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Thread ID: 14534 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2004-07-14
2004-07-14 21:56 | User Profile
[url]http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=450972&contrassID=1&subContrassID=9&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y[/url]
Last Update: 13/07/2004 21:15
Nazi hunters start last ditch search in Hungary
By Reuters
BUDAPEST - A group founded by Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal launched a last-ditch search for Holocaust war criminals in Hungary on Tuesday.
The "Operation: Last Chance" campaign will run a telephone hotline and offer $12,370 for information leading to the capture of Hungarian war criminals.
"The urgency of the project is obvious, time is rapidly running out," Ephraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told a news conference.
"The passage of time does not make guilty people innocent," he said.
Nazi troops occupied Hungary in March 1944 and within three months almost half a million Jews were sent to concentration camps, with the collaboration of local authorities.
There are now fewer than 100,000 Jews living in Hungary, compared with more than 800,000 before World War Two, when the country had the region's largest Jewish community after Poland.
The organization is running similar campaigns in the Baltics, Poland, Austria, Croatia, and Romania and plans to extend its search to Argentina, Germany and Ukraine later this year. So far 296 suspects' names have been submitted.
The organization has tracked down more than 1,000 Nazi war criminals and played a role in the capture of one of Adolf Hitler's henchmen, Adolf Eichmann.
But its "Last Chance" campaign had raised concerns from Hungarian Holocaust experts.
Maria Schmidt, historian and director of Budapest's House of Terror Museum - opened in memory of victims of the Hungarian Nazi and communist dictatorships - told Reuters the campaign looked controversial.
"It is doubtful what kind of result this campaign could bring, whether they will find anyone who is still alive and even if they do whether there'll be evidence to prove what they've done, after so many decades," Schmidt said.
She said almost 200 war criminals had been executed after World War Two, and many more imprisoned.
"It would be much better if all this money would be used to thank those who saved lives, who helped hide Jews...it would serve the future better," she said.
2004-07-15 00:26 | User Profile
Maria Schmidt, historian and director of Budapest's House of Terror Museum - opened in memory of victims of the Hungarian Nazi and communist dictatorships - told Reuters the campaign looked controversial.
If they're going to punish the agents of defunct regimes, there's another group of suspects at hand.
[url=http://www.jewishsf.com/bk020809/i42.shtml]New 'House of Terror' raises fears for Hungary's Jews[/url]
2004-07-26 23:28 | User Profile
[url=http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=456317&contrassID=1&subContrassID=9&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y]Nazi hunt coordinator in Hungary resigns[/url]