September 6, 2007
 
 
  "EFRAIM ZUROFF: voitlus kommunismikuritegudega pole minu mission”
(EFRAIM ZUROFF:Fighting Communist crimes is not my mission)
Eesti Paevaleht Online
Dr. Efraim Zuroff
 
  In his op-ed in yesterday's Eesti Paevaleht, Heiki Suurkask raised a very serious charge against me and made two additional accusations. He claimed that I have no empathy with the victims of Communism, that I believe in collective guilt and that I did not submit any evidence of crimes against humanity committed by Harry Mannil and Michael Gorshkow to back up my call for their prosecution by Estonia.

Normally, I would take such criticism very seriously, but I have to admit that today the first accusation made me laugh because of its ironic timing. On the very day that Suurkask publically accused me of lacking sympathy for the victims of Communism, I spent most of my morning hosting a delegation from the Romanian Institute for the Study of Communist Crimes (which is mandated to prepare the prosecution of local Communist criminals) to discuss practical cooperation and how I can personally assist the Institute in training its staff to carry out its important objectives. In fact, the director has already invited me for the latter task to come to Bucharest, an invitation I most probably will accept.

To make things even clearer, allow me to reiterate what I have said publically many times in Estonia in every possible forum, including in Eesti Paevaleht Online, as well as in many other post-Communist countries. I fully empathize with the victims of Communism and unequivocally support the prosecution of Communist criminals, regardless of their religion and/or nationality. In fact, in Soviet times, I carried out a mission to meet with "refusniks" (Jews forbidden to emigrate from the Soviet Union), in the course of which I had two unpleasant encounters with the KGB in Riga and in Vilnius. As someone who fought against the evil empire of Communism on behalf of Soviet Jewry, I certainly can appreciate the suffering and pain of the other victims of that terrible regime. In fact, contrary to Suurkask's claims, I also have been involved in assisting the Rwandan government deal with the horrific crimes committed during the genocide of 1994 and have twice visited Rwanda to help the victims and facilitate the prosecution of the killers. I have no problem acknowledging other cases of genocide and the Wiesenthal Center has always referred to the Armenian tragedy as a genocide, even incorporating those events into the permanent exhibition at our Museum of Tolerance which was opened in Los Angeles in 1993. More recently, I have publically written and spoken about the obligation of Jews to assit in stoping the mass murders in Sudan.

As far as collective guilt is concerned, I have explained time after time that we do not accept any such concept and in fact have NEVER accused any individual of Holocaust crimes because of their nationality or ethnic identity. People are accused because of the crimes they committed and not for any other reason. In the cases of Mannil and Gorshkow, I believe that sufficient evidence exists to charge them, but I think that it is political factors which prevent their prosecution. Estonia is not the only country in which the government lacks political will to prosecute local Nazi war criminals. Unfortunately, many countries have this problem and I consider it part of our mission to try and combat this phenomenon. All one has to do is read the report issued by the Estonian prosecutor in the Mannil case, in which he names the seven Jews interrogated by Mannil in his capacity in the Political Police who were murdered or disappeared to realize that Mannil participated in the implementation of the Nazis’ plan to make Estonia (and the rest of Europe) judenrein.

I have often been asked, particularly in the Baltics why I do not deal with Communist criminals, to which I respond by saying that while I fully support such efforts, they are neither the mission nor the expertise of the Wiesenthal Center as an institution and myself personally as a historian. Having said that, I look forward to the day when Heiki Suurkask will appreciate our efforts in Estonia and view them as part of the larger process in which Estonia faces its painful past honestly and courageously enough to not only acknowledge the crimes committed but to understand why it is important to hold the criminals accountable.