By Dr. Efraim Zuroff
Slightly more than a year ago, the Simon Wiesenthal Center
launched “Operation: Last Chance” in Romania at
a press conference hosted by the Federation of Romanian Jewish
Communities in Bucharest. Romania was the fifth country in
which the project was initiated. It was started in July 2002
in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and was expanded in the fall
of 2003 to Poland, Romania and Austria. This year it has already
been launched in Croatia and Hungary. They were chosen because
the local population in these countries actively participated
in the mass murder of European Jewry and have done practically
nothing to bring these murderers to justice.
The basic motivation for the project was the understanding
that time was running out in terms of bringing Nazi war criminals
to justice. Although many thousands of those who actively participated
in the persecution and murder of Jews in the Holocaust have
never been prosecuted for their crimes, fifty-seven years had
already passed since the end of World War II when “Operation:
Last Chance” was launched. Thus Aryeh Rubin, the founder
of the “Targum Shlishi” charitable foundation,
which is funding “Operation: Last Chance” and myself
realized that in order to maximize justice we would have to
find more innovative and effective ways of tracking down Nazi
war criminals and finding evidence. We decided to offer a financial
reward for information which would lead to the prosecution
and punishment of Nazi war criminals and thus “Operation:
Last Chance” was born.
Where do we currently stand two years after “Operation:
Last Chance” was launched and a year after it started
in Romania? In the Baltics we received the names of 247 suspects,
mostly from Lithuania (198) and Latvia (43), of which fifty-nine
were submitted to local prosecutors. About twenty murder
investigations have already been initiated, involving approximately
fifty suspects, but to date no indictments have been filed.
We are hopeful that at least a few of those currently under
investigation will ultimately be brought to trial, most probably
in Lithuania. In Austria and Poland the number of suspects
is considerably lower but the campaign in the latter had
not yet been fully launched, so it is too early to assess
the Polish results. In Austria, we received far less information
than we anticipated and the project was the subject of numerous
anti-Semitic attacks.
In Romania, “Operation: Last Chance” has had
several stages. The first was our September 10, 2003 press
conference. That was followed by the launching of our toll-free
info line (0800-800-125), in December 2003, our poster and
newspaper ad campaign in Iasi in March 2004, and a nationwide
poster and ad campaign in the summer of 2004, which is being
followed by television ads. Each of these elements, the last
three of which have been prepared by Tempo Advertising, has
helped inform and educate the public about “Operation:
Last Chance” and, more important, about the events
of the Final Solution in Romania and the role of Romanians
in the crimes of the Holocaust, both in Romania and in other
countries.
The figures speak for themselves. To date, more than four
dozen individuals have contacted us by phone, letter and
email. Almost two dozen of the callers submitted information
regarding crimes committed in Romania and its annexed territories
during the Holocaust and/or the identities of specific criminals,
of whom fifteen men have already been named. The ages of
the informants ranged from under forty to over ninety. They
represented a geographic cross-section of the entire country,
although quite a few came from Bucharest and Iasi. Some were
eyewitnesses to crimes, others had heard about them, either
from the killers themselves or from friends and/or relatives.
The crimes they described took place in different parts of
Romania and Bessarabia such as Botosani, Caraciunesti (Maramures
district), Cernauti, Popricani village, Oradea, Dorohoi,
Bucharest and Iasi.
It is important to note that not all the callers had information
regarding the killers. Some, for example, related how they
or others had saved Jews during the Holocaust, while others
sent books or manuscripts on Holocaust crimes. One of the
most touching letters came from a woman named Cornelia Nistor
in Iasi who wrote a poem dedicated to Mira Greenberg, the
four year old girl killed in the Iasi pogrom whose photo
appeared on our “Operation: Last Chance” poster.
Other callers had strange requests such as the women who
sought help in finding a Jewish husband like “the Biblical
Joseph” or a family which sought help to emigrate to
Israel, but there were also a few obvious provocations and
anti-Semitic responses. For some of the informants, the motive
for contacting us was clearly financial, but in many cases
the people said that they did not want the reward.
We are currently investigating all the leads we received
in order to decide which to submit to the Romanian judicial
authorities for possible prosecution. Only those names of
individuals against whom there is solid evidence and who
have not previously been prosecuted for their crimes will
be submitted, with our demand that these cases be thoroughly
and expeditiously handled. So far “Operation: Last
Chance” had been fairly successful in Romania, but
we will only be able to fully assess its impact upon its
completion. Obviously, a lot will depend on whether any trials
of Holocaust perpetrators will take place. Having said that,
a large measure of its relative success to date can be attributed
to the excellent cooperation and assistance of the Jewish
community and especially of the Association of Holocaust
Survivors, headed by Otto Adler. In terms of its public impact,
we are indebted to Tempo Advertising, which has provided
expertise and services at the highest possible level to produce
the most intensive “Operation: Last Chance” campaign
of its kind anywhere in the world.
The main principle behind “Operation: Last Chance” is
that the passage of time in no way diminishes the culpability
of the criminals and the fact that Nazi murderers eluded
justice for fifty years does not make them innocent. To ignore
them, moreover, would be tantamount to excusing genocide,
a message which would only encourage such crimes in the future.
In addition, I believe that this project helps fulfill our
obligation to the victims to try and bring their murderers
to justice, an obligation always emphasized by Simon Wiesenthal
himself. In addition, we must also note the educational dimension
of such a campaign and its importance in the current fight
against anti-Semitism, which in recent years is again raising
its ugly head in Europe.
In conclusion, I would like to share a letter which we recently
received form Letitia Demusca of Onesti in the Bacau district.
She had seen a television program on the Holocaust in which
a professor had claimed that none of the Romanians who had
rescued Jews during the Holocaust were still alive. Letitia
Demusca was writing to inform us that not only was she still
alive but that she vividly recalls how her family rescued
David Candel and his family in Fundoaie, near Bistrita by
hiding them in a hay stack for five months. Yad Vashem, the
Israeli national Holocaust memorial, honored Ms. Demusca
and her sister the late Ana Craciun, but her letter is an
important reminder and lesson. Just as she is still alive
and has clear memories of deeds of courage and kindness which
took place sixty years ago, numerous people are still alive
who can testify about the crimes of the Holocaust. It is
to encourage such people to come forward to reveal the truth
and identify those who committed the murders, that “Operation:
Last Chance” was created. Let us all hope and pray
for its success.
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