Nazi hunters run against time

BERLIN — Jerusalem-based Nazi hunters, engaged in a race against time to find and prosecute World War II criminals before they die of old age, say they are frustrated that some European governments have not shown the same sense of urgency.

German authorities appear to have given up trying to bring the former Nazis to justice, while Austria has become “a paradise for war criminals,” said Efraim Zuroff, director of the Israel-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.

“In Germany, they are treating these cases as if they have all the time in the world to reach a verdict and that’s simply not the case,” said Mr. Zuroff, who heads the Wiesenthal Center’s Operation Last Chance pursuit of the war criminals, most of whom are now in their 90s.

Austria has the worst record in the hunt for the perpetrators, he said.

“If you compare the number of people involved, the potential for prosecution and what’s been done, Austria is just a total embarrassment.”

Mr. Zuroff was encouraged, however, by the response from South America. Argentina, Brazil and Chile have passed along hundreds of leads since the start of the Operation Last Chance campaign in that region in November, boosting hopes that at least some of the center”s 10 most-wanted can still be brought to trial.

Topping that list is Alois Brunner, who would be 95 if he is alive. Brunner was an assistant to Adolf Eichmann, a key Holocaust architect who was captured by Israeli agents in Argentina and hanged in 1962 after a trial in Israel.

Brunner, accused of deportingmore than 100,000 Jews to death camps, has been living in Syria for decades. He was convicted in absentia in France, but Syria has refused to cooperate in prosecuting him.

Mr. Zuroff said Brunner was last seen at the Meridien Hotel in Damascus six years ago.

Others on the list include Aribert Heim, “Dr. Death,” now 93, an Austrian medical doctor in the SS Nazi police who served in several concentration camps including Mauthausen, Austria, where he is accused of having killed hundreds of inmates.

He was arrested by American troops in 1945 and held for more than 2½ years but never prosecuted. He worked as a gynecologist in Germany until 1962, when he fled after reportedly getting a tip about his impending arrest.

There have been reported sightings of him in Egypt, Spain, Argentina and other locations, and the Wiesenthal Center thinks he is still alive.

The list also includes former Danish SS officer Soren Kam, 86, who lives in Bavaria, and who reportedly helped in the deportation of 500 Danish Jews to concentration camps.

German authorities have turned down an extradition request from the Danish government on suspicion that Kam took part in the murder of Nazi journalist Carl Henrik Clemmensen in Copenhagen in 1943. The Danish Justice Ministry has said it could file new charges in connection with the deportation of Jews.

Operation Last Chance, begun by the center in Europe in 2002, offers financial rewards for information that helps the prosecution of Nazi war criminals.

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