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.