Oct. 3




AUSTRALIA:

Canberra 'failing' in hunt for Nazis


Australia has been slammed for failing to track down and prosecute "at
least several hundred" Nazi war criminals believed to have found refuge
here.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which is dedicated to finding suspected World
War II criminals and helping prosecute them, says Australia has failed to
do enough and needs to take "additional steps, urgently".

"Australia remains the only major Western country of refuge which admitted
at least several hundred Nazi war criminals and collaborators, which has
hereto failed to take successful legal action against a single one," the
centre's director, Efraim Zuroff, says in his annual report analysing the
efforts of governments worldwide.

"Numerous attempts have been made ... to convince the Australian
authorities to adopt civil remedies -- denaturalisation and/or deportation
-- to deal with Holocaust perpetrators in the country, but the Government
has refused to do so."

Australia's position is in contrast to the US, which Dr Zuroff praises for
launching dozens of investigations and managing to secure three
prosecutions in the past 12 months.

Federal Justice Minister Chris Ellison signed an extradition request in
July after the Simon Wiesenthal Centre tracked down Perth pensioner
Charles Zentai, who stands accused of murdering a Jewish teenager while in
the Hungarian army in Budapest in 1944.

Mr Zentai, who suffers poor health and is appealing against the
extradition, was arrested just days after Senator Ellison agreed to the
extradition request from Hungary. While Mr Zentai denies any wrongdoing,
the Wiesenthal Centre names the 83-year-old as one of the world's top 10
most-wanted Nazi war criminals.

Among the other most-wanted for war crimes during World War II is the
infamous Alois Brunner, a key operative of Adolf Eichmann, who has found
refuge in Syria.

Dr Zuroff says Canberra's poor record in chasing Nazis who fled to
Australia at the end of the war was exacerbated by the decision to shut
down the special war crimes unit set up under the previous government.

"It is therefore extremely unlikely that they will be able to obtain any
convictions while they continue to insist on prosecuting these suspects on
criminal charges," he says.

"This is particularly true in Australia, where all witnesses in such cases
must appear in person, a factor which would make a successful prosecution
next to impossible, given the country's geographical distance from the
scene of the crimes committed."

Aside from Mr Zentai, the Wiesenthal Centre earlier this year also tracked
down another Australian pensioner suspected of connections to the Nazis:
Hungarian-born Melbourne man Lajos Polgar.

(source: The Nation)






AUSTRIA:

New center for Holocaust studies to carry on Wiesenthal's legacy in Vienna


Several groups plan to open a center for Holocaust studies in Vienna to
carry on the legacy of Austrian Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, who died
last week, an official of a Jewish group said Tuesday.

The Vienna Wisenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, expected to be fully
operating by 2008, will bring guest researchers to the Austrian capital
for projects related to the Holocaust and other cases of genocide, said
Ingo Zechner, an official with the Jewish Community in Vienna, one of the
groups behind the project.

The center also will be hold the archive of documents Wiesenthal gathered
during his decades of work to track down Nazi war criminals.

"Wiesenthal didn't want his archives to only be stored somewhere, but that
they be used in research and that they be used for information efforts. He
wanted his documents to be available to the public so that future
generations can benefit from them," Zechner said.

Wiesenthal, who died a week ago at age 96 in his Vienna home, helped find
hundreds of war criminals, including one-time SS leader Adolf Eichmann,
who organized the killing of millions of Jews.

The center will be housed in a downtown Vienna building owned by the
Jewish Community and will contribute to efforts to make the capital a
center for Holocaust research, Zechner said. It also will train teachers
in Holocaust education and organize public events such as exhibits to
raise awareness.

The city of Vienna has promised to support the center financially, and the
government of Austria has said it will make a decision on state financial
support in November, Zechner said.

Groups such as the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance and the
Vienna University's Institute for Contemporary History are involved in
creating the new center.

Anton Pelinka, dean of the center, said it was a "sad coincidence" that
talks with officials began the same week Wiesenthal died.

"The meetings had been set for weeks," he said in a statement.

(source: Associated Press)