put on trial in Hungary.
“Csatary was a police commander in the ghetto of Kassa and
was responsible for sending 15,700 people to death camps.
He was known to be a sadist, he had a determination to
round all Jews up and forcibly deport them to Poland. To
achieve justice against this man will bring a degree of
closure for families of the victims, for the Jewish communities
of Hungary and Slovakia.”
Peter Feldmajer, President of the Hungarian Jewish Community,
said: “Several thousand Jewish families have felt sorrow
and hurt because of this man and it would be a disgrace,
for the entire Hungarian nation, if Csatary were to escape
justice.”
Prosecutors in Hungary were last night studying dossiers
of evidence handed over by The Sun. Our investigation team
met with senior prosecutor Gabor Hetenyi, who thanked us.
Deputy Chief Prosecutor Dr Jeno Varga, said: “There is an
ongoing investigation. Prosecutors are studying the information
submitted.”
Fiends still being hunted
THESE are seven Nazis still at liberty
and on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s list of Most Wanted.
GERHARD SOMMER, 93, served in the Panzergrenadiers. VLADIMIR
KATRIUK, 90, served in a Nazi police battalion. KAROLY ZENTAI,
90, helped hunt Jews in Budapest. SOEREN KAM, 90, served
with a Panzer division. IVAN KALYMON, 91, served in the Nazi
auxiliary police in the Ukraine. ALGIMANTAS DAILIDE, in the
Lithuanian security police. HELMUT OBERLANDER, 88, served
with a Nazi killing squad.
myView
By Dr Efraim Zuroff, Nazi-hunting author
THE passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of war
criminals — and old age should not protect people who committed
mass murder.
If Csizsik-Csatary is healthy, there is no reason to ignore
his dark past simply because he was born in 1915.
People like him have had a long time to think about their
crimes and accept they made a mistake.
But tragically, in the 32 years I have been involved in this
field, I have never had a single case of a Nazi war criminal
who has expressed any regret or any remorse, if anything
the opposite.
Hunting people like Csizsik-Csatary has not only been a personal
mission of mine, but a mission which has wider significance.
This is a mission against forgetfulness.
This is the obligation of our generation, the generation
after the Holocaust, who must see to it that those who can
be brought to justice be held accountable.
- Dr Zuroff is author of Operation Last Chance: One Man’s
Quest To Bring Nazi Criminals To Justice.
thescottishsun.co.uk
|