GERMANY/JERUSALEM: A "last chance" campaign to root out surviving Nazi war criminals and bring them to justice before they die has been launched in Germany, almost 70 years after the end of World War Two

Record ID: 346805

  • Title: GERMANY/JERUSALEM: A "last chance" campaign to root out surviving Nazi war criminals and bring them to justice before they die has been launched in Germany, almost 70 years after the end of World War Two
  • Date: 24th July 2013
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (JULY 24, 203) (REUTERS) STREET VIEW OF BERLIN'S ALEXANDERPLATZ TV TOWER AND MARIEN CHURCH BUS STOP WITH POSTER IN VIEW READING IN GERMAN: "OPERATION LAST CHANCE. LATE BUT NOT TOO LATE" POSTER SLOGAN READING IN GERMAN: "LATE BUT NOT TOO LATE" POSTER IMAGE SHOWING BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPH OF EXTERIOR OF BIRKENAU CONCENTRATION CAMP WITH WRITING IN GERMAN RE
  • Embargoed: 8th August 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Jerusalem, Germany
  • City:
  • Country: Jerusalem Jerusalem Germany
  • Topics: Conflict,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVADGDIIBWG3E8A8VFWSJWOTBTHY
  • Story Text: A poster campaign to hunt for surviving Nazi war criminals has been launched in Germany, with rewards of up to 25,000 euros ($32,600) for information leading up to their capture, the head of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Efraim Zuroff, said on Wednesday (July 24).
    "Operation Last Chance II" is the name given to the publicity campaign, which includes putting up posters in big cities to enlist the help of the public in tracking down suspects.
    On the striking poster is a black and white photograph of the notorious "Gate of Death" at the Nazis' Birkenau extermination camp with the train tracks leading up to it. The slogan "Late, but not too late" is emblazoned across it.
    Nazi-hunters have been encouraged by the prosecution last month in Hungary of 98-year-old Laszlo Csatary for helping to deport Jews to Auschwitz and by the arrest in Germany of Hans Lipschis, a suspected former guard at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
    The impetus for a handful of new investigations came from the landmark conviction in Munich in 2011 of Sobibor death camp guard John Demjanjuk. He was the first Nazi war criminal to be convicted in Germany without evidence of a specific crime or a victim but on the grounds that he was a guard at a death camp.
    Demjanjuk, a retired U.S. mechanic born in Ukraine, had been taken prisoner by the Nazis when he was a Soviet Red Army soldier. He died in March last year aged 91.
    "This is incredibly important because it means that any person who served in the death camp. Demjanjuk served in Sobibor death camp. Any person who served in the Einsatzgruppen, in a special mobile killing unit, can now be brought to justice in Germany and all that has to be proven is that they served there. They're automatically convicted of at least accessory to murder," Zuroff told Reuters.
    "We are basically turning to the public in Germany and saying please help us, help us bring these people to justice, they don't deserve to live out their life in peace and tranquility. And we are ready to offer a prize up to 25 thousand Euros, for information that will lead to a successful legal action," he said.
    As well as in Berlin, the campaign posters, with a hotline number for anyone with information, will also be on show in Hamburg and Cologne in conjunction with outdoor advertising company WALL AG.
    On its list of Most Wanted Nazi War Criminals is Gerhard Sommer, 92, a former member of Hitler's SS suspected of being involved in the massacre of 560 civilians in Italy.
    Another is Soeren Kam, who the Center says served as an officer in the SS Viking Division and took part in the murder of a Danish anti-Nazi newspaper editor. Germany has twice refused to extradite him to Denmark.
    Although an international military tribunal put some of the most infamous Nazi leaders on trial soon after World War Two in the Nuremburg Trials, Germany has a patchy record on bringing its Nazi war criminals to justice.
    In the last few years, however, prosecutors in some parts of Germany have actively sought out some of the last survivors.
    Many Germans are keen to draw a line under the Holocaust and seal the post-war democratic identity of their nation. To many, the spectacle of Demjanjuk being rolled into court on a hospital bed was pathetic and some find it distasteful to pursue old men, often in poor health, for crimes committed nearly 70 years ago.
    Others say that it is never too late and prosecution helps to fight those who still engage in denial and distortion of the Holocaust.
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