The Institute of National Remembrance in Poland has vowed
to complete the investigation into Second World War crimes
committed at Auschwitz which started decades ago but shutdown
during the Cold War.
In the years that followed the World War II the France, Great Britain, Russia
and the United States, decided to prosecute the Nazi henchman
responsible for crimes committed against civilians under
Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. While domestic and international
courts were set up and various accused tried, many still
managed to avoid arrest and prosecution.
Poland had the largest concentration of death camps, including Auschwitz, Treblinka
and Belzec.
The institute, established near Auschwitz
will now interview the last survivors of Nazi concentration
camps, in order to obtain details of their everyday-life
while in the camps, and has said it will also ask survivors
to identify any possible war criminal that might still be
alive.
Established between 1940 and 1945, the Auschwitz-Birkenau expanded complex is
the largest concentration camp ever established by the Nazis.
Auschwitz came to symbolise Hitler's crimes against humanity, and 1.5 million
prisoners, mostly Jews from Europe, but also Poles, Roma,
gays and others were murdered and gassed there, before it
was liberated by Russian forces.
Figures estimates there are about
500 survivors of Auschwitz are still alive.
Up to 8,200 men and 200 women are
thought to have worked at Auschwitz for the Nazis regime
but after the war only 1,200 faced trial for the crimes committed
during the war, so the news of a new investigation has been
welcome.
"We cannot exclude the
possibility that someone from the staff of Auswitch-Birkenau
are still alive," "In which case, he would be responsible for crimes against the Polish nation." said Piotr Piatek, speaking for the Institute of National Remembrance.
Poland originally launched investigations
into crimes at Auschwitz in the 1960s and 1970s, but closed
in the 1980s without any indictments against the killers.
Piatek said the investigation will finish the work started
in the 80s which was abandoned following difficulties in
tracking down witnesses and perpetrators which lived beyond
the Iron Curtain.
"The battle to bring war
crimes suspects to justice was definitely lost after the
war, and not only with regard to Auschwitz."
"In total, not more than
15 per cent of the Auschwitz garrison faced trial before
the tribunals of various countries. This percentage is, nevertheless,
high in proportion to that for other concentration camps.
The Cold War and the new political division of Europe did
not favour a thorough search for justice or a reckoning for
the memory of the victims of the German genocide," read a statement on the institute's web site.
Efraim Zuroff, a leading international
Nazi hunter, welcomed the move but pointed out that Poland
is the country with the most on-going investigations into
Nazi crimes, but that these almost never result in prosecutions.
Poland's Institute of National Remembrance "excels
in opening up investigations. They don't excel in prosecuting
Nazi war criminals," Zuroff also said.
Meanwhile, the Institute for National
Remembrance says it has already started questioning witnesses
and maintains the move is aimed at "finding and, if needed, detaining the perpetrators."
The last person to be prosecuted for
Nazi crimes is Henryk Mania who was sentenced to eight years
in prison in 2001 for taking parts in acts of genocide at
the death camp of Chelmno.
ibtimes.com
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