The Simon Wiesenthal
Center and Targum Shlishi Foundation today announced that their
ad campaign in Austria for “Operation: Last Chance,” which
offers financial rewards for information which facilitates the
conviction and punishment of Nazi war criminals, will be launched
tomorrow in the mass circulation daily Kronen Zeitung.
In a statement issued today in Jerusalem by the Center’s
chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center
noted that the ad campaign was the critical stage of “Operation:
Last Chance” which would afford all those with pertinent
information an opportunity to come forward and tell the truth in
order to assist in bringing those guilty of the crimes of the Holocaust
to justice. “In that respect, this is really the last chance
for Austria, which has not convicted a Nazi war criminal in more
than a quarter of a century, to finally take legal action against
Austrian Nazi murderers while justice can still be achieved,” said
Zuroff.
“Operation: Last Chance” was initially launched by
the Center and the Targum Shlishi Foundation of Miami, Florida
founded and directed by Aryeh Rubin, in July 2002, in Lithuania,
Latvia, and Estonia. Among its features were ad campaigns in the
media, which stressed the role played by local Nazi collaborators
in the Holocaust.
To date, the Center has received the names of 253 suspected Nazi
war criminals from the Baltics and the Ukraine, 67 of which have
already been submitted to local prosecutors in Lithuania, Latvia,
the United States and Canada. At present, at least eight murder
investigations against more than three dozen suspects are currently
being conducted in the wake of “Operation: Last Chance.”
In September 2003, “Operation: Last Chance” was expanded
to Poland, Romania, and Austria. Similar ad campaigns will be launched
during the coming weeks in Poland and Romania
For more information call: 972-51-214156
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