Opinion: Why Nazi hunting is still a worthy pursuit
September 24, 2012 -- Updated 1728 GMT (0128 HKT)
Exterior view of Auschwitz complex (file) shows the entrance gates with words "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Makes One Free).
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Zuroff: Age doesn't diminish the crimes of Nazi war criminals
- Germany seeking to prosecute alleged ex-Nazi camp guard living in U.S.
- Zuroff: Every victim of the Nazis deserves an effort to bring them to justice
- Zuroff: Trials of Nazi war criminals are powerful tool in fight against Holocaust denial
Editor's note: Dr. Efraim Zuroff is the chief Nazi-hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Director of its Israel Office. His most recent book is "Operation Last Chance: One Man's Quest to Bring Nazi Criminals to Justice".
(CNN) -- For thirty-two years I have been actively
involved in the ongoing efforts to help bring Nazi war criminals to
justice -- and the most common question I am asked concerns the age of
the perpetrators.
Is it still worthwhile to prosecute elderly Holocaust perpetrators?
Personally, I never
doubted the validity of these efforts, but because the question is
understandable and deserves a serious answer, I want to present the case
for continued prosecution.
Firstly, the passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of those who participated in the Holocaust.
Efraim Zuroff
Had these criminals been
prosecuted decades ago, when they were far younger, the importance of
the effort to bring them to justice would not have been questioned. They
are just as guilty today as the day they committed their crime -- and
they do not deserve a prize for eluding justice for so long.
Second, old age should
not grant protection to murderers. Reaching the age of 85 or 90 does not
turn a mass murderer into a Righteous Gentile. The only issue of
concern is a person's mental and physical health. There is no reason to
ignore someone's crimes simply because they were born in 1915 -- as was
Laszlo Csatary, who at least until recently was still driving his car.
Third, every victim of
the Nazis deserves that an effort be made to find the person(s) who
turned them -- innocent men, women and children -- into victims, simply
because they were classified as "enemies of the Third Reich." Ignoring
any of the perpetrators simply because of age would be a betrayal of
their victims.
The continuing pursuit of
Nazi war criminals sends a powerful message about the importance of
holding genocidists accountable. If we want to prevent future crimes of
the scope of the Holocaust, it has to be crystal-clear that persons who
commit such crimes will almost certainly be caught and punished.
Unfortunately, that has
not been the case for all those who committed Holocaust crimes -- a
reality which made tragedies like Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur
much more possible.
Lastly, the trials of
Nazi war criminals and collaborators are a very powerful tool in the
ongoing fight against Holocaust denial and distortion. They are an
important addition to the existing documentation of the mass murders and
emphasize the necessity of identifying those responsible.
In that respect, the
significance of the Shoa, or the Holocaust, and the reason its lessons
are so crucial for mankind is that it was not an earthquake, tsunami or
volcano, but rather a manmade tragedy carried out by human beings
against their fellow humans.
There are two other
elements that often surface in discussing the continued prosecution of
Nazi war criminals. The first concerns the issue of "superior orders"
and the second relates to the question of regret.
Ever since the Nuremberg
trials, international law -- created in the wake of World War II and
the Holocaust -- has rejected the alibi of superior orders and
emphasized individual criminal responsibility, that every individual is
responsible for his or her deeds, and must bear the consequences, even
if they were ordered to do so by a person with a higher rank.
Thus, Ivan (John)
Demjanjuk for example, was convicted of "accessory to murder" in a
German court in May 2011, for his service as an armed SS guard in the
Sobibor death camp, where he was part of the group which carried out the
murders under the orders of their superiors.
What of the mindset of
the accused? Many people have suggested that since many years have
passed since the crimes were committed, the perpetrators probably regret
their misdeeds, a factor which would ostensibly weaken the rationale
for prosecution.
While there may have
been a few such cases of this, I have never encountered a single
regretful or remorseful one in decades of dealing with dozens of Nazi
murderers of many different nationalities, religions, occupations and
walks of life.
If anything my
experience has taught me just the opposite. Even 50 and 60 years after
the events, and with so much information easily available on the
Holocaust in their countries of origin and/or residence, they remain
proud of the murder of so many innocent Jews and other enemies of the
Third Reich.
The views expressed in this piece are solely those of Dr. Efraim Zuroff.
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