June 27


ISRAEL:

International Seminar on Holocaust Education at Yad Vashem


Dozens of educators are gathering today at Yad Vashem's International
School for Holocaust Studies for its annual Summer Seminar, entitled
"Teaching the Shoah and Anti-Semitism". Thirty-eight participants
from over ten countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom,
Canada, Poland, Ireland, Australia, Italy, South Africa, Lithuania,
Serbia, Croatia and, for the first time, Macedonia will join Yad Vashem
specialists and other lecturers from Israeli universities to learn about
approaches to teaching about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.

The seventeen-day program, sponsored by Asper International Programs in
Holocaust Studies, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against
Germany and Yad Vashem, includes lectures on: "Jews, God and History",
"Reflection on the Phenomenon of Anti-Semitism in the Modern World",
"Using Technology in Teaching the Holocaust", "Holocaust and Art", "The
Vatican and the Shoah - Post-Holocaust Christian Theology", and
"Confronting the Phenomenon of Holocaust Denial". The seminar runs from
June 27-July 13.

(source: Israel National News)




SLOVAKIA:

Tribute to Koice Holocaust victims


RELIGIOUS officials from the Koice Jewish community led a tribute to the
72,000 Slovak Jews who were sent to concentration camps in World War II.

The ceremony took place at the Koice Jewish cemetery on June 19, the TASR
news agency reported.

The deportation of Slovak Jews to Nazi death camps 61 years ago is
regarded as a low point in Slovak history.

"We cannot forget the six million brothers and sisters killed during
WWII," said Pavol Sitr, the chairman of the Koice Jewish Community,
referring to the total number of those killed during the Holocaust.

Anton Konecn, from the Koice Ecumenical Churches Association, represented
Christian religious groups at the event.

Around 15,000 Jews from Koice were deported to Nazi death camps and only
2,000 of them returned home at the end of the war. Currently 410 Jews live
in Koice.

(source: The Slovak Spectator)




AUSTRALIA/HUNGARY:

Mark Aarons: Justice demands that war criminals be tried

June 27, 2005
ALEXANDER Downer has asserted the historical moral superiority of the
Coalition over Labor. He now has an opportunity to demonstrate this and
salvage Australia's honour by dealing openly and expeditiously with the
request for the extradition of alleged Hungarian war criminal Karoly
(Charles) Zentai.

The case against Zentai has become too strong to ignore. The evidence
implicates him in the killing of a Jewish civilian during the Nazi
occupation of Hungary in 1944 and strongly suggests that he took part in
the systematic persecution of Jews.

First, there are the statements made by witnesses at the end of World War
II that place Zentai in a Nazi-controlled Hungarian military unit in 1944.

This was uncovered by Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and
implicates Zentai in the kidnapping, beating and torture of a Jewish man,
Peter Balasz, whose body was thrown into the Danube. Zuroff claims the
evidence was heard in a Hungarian court in 1947 during the trial of
Zentai's two co-accused, but Zentai had by then left Hungary and was saved
from extradition because of US reluctance to send him to face a
communist-controlled court.

Then there is the demolition of Zentai's alibi. Like many accused war
criminals who illegally entered Australia, Zentai claims to have been far
from the crime scene, having left Budapest on November 7, 1944 - the day
before Balasz's murder.









This alibi collapsed when it was shown that in his 1957 application for
Australian citizenship, Zentai had stated that his flight from Budapest
occurred four months later. He was there at the time Balasz was killed. So
it seems 11 witnesses were not mistaken.

Finally, evidence has more recently emerged during The Australian's
investigation that Zentai was involved in the systematic rounding up,
beating and torturing of Jews in Budapest in late 1944. This corroborates
the testimony of Jakob Mermelstein, who made the same claim to The Weekend
Australian in May.

The latest evidence comes from the Hungarian archives of the 1947 trial
and indicates the growing strength of the case against Zentai, including
descriptions of the terrible beatings that Balasz suffered at his hands.

The Hungarian Government lodged an extradition request on March 30, but
there is little sign of action by Justice Minister Chris Ellison. This is
consistent with the malaise that infected governments from Chifley through
the Menzies, Holt, Gorton, McMahon, Whitlam and Fraser years.

It was only in 1986 that Bob Hawke acted to rectify this unhappy state of
affairs and launched investigations that confirmed one of Australia's
worst-kept secrets: hundreds of Nazis made Australia home, which was
widely known in our immigration and intelligence services.

Indeed, this knowledge went all the way to cabinet, yet a blind eye was
turned to the killers who had taken out citizenship. The record shows that
several Nazis were on the payroll of US intelligence before they worked
for the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation.

Hawke's efforts were abandoned in 1991 by the Keating government. Since
1996 the Howard Government has adopted a policy of stonewalling the claims
against a string of men, of whom Zentai is the latest and perhaps last.

The last Nazis are likely to die peacefully in Perth or Melbourne, having
never faced a court. This would be tragic, especially as efforts continue
in countries that also accepted Nazis, especially in Canada and the US.
These nations are still prosecuting war criminals, stripping their
illegally obtained citizenship and throwing them out.

The evidence indicates that monsters from more recent conflicts are also
hiding in Australia, yet very little, if any, effort is expended by the
federal Government in investigating these allegations.

The first step is to determine the extradition request concerning Zentai.
The second is to devote proper resources to investigate charges against
Cambodians, Afghans, Serbs, Croats and Chileans who, like Zentai, stand
accused of crimes against humanity.

Our justice system demands this. Serious crimes have been committed; the
accused live in Australia; we have a legal duty to investigate and, if the
evidence warrants it, to extradite or prosecute the accused.

(source: Opinion, The Australian; Mark Aarons is the author of Sanctuary:
Nazi Fugitives in Australia)