The Szymon Wiesenthal
Center, which has been pursuing nazi's, their collaborators
and World War II criminals, is about to launch a new initiative.
The Center is going to activate a free telephone line where
people who know about those who killed or denounced the Jews
to the nazi's can now give information about them.
These
reports will be checked and compiled in Jerusalem and then
sent back to the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN)
in Poland. The reward for a tip-off which leads to a prosecution
will be EUR10,000. "Money
catches people's attention and we need something to interest
them," said Efraim Zuroff, head of the Jerusalem office of the Wiesenthal Center. In
Poland, the controversial idea has already aroused many protests,
with Bronislaw Geremek, shooting down the idea as "disgusting", while Gazeta Wyborcza editor Adam Michnik wrote a front page editorial labeling
it as a bad idea. (Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 1) A.F.
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