Simon Wiesenthal Center's Tenth Annual Report on the Investigation and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals

May 3, 2011

Wiesenthal Center Annual Report Points to Lack of Political Will and Holocaust Distortion as Major Obstacles to Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals; Praises Hungary for Indictment of Dr. Sandor Kepiro; Three New Names on Center’s “Most Wanted” List

Jerusalem - The Simon Wiesenthal Center today released the initial findings of its tenth Annual Status Report on the Worldwide Investigation and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals, which covers the period from April 1, 2010 until March 31, 2011 and awarded grades ranging from A (highest) to F to evaluate the efforts and results achieved by more than three dozen countries which were either the site of Nazi crimes or admitted Holocaust perpetrators after World War II.

Among the report’s highlights are the following important developments:

1. The lack of political will to bring Nazis war criminals to justice and/or to punish them continues to be the major obstacle to achieving justice, particularly in post-Communist Eastern Europe. The campaign led by the Baltic countries to distort the history of the Holocaust and obtain official recognition that the crimes of Communist are equal to those of the Nazis is another major obstacle to the prosecution of those responsible for the crimes of the Shoa.

2. The most important positive result in a specific case during the period under review has been Hungary’s decision to bring to justice Dr. Sandor Kepiro, one of the officers who organized the mass murder of at least 1,250 of civilians in Novi Sad, Serbia on January 23, 1942. Kepiro, who in 1944 in Hungary was convicted but never punished for the crime, escaped to Argentina after the war but was exposed by the Wiesenthal Center living in Budapest in the summer of 2006. He was indicted for war crimes on February 14, 2011 and his trial will begin this week on Thursday, May 5 in Budapest.

3. Three new names appear on this year’s list of “Most Wanted” Nazi war criminals, - Gerhard Sommer (Germany), Adam Nagorny (Germany) and Ivan Kalymon (USA) - replacing Samuel Kunz (#3), Adolf Storms (#4), and Peter Egner(#8), all of whom died during the period under review.

The author of the report, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, who coordinates the Center’s research on Nazi war criminals worldwide, noted that the statistics in the report clearly show that a significant measure of justice can still be achieved against Nazi war criminals. “During the past decade, at least eighty-nine convictions against Nazi war criminals have been obtained, at least seventy-nine new indictments have been filed, and close to three thousand new investigations have been initiated. Despite the somewhat prevalent assumption that it is too late to bring Nazi murderers to justice, the figures clearly prove otherwise, and it is clear that at least several such criminals will to be brought to trial during the coming years. While it is generally assumed that it is the age of the suspects that is the biggest obstacle to prosecution, in many cases it is the lack of political will, more than anything else, that has hindered the efforts to bring Holocaust perpetrators to justice, along with the mistaken notion that it was impossible at this point to locate, identify, and convict these criminals. The success achieved by dedicated prosecution agencies, especially in the United States, should be a catalyst for governments all over the world to make a serious effort to maximize justice while it can still be obtained.”

Zuroff went on to explain that the Report’s purpose was to focus public attention on the issue and thereby “encourage all the governments involved to maximize their efforts to ensure that as many as possible of the unprosecuted Holocaust perpetrators will be held accountable for their crimes. In that respect, we seek to highlight both the positive results achieved during the period under review by countries such as the United States and Hungary, as well as the failures of countries like Austria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the Ukraine which have consistently failed to hold any Holocaust perpetrators accountable, as well as Sweden and Norway which in principle refuses to investigate, let alone prosecute (due to a statue of limitations), and others who have either chosen to ignore the issue (Syria) or which have consistently failed to deal with it effectively primarily due to a lack of the requisite political will.”

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INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION REPORT CARD

As part of this year’s annual status report, we have given grades ranging from A (highest) to F which reflect the Wiesenthal Center’s evaluation of the efforts and results achieved by various countries during the period under review.

The grades granted are categorized as follows:

Category A: Highly Successful Investigation and Prosecution Program
Those countries, which have adopted a proactive stance on the issue, have taken all reasonable measures to identify the potential suspected Nazi war criminals in the country in order to maximize investigation and prosecution and have achieved notable results during the period under review.

Category B: Ongoing Investigation and Prosecution Program Which Has Achieved Practical Success
Those countries which have taken the necessary measures to enable the proper investigation and prosecution of Nazi war criminals and have registered at least one conviction and/or filed one indictment, or submitted an extradition request during the period under review.

Category C: Minimal Success That Could Have Been Greater, Additional Steps Urgently Required
Those countries which have failed to obtain any convictions or indictments during the period under review but have either advanced ongoing cases currently in litigation or have opened new investigations, which have serious potential for prosecution.

Category D: Insufficient and/or Unsuccessful Efforts
Those countries which have ostensibly made at least a minimal effort to investigate Nazi war criminals but which failed to achieve any practical results during the period under review. In many cases these countries have stopped or reduced their efforts to deal with this issue long before they could have and could achieve important results if they were to change their policy.

Category E: No known suspects
Those countries in which there are no known suspects and no practical steps have been taken to uncover new cases.

Category F-1: Failure in principle
Those countries which refuse in principle to investigate, let alone prosecute, suspected Nazi war criminals because of legal (statute of limitation) or ideological restrictions.

Category F-2: Failure in practice
Those countries in which there are no legal obstacles to the investigation and prosecution of suspected Nazi war criminals, but whose efforts (or lack thereof) have resulted in complete failure during the period under review, primarily due to the absence of political will to proceed and/or a lack of the requisite resources and/or expertise.

Category X: Failure to submit pertinent data
Those countries which did not respond to the questionnaire, but clearly did not take any action whatsoever to investigate suspected Nazi war criminals during the period under review.

A: United States

B:, Germany, Hungary, Italy,* Serbia

C: Australia, Netherlands, Poland

D: Croatia*, Denmark, Great Britain

E: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Costa Rica, Finland, Greece, New Zealand, Romania, Slovenia

F-1: Norway, Sweden, Syria

F-2: Austria, Canada, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine

X: Argentina, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, France, Luxemburg, Paraguay, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Uruguay

* tentative grade pending receipt of official statistics