Oct. 2



USA//GEORGIA:

Suspected Nazi War Criminal Found In Metro Atlanta

Nazi hunters have tracked a suspected World War II concentration camp
guard to Lawrenceville.

Members of the Justice Department's elite Nazi tracking force said Paul
Henss, 85, served as a prison guard and attack dog handler at the
notorious Dachau and Buchenwald Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany.

"It is not 100% true, what they charge me," said Henss Monday afternoon.
Henss appeared confused as he tried to answer a barrage of questions from
reporters Monday afternoon.

The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security have asked
an immigration judge in Atlanta to deport Henss.

Officials said Henss entered the United States in 1955 after concealing
his concentration camp service.

The document says Henss admitted on March 13 that he served as an SS guard
at Dachau and Buchenwald for two to three months each as a dog handler.

When asked by a Channel 2 reporter, "Did you see dogs or did you train
dogs to attack prisoners who tried to escape?" Henss paused for a while,
appeared confused and then said, "Sure, we trained them in Berlin."

Paperwork filed by the Criminal Divisions Office of Special Investigations
(OSI) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Henss joined
the Hitler Youth organization in Germany in 1934 as a 12 or 13-year-old
boy and joined the Nazi Party in September 1940.

In early 1941, Henss volunteered to serve in the Waffen SS and became an
SS dog handler in 1942 after serving in the elite Waffen SS combat unit
Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler.

Investigators also said that Henss taught other concentration camp guards
at Dachau and Buchwenwald how to use attack dogs to guard prisoners and
prevent their escape.

Henss himself is also accused of personally guarding prisoners and labor
details with an attack dog.

"When somebody run away, they supposed to catch them," Henss said. He then
said he, "Didn't do anything, the dogs were just trained like that."
Hundreds of thousands of persons were confined under horrific conditions
at Dachau and Buchenwald on the basis of their race, religion, national
origin or political opinion, said Assistant Attorney General Alice S.
Fisher of the Criminal Division in a release.

By commencing these proceedings against a man who participated in the
victimization of those who were interned there, the Justice Department
continues to make good on its pledge to ensure that the United States does
not become a sanctuary for human rights violators.

The SS committed mass murder at Dachau and Buchenwald and subjected
thousands of inmates to slave labor, starvation, grotesque medical
experimentation, and torture, said OSI Director Eli M. Rosenbaum, whose
office investigated the case.

Henss said he didn't know about the mass extermination of Jews and other
prisoners. "This was in 1942, I didn't know nothing about what they were
going to do, especially with the Jews, I didn't know nothing about it,"
Henss told reporters.

The brutal concentration camp system could not have functioned without the
determined efforts of SS men such as Paul Henss, who, with a vicious
attack dog, stood between these victims and the possibility of freedom.

The case against Henss is the first case in Georgia that the Office of
Special Investigation has handled, said Jaclyn Lesch, a spokeswoman for
the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington.

No court date has been set for Henss, she said.

(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)


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USA//NEW YORK:

Appeals Court Extends Time for Suit on Holocaust Insurance Payments


A federal appeals court yesterday extended a long-running dispute over
unpaid life insurance claims brought by victims of the Holocaust and their
families, potentially reopening a case that many thought had been
resolved.

Lawyers for Assicurazioni Generali, an Italian insurance company at the
center of the dispute, interpreted the court's decision as limited. But
the lawyer who brought the appeal said it cleared the way for renewed
arguments about many issues regarding insurance claims and Holocaust
victims.

Those issues, involving hundreds of thousands of policyholders and, by
some estimates, billions of dollars in coverage, are being further revived
this morning in a Congressional hearing in Washington by lawmakers who say
that victims of the Holocaust have been treated unfairly by insurance
companies and social agencies.

The court case seemed closed in February after a federal judge in
Manhattan approved the settlement of a class-action lawsuit against
Generali. More than 20 European insurers had been sued by policyholders
since the late 1990s, but the other cases had been settled or dropped,
leaving only the lawsuit against Generali.

The Generali settlement, which had lingered for nearly 10 years, provided
less money than Holocaust survivors had hoped for and seemed to end any
hope of the survivors ever gaining access to the insurer's Holocaust-era
records. But lawyers for the policyholders said they were throwing in the
towel because they lacked the evidence to win the case.

In approving the agreement, Judge George B. Daniels noted that "the
settlement is not perfect" but added that he thought it might be "the only
real opportunity for any monetary recovery" by the Holocaust victims and
their families.

But in a terse summary order issued yesterday, a three-judge panel of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, said
that Generali and the lawyers for the policyholders had failed to notify
Holocaust-era policyholders adequately about the settlement and thus
denied them an opportunity to object to the terms.

The court ordered Generali and the plaintiffs lawyers to mail notices of
the settlement individually "to all class members whose names are known"
by the insurers within 60 days and scheduled a new hearing on the
fairness of the settlement before Judge Daniels by Jan. 7.

Robert Wexler, the Florida Democrat and chairman of the Europe
subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which is holding the
hearing today, said that since the Holocaust, European insurance companies
have "both inadvertently and purposely sought to minimize their
liability."

More than 870,000 life insurance policies covering Jews were in effect in
Europe at the start of World War II, Mr. Wexler said, and "only 17,000 of
those policies have been paid."

Sam Dubbin, the Miami lawyer who filed the appeal, said Generali had more
than 50,000 names of people who could be notified. But lawyers for
Generali and the policyholders said they did not know how many names of
policyholders the insurer had in its files. It has consistently argued
that many of its records were destroyed.

Lawyers for Generali and policyholders who agreed to the settlement
earlier said they thought wider publicity on the case would not
significantly alter benefits for the Holocaust victims and that by
challenging the settlement, Mr. Dubbin was delaying payment of claims.

But Thane Rosenbaum, a son of Holocaust survivors and a professor at the
Fordham University law school who has also argued against the settlement,
said the ruling and the Congressional hearing could "exert the kind of
pressure - a kind of one-two punch - that will lead, finally, to some
justice for Holocaust survivors as they approach the end of their lives."

Robert A. Swift, a lawyer in Philadelphia who represented policyholders in
the settlement, said he and Generali were convinced that their efforts to
publicize the agreement around the world through newspaper advertisements,
press releases and charitable organizations were "very effective - and the
results tell us it was."

Mr. Swift said more than 20,000 people filed more than 30,000 claims by
the general deadline on March 31. Previously, Generali had agreed to pay
$135 million on 5,500 claims filed since the late 1990s. Generali said in
a statement yesterday that it had paid an additional $40 million through
international organizations.

Mr. Swift and lawyers for Generali said they could not estimate how much
more might be paid in connection with the 30,000 new claims. But they
suggested some of the claims were probably not valid.

"I know a very large number of those claims come from Russia, but we never
did business in Russia," said Marco E. Schnabl, a lawyer in New York for
Generali.

Mr. Schnabl and Mr. Swift said no payments would be made in connection
with the settlement until it was ruled final. "The challenges to the
settlement," Mr. Schnabl said, "have effectively put all of this in
suspension."

(source: New York Times)