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Gero Breloer / AP
Efraim Zuroff, chief-Nazi hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and director of the Center's Jerusalem Office, announces on Wednesday the launching of "Operation Last Chance II" during a news conference in Berlin, Germany.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Wednesday launched a new race against time to prosecute Nazi war criminals still alive 66 years after the end of World War II.
Efraim Zuroff, the center's top Nazi-hunter, told reporters in Berlin that "Operation Last Chance II" would provide up to 25,000 euros ($32,900) in reward money for information that leads to the investigation and prosecution of war criminals.
"Whatever can be done has to be done very promptly and as quickly as possible because time is running out," Zuroff said, claiming the passage of time does not diminish the guilt of the killers.
The effort comes after German prosecutors said in October that the successful conviction of former Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk had set a precedent that allowed them to reopen hundreds of dormant investigations.
Demjanjuk, 91, was convicted in May of thousands of counts of accessory to murder after a Munich court found he served as a death camp guard — the first time a suspect had been found guilty without evidence of a specific crime. The court ruled that any guard at a Nazi camp whose sole purpose was to kill people could be convicted of accessory to murder.
John Demjanjuk emerges from a Munich, Germany, court on May 12, 2011, after a judge sentenced him to 5 years in prison for charges related to 28,060 counts of accessory to murder.
Demjanjuk denies having ever served as a guard and is appealing the verdict.
"What this conviction does is set a legal precedent that should pave the way for the prosecution of many people who were on a daily basis over a prolonged period of time involved in mass murder but who had been ignored," Zuroff said.
About 4,000 people were either guards at the four Nazi camps used only for killings — Belzec, Sobibor, Chelmno and Treblinka — or members of the Einsatzgruppen death squads responsible for mass killings, particularly early in the war before the death camps were established.
Zuroff said that he did not know how many were still alive — the youngest would now be in their 80s — but that he guessed conservatively there could be 80 or more.
"I think it's not a gross exaggeration to assume that 2 percent are still probably alive," he said.
Zuroff said a high-ranking living Nazi is in sights but he cannot reveal his name because of an ongoing criminal investigation, the Jerusalem Post reported.
"I am not saying who because he’s a flight risk," Zuroff said. "This person was a commander and involved in very serious actions against Jews."
Zuroff also said Klaas Farber, an alleged SS hitman in Holland, was the most senior Nazi known to be alive today. Faber lives in the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt, Germany. He was sentenced in a Dutch court in 1947 was convicted of murdering 22 Jews in the occupied Netherlands during WWII, but he escaped prison in 1952.
Prosecutors in Dortmund also are currently investigating six former members of an SS armored division that was responsible for the largest massacre in Nazi-occupied France under the same theory that led to Demjanjuk’s prosecution.
The Wiesenthal Center is asking for tips to a new hotline in Germany. Though the focus of the investigation is Germany, Zuroff said suspects could live anywhere in the world.
A reward of 5,000 euros will be paid for the information upon the indictment of a suspect, another 5,000 euros upon conviction, and a further 100 euros per day spent in prison — up to 150 days — for a total of 25,000 euros, Zuroff said.
The center's original "Operation Last Chance" was launched in 2002 and targeted primarily eastern European countries. It ended up with 102 suspects' names being turned over to prosecutors. Of those, only a handful were ever indicted or tried, Zuroff said.
Zuroff said that at this late stage, with few witnesses left and suspects' health often preventing them from being brought to trial, he measures success in six stages: exposure; official investigation; indictment; trial; conviction; and punishment.
"It's very hard today to get to stage six," he said.
"The answer is very simple," Zuroff said. "One, the passage in time does not diminish guilt of killers. Two, old age does not afford protection to murderers. Three, all the victims deserve efforts to find their killers. Four, it sends an important message to those today that they are being brought to justice."
Former Ohio resident John Demjanjuk is found guilty for his involvement in thousands of deaths at a Nazi death camp during World War II.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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a lot of these guys were just doing there jobs,or they would of been dead them selves.or consider traitors.it been the same way over here .do what your told or you were a traitor and got shot.
just let it go.on alot of these case,s I think they are really going to far. look at the world around you and see whats going on .dicators all around kill there people,same thing and they dont do chit. like I said let it go .wars been over a long time.
So you have no problem with the killing of innocent men, women, and children? Does that view stem from any of the orders you followed in Vietnam? You don't hear anything about Christians and Russians because they were not persecuted to nearly the same degree as the Jews. Just because you claim to be a vet doesn't give you any right to spew such ignorance.
Also, how are these people seeking profit if they are OFFERING reward money? Last time I checked you don't make a profit by giving money away.
I'm not Jewish and I have no relatives who died in this war, but having seen Aushwitz and stood in the gas chamber makes me wish for nothing but justice for the victims of the atrocities committed by every single Nazi. I don't care how long ago those atrocities were, no amount of time will make them acceptable in any way
You had to volunteer to be in the SS and Einsatzgruppen. The Germans did not do most of the dirty work themselves. They used a lot of local racists and criminals to do the dirty work. I have read extensively on this subject and have never found one case of a German soldier or anyone else punished for refusing to participate. They did not have to force people there were many applicants. Courts marshalling would have been public and many in the army did not know or believe that it was happening. Many were paid extra, given women, large amounts of liquor etc to join in and do it. There was also the chance to steal from the victims and steal the plunder taken from them. Promotions and privilages came along easily. Also it was behind the battle lines in areas that the allies left alone bombing wise.
Jews suffered at holocaust pales in comparison with the way Chinese civilians suffered at the hands of the Imperial Japanese army, particularly relating to Nanjing massacre where victims were raped and decapitated, skin or buried alive.
Foreget about Nazi war criminals, they were history. Focus on current biggest war criminal nittyahoo who should be brought to justice.
Tonie-80015,
Yes because all jews live in the middle east #1 and #2 the jews that are there are taking everything away from the arabs, putting them in work or death camps. I'm sure that's exactly what they are doing...
The Nazi movement didn't just include jews by the way I'm sure this group represents more than just them.
All I can say is if the Allies and Russians lost the war they would be the ones hunted down for war crimes. The German & Japanese people and country were nearly blown back to the stone age is that not punishment enough.
Sherman said it best during the American civil war .... "War Is Hell!" ... and "armchair warriors" have no idea what combat is really like .. it's not like when your sitting in your chair eating popcorn, watching it on a video. A Vietnam vet, said it best ... "it only takes a couple of weeks to turn a man into a animal"
Non participants can't even imagine that, like other things in life ... without the experience , it's unimaginable.
What happened to the Jewish people in Europe during WWII is horrendous ... but nothing new .. Ask a Armenian, or a Cambodian ...or a native American, whose population has been decimated . The main difference is that the WWII "Holocaust" has been kept alive by the Jewish people so that we may never forget it happened, to prevent it happening again. Man is a territorial possessive animal, who will use any excuse to steal from another ... regardless of their race religion or creed...
Offering money for "War Criminals" that allegedly committed crimes over sixty years ago, is a bag of worms, and should be stopped. More innocent people will be caught up in this Desperation "Witch Hunt" of rage, like John Demjanjuk, who quite well may be innocent.
WWII has been over for sixty years ... It time to forget and forgive .. and let those that want to remember ... get your own house in order .. or suffer the consequences ..
How can you not love an operation called "Last Chance II?"
If I were you I would be focused on Iran...
While their dedication is admirable and their cause is just, I feel that we have more pressing matters than 90-year-old Nazis to deal with. Crimes against humanity are being committed every day by organized criminals, yet we don't treat them like Nazis for some inexplicable reason.
Dan, I respect you for having served in Vietnam, but your statement.. "i did 18 months in country and still hate them lousy people today" all I can say brother is... get over it.. I'm also a Vietnam vet (disabled) I was wounded in Vietnam 42 years ago and I have no ill feeling towards the Vietnamese people. I re-visited Vietnam in 1995 along with 15 other disabled vets. We found a country that welcomed us. In fact in 1995 some Vietnamese were kinder and more welcoming to us than our own country had been when we returned home decades earlier.
Hell hath no fury like a persecuted Jew it seems. Ever take notice that they don't go after the Polish folks who supplied their camps in Poland. Why haven't they gone after Bayer for making the Zyclon that the Nazis used?
I hope that they learned a lesson, that when some little NUTJOB is running their yap about killing all the Jews and then that NUTJOB comes to power, they leave the country in question!
They are going after the gate keeper, the cook or the electrician, but in Nuremberg, both, the American and British judges left free many of the big players, tycoons that financed the NAZI war machine and even some politicians.
They also used many worse criminals like Werner von Braun, who became the Father of the US Space Program after he was responsible for the V-1 and V-2 missiles that caused so much dead in Britain and others as torture specialists and spies for the CIA.
The Soviet prosecutor wanted to kill most of them.
Thanks Dan, I agree with you, me too. If they want to look for war criminals why don't they look for the ones responsible for the attack on the USS Liberty. This was a deliberate attack on a US navy ship where many US sailors were killed or wounded. These thugs are the war criminals and should be found.
Well, I see anti-Semitism is alive and well.
ftr, I am not Jewish nor have I any connection to Jewish families who suffered loss and death at the hand of the Nazi. But --- I have studied history, I have seen pictures of such horror it cannot be described. To those who think Germany suffered enough through being bombed -- do you know what was done to London? To Canterbury? Why attempt to destroy a venerable cathedral except out of evil.
Why didn't they call it Last Chance - The Sequel?
If Bush was naming it it would have been Operation Nazi Forgiveness
1.3 deleted, tonie-80015 piling up anti-Semitism.
Banned. Awful start.
Does banned mean the poster can never post again? If so, is "awful start" appropriate? wouldn't "very poor finish" be just as good? Or, more accurately "poor career?"
I am all for getting every Nazi that was involved in the WWII Genocide. But the reality is that as time goes on, only the Nazis who were very young at the time are alive. It becomes a question of how much control these animals had over their own actions. If a guard was 18 in 1940, he would be 89 today. Once you get past a 20 year old in 1940, they are likely dead. This process becomes less and less fruitful. At some point we must stop. Hopefully, the Nazis who have not been brought to justice are rotting in hell.
Vietnamvet..."a lot of these guys were just doing there jobs" ! Didn't fly in 1946 and doesn't fly today. To try and make a moral equivalence of the systematic genocide administered by the Third Reich and what has taken place on our battlefields is sick! 12 million died in the genocide in Europe. Where exactly was our Treblinka or Sobibor......
The U.S. & Allied Forces defeated Hitlers Regime back in 1945 so 66 years later any former SS Nazi`s who may still be alive would pose no real threat, So what is the point of chasing them down ? GOD will judge them soon enough. I feel sorry for the Jews, Gypsies, Poles and Slavs who were exterminated as part of Hitler and Himmlers Final Solution. However it is time to move on and learn how to heal ones wounds as vengence begats hate whereas forgiveness allows one to be free from hatred. I support the existence of Isreal, which one could say is a direct byproduct of the German Concentration Camps. Another result was a dramatic decline of anti-semitism in both European & American cultures. Ofcourse one is not able to understand this if they choose to view the 30`s and 40`s through the perspective of todays cultural perspective.
OK. The entire world has learned from this atrocity. But isn't it time to give up the chase??? Even if they were only 15 at the time - they are 80 now. They have little left. Is it really about justice or revenge??? And, for what its worth, your message to the masses is now long lost. Lost...but not forgotten.
Be done with it. Channel your efforts into resolving today's problems.
Unfortunately I knew two holocaust survivors. They were customers of mine on a Sunday paper delivery route I had.
They were Mother and Daughter, They escaped Auschwitz after the father was murdered with help from the French 'underground' . They were escorted into Spain, then Portugal and finally to England and then to the US.
I saw their prison numbers tattooed on their arms, I heard them speak about the horrors they endured (and others) at the hands of the Nazis. My Mother also visited these women and heard their stories.
They did not seem to be vindictive or anxious for revenge. It seemed to me (I was 13 years old) that they wanted more than anything that this treatment of humans never be allowed again.
Fast forward 32 years. In my business activities I traveled the United Sates extensively. After my wife passed following a five year battle with cancer I lost myself in my work. It was at a business meeting that I met a fellow I will call Heinz.
He was drinking heavily and seemed intent on telling me his 'story'. In a public place I felt I could listen just so long and leave. But he began to tell me a story which chilled me to my core. He told of being in the Hitler Youth Movement as a leader. His Mother was so proud of him for being a leader.
He told of how he and his 'boys' would wreak havoc in Jewish and other 'foreigner neighborhoods". He laughed as he told of the many brutal acts they committed. I did not sleep well that night. The next day he saw me at breakfast and again spoke to me about his early youth. And that was the last (I thought) I would ever see him. However, he turned up at a meeting in Cincinnati and spotted me before I saw him. He latched on to me and again was drunk and as he spoke he drank and the more he drank the more he told me about his evil acts in Hitler’s Youth Movement. What iced the cake for me was the pictures he carried with him of his atrocities.
I learned from observation that he wore contact lenses and they were blue so as to hide his brown eyes. I also learned that his brother had been arrested by the American Army and sentenced to prison after a trial.
I had quite enough of this fellow and I called the offices of the Jewish Defense League. I told them everything I knew about this man. They thanked me for the information. A year or two later I was in the town where he claimed to live.
His business was boarded up, the parking lot vacant and lots of weeds were showing off.
A security guard came by and asked me if he could help. Well not really I was just looking for Heinz as he said he owned this business. Strange thing said the security guard: I worked here for seven years and he was the boss. Then one day some folks came to the office asking for him. He refused to see them and left in a hurry through the back gate. never saw him again after that, the business just died and 23 guys were out of work.
What do you suppose happened ? I asked. Rumor was he was a Nazi War Criminal and the Jews found him and took him away. Others say he went to South Africa as he supposedly had a passport from that country.
Maybe the JDL got him ? Maybe he lives on in Spain?
I don't see anything in this rendition of facts that would rise to the level of evidence in a court of law. In fact, even the Simon Wiesenthal Center doesn't go after small fry (Hitler Youth) for this very reason, no evidence of actual criminality (i.e., murder, etc.). It must make you "feel" good that you condemned a man and the workers at his business to unemployment without a trial or an impartial hearing based on evidence rather than his drunken rantings. This is what happens when vigilantism substitutes for due process: if it wasn't right for the Nazis & their ilk, it isn't right for us either. Remember what happened in the South to blacks because they were black? Lynching. You lynched a man and now you feel so proud!
So you are responsible for 23 guys losing their jobs. I'll bet some had families too. I'm sure you are very proud of yourself.
Trooper and kkor you guys are such fools . Your foolish comments do not deserve a response.
But I wish for you a life of boils, rash and flatulence.
Will future American Citizens ever have the tenacity to hunt down and prosecute every corrupt Politician, each member of greedy Banking families, every Corporate American profiteer, and all the Wall Street manipulators who are responsible for the crimes being perpetrated against the American people today?
The downfall of the American people is being taken with a grain of salt.
Another decade or so ought to fix whoever is left of them!
The legitimate interest of justice has long past. Hunting down and hounding 90 year old men for things they cannot even remember any more is just plain ghoulish. Some people need to learn the value of forgiveness. In the end, it is much more satisfying than mere revenge.
What these people did is unforgivable and there is no amount of time that can pass which will make any former Nazis less guilty of their crimes
Jewish people should learn from the Chinese to forgive and foreget their former tormentors.
Chinese suffered more horrific and gruesomely in the hands of Japanese Imperial Army than the jews under nazi.
Time to move on and not clinch to the old hatred.
You already made that point. Why should the feelings of the Jews be based on the actions of the Chinese?
You have made your point too many times. Isn't it time to forgive, My Lord get over it. Where you there if not shut up already.Doesn't your religion teach you to forgive. Get over the hate already.
If society decides to "forgive and forget" such a deplorable part of history it is bound to repeat it. I don't want another Holocaust, do you? The crimes of the Nazis are unforgivable and must be treated as such.
We just have another holocaust in the middle east, with Palestinians suffering under the brutal treatment of idf thugs.Those idf killlers should also be hunted down like nazi.
If the jews cannt forgive and forget, they are less humane and noble like Chinese who suffered worst than jews. Death by gas was like mercy killing in comparison with decapitaton, bury or skin alive, raped and then have the stomach cut open by bayonets.
I believe that the holocaust happened, and I do not condone it. However, the money is better spent helping people who are suffering at the hands of Israel today. The holocaust perpetrators are very very old and near death. They are no going to hurt anyone anymore. The focus today should be on Israel's murder of Palestine citizens and stopping that. To many innocents have been killed by Israel in the past 50 years.
Who is going to hunt those idf thug killers who murdered innocent Palestinians by the drove.
Palestinians are living in a new halocaust under the brutal treatment of psychopath idf thug killers who learned their deadly trade from their nazi oppressors.
I only have to look a the picture of Efraim Zuroff to tell I would not like this guy. Not that I would like John Demjanjuk any more. Ones old school hard Ex Military and ones a pushy know it all activist who would refuse any view but his own.
This is an organization of people who need some serious mental help.
Soviet dictator Josef Stalin also masterminded his own pogroms which resulted in the deaths of millions of his own countrymen inc. Jews. These facts are often ''brushed aside'' since the former Soviet Union was an ertswhile ally during WW2. Don't think Efraim Zuroff and co would attempt to extradite suspected war criminials from Russia even if there was proof after all these years.
People always have a choice. There is no statute of limitations on war crimes / crimes against humanity / genocide. Military orders are not an excuse to murder innocent people.
If you are a person of integrity and principle, then you are willing to die for those principles rather than commit torture and murder. If you are a coward and succumb to inhuman behavior to save your own hide then you are a criminal.
The millions who died deserve justice. People who run and hide from their evil acts, rather than acknowledging them and expressing remorse, still need to be pursued. I don't care if they are 90 years old.
A war criminal is a war criminal - the age of the person is not the issue.
Only if idf thugs have integrity and principle like your description, then they would not commit murder of innocent Palestinians, including women and children.
What a waste of time and resources. By this mandate the US govt would all be in prison from the native American Indian to present day war crimes. Fuking Jews always wining, one thing or another. Jews will be the demise of themselves.
Whine, whine, whine and whine some more!
Whine, whine, whine and whine some more! All of the jews in the world should move to Israel and stay there.
The gas chambers in Israel is behind the crusifix.
The Israeli winter has begun and Israel is going to reap everything she has sown-death and destruction!
I see the nazis are out in full force today. Hopefully all the people here who think that the German people murdering 6 milion Jews and 5 million Gays, Communists, gypsys etc. in Gas chambers is ok will one day know how the Jewish people feel. Vietnam Vet -- not everyone who served in Nam followed the orders to kill unarmed civilians as you apparently did. Try some more bitrterness TONIE you're failed life is coming through loud and clear. Traylor - so if your family was murdered you'd just say oh well the murderer was old? B.S.
How can AMerica be so Judgemental! Who Are we to judge? Nobody's perfect? I always wondered why Nazis are evil and deserve to be hunted for their hatred and hateful actions against Jews but Muslims aren't! Perhaps Nazis should get the show Naziphobia just like Muslims got Islamophobia! Love your double standard America, Sieg Heil!
They were just doing their jobs? Obviously there are some idiots that post comments on these articles. The SS weren't just doing their job. They were zealots who volunteered to kill millions of unarmed civilians.
so as the idf thugs killing Palestinians.
Holy @!$%#... these people are in there 80's and 90's.. and yes the were doing their jobs. I know... I had family that fought both sides. The Jewish community is on another crusade for what they feel is retribution. They have been given justice. And compensation. DROP IT. And to all of you up there that are agreeing with this... what if that was your grandfather... or great grandfather.... that served his country... whether it was right or wrong... and you have to watch as he is convicted years later of something that he probably didnt even want to do... but just like AMERICA, soldiers are there to follow orders, protect their country, and to do what the government tells them. We support our troops because they defend our freedom... to them thats what they were doing. Im not saying that the holocaust was right because it was wrong.... but if you didnt or dont have a personal relationship with someone who faughts in WW2... then shut up. it doesnt concern you.
The Holocaust should concern everyone. It is a perfect example of power unchecked and should serve as a lesson to the next generation. If you do not learn from the past you will repeat it. Evil might not show itself in the same way, but it will change into a better disguise and try again. Drop it? Apparently you have not studied the Holocaust extensively. The Germans were complicit, they weren't doing something they didn't want to do. I find it disgusting that you would compare American troops to German. That is rediculous. You do not have to have a personal relationship with anyone to understand that this moment in history was one, if not the most dangerous, this country has every faced and why the people of that time were the greatest generation. They fought evil on a global scale and succeeded just by the skin of their teeth. What justice have the Jews been given for this? What do you think they can be given to make up for the Holocaust? What if your entire family was murdered just because? Would you drop it? They should be able to hunt the people that committed these crimes, and the should be brought to justice. There is no statute of limitation on murder. That is the right thing to do.
I agree with you. There is no statute of limitations on murder. You hear that Israel, you are under arrest for murder. Along with the Palestinians, Nazis, Communists,,,,,, oh hell lets just arrest everyone.
Genocide repeats itself and continues to. It isn't funny then and its not funny now.
Exactly. If the approach we take to this is to just "let it go" then what's to stop it from happening again?
Many out there are worried your government is getting ready to put millions of citizens in FEMA camps. How can they do this when all the personnel they would require to do so grow up learning Hitler was pure evil for doing exactly the same thing? How can they do that when they grow up learning that stopping such pure evil is what made America great?
To take the approach that enough time has passed therefore we should just move on is not only ridiculous but incredibly dangerous. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repat it.
I have no doubt that these men and women should be punished, but imagine you work for the Simon Wiesenthal Center...your livilihood is ticking down to extinction. In another five years or so, your whole reason for existence will vanish as the normal life expectancy of these criminals is exceeded. They are desperate. Kind of like GreenPeace or the Sierra club would be if there ceased to be any environmental threats and the whaled made a comeback. This is no doubt a way to fill their coffers one last time by publicizing their last crusade. Never underestimate the power of beaurocratic institution to perpetuate itself, even a private one.