April 16



GERMANY:

GERMANY'S LAST NAZI WAR CRIMES TRIAL?----86-Year-Old SS Killer Faces
Murder Charges

In what may lead to Germany's last Nazi war crimes trial, a state
prosecutor in the city of Dortmund plans to indict a former member of
Hitler's SS for murdering three unarmed Dutch civilians in 1944. But the
defendant, 86-year-old Heinrich Boere, may escape prosecution yet again.


As Nazi war criminals get older, the likelihood of prosecuting any more
of them for crimes committed during World War II are slim.

A German public prosecutor is preparing to file charges this week against
an 86-year-old former SS soldier accused of killing three people in the
Netherlands in 1944. If the case comes to trial it could be the last war
crimes trial to take place in Germany.

Heinrich Boere shot dead three unarmed Dutch civilians between July and
September 1944 when he was part of an SS hit squad that killed dozens of
people in reprisals for attacks on Dutch Nazis by resistance fighters.

He confessed to the killings after he was captured by US forces at the end
of World War II but he escaped from his prison camp and fled to Germany
before he could be put on trial.

A Dutch court sentenced him to death in absentia in 1949 but legal
loopholes, extradition hurdles and disagreement over the nature of his
crimes enabled him to escape justice to this day.

Now Boere, born of a Dutch father and a German mother, may become the last
person to be put on trial in Germany for Nazi war crimes.

Ulrich Maass, senior state prosector in the Dortmund public prosecutor's
office, told SPIEGEL ONLINE that he would file the charges with a German
court this week, beginning legal proceedings that could lead to a trial.
"It will take some time," possibly months, Maass said, because a court
will need to determine whether Boere at 86 is still fit to stand trial.

"I interviewed him on March 11 and it's my impression that nothing stands
in the way of this coming to trial, although my opinion isn't relevant
here, the decision will depend on the testimony of other people such as
medical experts," said Maass.

"I can't take any account of his age," said Maass, who specializes in
hunting Nazi war criminals. "There is no statue of limitations for murder.
According to my interpretation of the law I will continue to pursue any
case that is unatoned."

Boere's lawyer has so far not made any claim that his client is unfit to
stand trial, although he may yet do so, Maass said.

Never Too Old to Face Justice

Last year authorities in Germany failed to obtain any convictions or file
any indictments of war criminals, prompting criticism from the director of
the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, Efraim Zuroff.

The argument that Nazi war criminals are now too old to stand trial isn't
acceptable, Zuroff, whose campaign "Operation Last Chance" aims to bring
surviving perpetrators to justice, told SPIEGEL ONLINE in an interview in
January.

"The passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the perpetrator. If
we were to set a chronological limit on prosecution we would be saying
that you could get away with genocide, which is morally outrageous," said
Zuroff.

He launched his campaign in Europe in 2002 and extended it last year to
South America, where many Nazis fled after the war.

Operation Last Chance started targeting the hundreds if not thousands of
surviving lower-level officials, guards and soldiers who committed war
crimes.

Such people are more likely still to be alive than the higher-ranking
Nazis who have never been brought to justice such as Austrian SS medic
Aribert Heim, also known as Doctor Death, who would now be 93 and who
conducted gruesome medical experiments on concentration camp inmates.

'I Pray for the Dead'

Maass said Boere took part in an SS operation codenamed "Silbertanne" or
"Silver Pine" which killed 54 civilians in retaliation for the killing of
prominent Dutch Nazis by Dutch resistance fighters.

"They were citizens who had a certain standing in civilian life, who were
opposed to the German occupation and who were suspected of being part of
the resistance," said Maass.

Dutch-born Boere, who now lives in an apartment complex for retired people
in the western town of Eschweiler, could not be reached for comment on
Monday. He told SPIEGEL ONLINE last August: "I'm not interested in what
happened back then. I'm alone, don't have much longer to live and am just
waiting to die."

He joined the Waffen-SS, the elite military arm of Hitler's murderous SS
organization, in 1940 and served on the Eastern Front for two years before
returning to occupied Holland to join the 15-strong hit squad "Special
Command Feldmeijer" in 1942.

His job was to help eradicate the Dutch resistance by shooting civilians
deemed to be sympathetic to it. "We didn't know the men," Boere told
SPEGEL ONLINE last August. "The security service of the SS gave us the
name and off we went."

According to Dutch and German court documents, he and a companion shot
dead a pharmacist, a bicycle dealer and another civilian.

In the case of the pharmacist Fritz Bicknese, Boere and a companion --
both dressed in civilian clothes -- walked into his drugstore in the town
of Breda on July 14, 1944, asked him his name and then opened fire.
Bicknese bled to death on the floor.

Boere admits that he was a "fanatic" at the time. "I'm sorry about what
happened in 1944. I pray for the dead every night and for everyone who
died in the war." He said he only realized after the war that he had
believed in "total nonsense."

Protected by Law

Boere worked as a miner in Germany after the war and has repeatedly
managed to avoid jail.

A Dutch court applied for his extradition in 1980 but the request was
denied because of uncertainty about whether he had acquired German
citizenship by joining the SS. German law prohibits German citizens from
being extradited.

At the same time an investigation into him by German prosecutors collapsed
because wartime reprisal operations such as his were deemed to be in line
with international rules of engagement.

But legal proceedings against him continued and a German court in Aachen
ruled that he should serve his original Dutch sentence -- now commuted to
a life term -- in a German prison.

However, a higher court last year accepted Boere's appeal against the
ruling because he had not been allocated a defense lawyer in the 1949
trial, rendering the verdict null and void because the trial had not met
international standards.

Now prosecutor Maass believes he has enough evidence to bring Boere to
trial again. "I have one witness, all the others are dead."

He added that Boere's case might not be the last. "We'll probably still
file indictments in one case or another."

(source: Der Spiegel)

********************

German prosecutor charges 'hitman' over Nazi-era killings

Elderly man is charged in Germany with three Nazi-era murders

Accused was member of Waffen SS death squad that killed Dutch civilians

Dutch authorities had tried to have accused extradited in the past


An 86-year-old man who acted as a hitman for a Nazi death squad that
executed Dutch civilians during World War II has been charged with three
counts of murder, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Heinrich Boere, a member of a Waffen SS death squad, is accused of
murdering Dutch civilians during WWII.

Dortmund prosecutor Ulrich Maass told The Associated Press he had charged
Heinrich Boere with the 1944 murders of three men as a member of the
Waffen SS death squad code-named Silbertanne, or Silver Pine.

The AP was first to report last month that Maass had quietly reopened the
case against Boere in a last attempt to bring him to justice.

Boere was convicted of the same three murders in the Netherlands in 1949
and sentenced to death -- later commuted to life imprisonment -- but has
managed to escape jail so far.

The son of a Dutch man and German woman, Boere was 18 when he joined the
Waffen SS -- the fanatical paramilitary organization faithful to Hitler's
ideology -- at the end of 1940, only months after his country had fallen
to the Nazi blitzkrieg.

After taking part in the invasion of the Soviet Union, he ended up back in
the Netherlands as part of Silbertanne, a Waffen SS death squad composed
mostly of Dutch volunteers tasked with killing fellow countrymen in
reprisal for attacks by the anti-Nazi resistance.

The unit is suspected of 54 killings, and Boere has admitted to taking
part in three, according to Dutch court documents.

Boere detailed the killings in statements to Dutch police preserved in the
court file.

The first was in July 1944, a pharmacist named Fritz Hubert Ernst
Bicknese.

The next two came that September: first bicycle-shop owner Teun de Groot
then, later the same day, a man named F.W. Kusters, about whom the files
say little.

Reflecting on that day, Boere told the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad in
2007 that "it was another time, with different rules."

He recalled ringing de Groot's doorbell and asking him for his papers.

"When we knew for sure we had the right person, we shot him dead, at the
door," he said. "I didn't feel anything, it was work. Orders were orders,
otherwise it would have meant my skin. Later it began to bother me, now
I'm sorry."

The murder charges were filed Tuesday with the state court in Aachen, a
city in western Germany on the Netherlands border, Maass said.

It was not immediately clear when Boere would be brought to trial, and his
attorney, Gordon Christiansen, said he would remain living at his old-age
home in Eschweiler, near Aachen, while the process was under way.

Christiansen would not comment on the charges, saying he had not yet seen
the official documents.

But he said that one of his first actions would be to file a motion with
the court to determine whether Boere was fit to stand trial.

"I'm no doctor, I can't say myself," Christiansen told the AP. "It also
depends on how long it takes for this process to begin; one must see."

The Netherlands, where he was convicted in 1949, has sought Boere's
extradition but a German court in 1983 refused on the ground that he might
have German citizenship, and Germany at the time had no provision to
extradite its nationals.

A state court in Aachen ruled in 2007 that Boere could legally serve his
sentence in Germany but an appeals court in Cologne overturned the ruling
months later, saying the 1949 conviction was invalid because Boere was
unable to present a defense.

It was after that ruling Maass quietly reopened the case, effectively
beginning from scratch to bring the case back to court for trial.

Boere is among more than 1,000 cases worldwide which the Nazi-tracking
Simon Wiesenthal Center says were still open as of April 1, 2007.

(source: CNN)



**************

GERMANY:

SCHINDLER AUTOGRAPH UP FOR AUCTION

The last remaining autographed photo of holocaust hero OSKAR SCHINDLER is
to be sold at auction.

The German industrialist, made famous in Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning
Schindler's List, was responsible for saving 1,400 Jews from death during
World War II.

Schindler signed the photo in 1949 before giving it to a family he had
taken in during the war. It currently belongs to Sholamit Vesengred, the
son of two Holocaust survivors, who hopes to attract bids of up to
$150,000 (GBP75,000) when the picture goes under the hammer later this
year (08).

And he has revealed he plans to get in contact with actor Liam Neeson -
who played Schindler in the 1993 film - in the hope he'll join bidders and
bump up the price.

(source: ContactMusic)








BELARUS:

Belarusian Jews want Holocaust day


Belarusian Jews have been rebuffed in efforts to establish a national
Holocaust day.

Jewish organizations have approached government agencies with the idea of
establishing a day of memory for Belarusian Jews who perished in the
Holocaust, said Leonid Levin, the head of the Union of Belarusian Jewish
Public Associations and Communities.

"Officials tell us that there is no need for a national day of memory
because there are several international Holocaust days," Levin said. "But
we are sure that a special day in Belarus is necessary because the tragedy
of the Belarusian Jews was really great."

Approximately 800,000 Jews perished in Belarus during World War II.

Levin noted that this year marks the 65th anniversary of the annihilation
of the Minsk ghetto.

"The Belarusian Holocaust day could be established on Oct. 21-23, when the
ghetto was annihilated," he told JTA.

Levin said a memorial day would help to provide more information about the
Holocaust in Belarus.

"We need a national Holocaust day," he said, "because people in Belarus
and other countries don't know much about the tragedy that happened here."

(source: JTA)




HUNGARY:

Nazi-hunter slams Hungary as it remembers Holocaust victims

In Budapest, a prominent Nazi-hunter slammed Hungary Wednesday for failing
to prosecute a suspected war criminal on the day the Central European
nation commemorated the victims of the Holocaust. "It is much easier to
have a commemoration ceremony than put a Hungarian who was involved in the
crimes on trial," Ephraim Zuroff, director of the Wiesenthal Centre's
Jerusalem office, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Zuroff is furious that Hungary has not prosecuted Sandor Kepiro, 94, who
is one of the leading suspects targeted in the Wiesenthal Centre's drive
to find and prosecute criminals from World War II before they die.

The centre in 2006 uncovered a judgement against Kepiro for his role in
the massacre of over 1,000 Jews and Serbs in Novi Sad, Serbia in January
1942.

Kepiro, who maintains his innocence, was sentenced to 10 years for the
crime in 1944, but fled to Argentina when the Nazi-aligned Arrow Cross
Party gained power and freed him.

Post-war authorities sentenced him to 14 years in absentia in 1946. He
finally returned to Hungary in 1996 and now lives in Budapest.

However, a Hungarian court last year ruled the sentence cannot be carried
out and prosecutors have dragged their feet on beginning new proceedings.

"They should put him on trial and throw him in jail. I think there is
enough evidence," Zuroff said.

The criticism came as Hungary was set to remember the victims of the
Holocaust on the 64th anniversary of the day fascist forces began to
imprison Hungarian Jews in ghettos.

Politicians and civil leaders were expected to take part in a torch-lit
march from Budapest's downtown Dohany Synagogue - which sits at the edge
of the former ghetto - to a memorial on the River Danube, where many Jews
were shot and thrown into the water.

Candles were also expected to be lit at a memorial concert outside the
Terror House museum, which is dedicated to the victims of fascist and
communist repression.

Zuroff said that while he was happy that a commemoration was being held,
more should be done by Hungary and other regional nations.

"There is no question that there are problems with the manner in which
Hungary is facing its past, as there are with every post-communist country
in Eastern Europe," Zuroff said.

"There are many of examples of things that should be done -
commemorations, putting killers on trial, education, acknowledging the
guilt. Some of those tasks are easier than other," he added.

Jewish groups in Hungary are currently worried about what they see as
rising anti-Semitism - particularly the formation of the Hungarian Guard,
the uniformed wing of extreme-right party Jobbik.

The guard wears black uniforms Jewish groups say resemble those worn by
World War II fascists and has chosen as its coat of arms a variation of
the medieval flag associated with the Arrow Cross Party.

Over 400,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to death camps or killed locally
during World War II. Much of the butchery was carried out under the
direction of the Arrow Cross Party.

(source: The Earth Times)




USA//KENTUCKY:

Kentucky legislators pass Holocaust resolution----State would offer
materials


The General Assembly yesterday approved a resolution calling for expanded
opportunities for Kentucky public schoolchildren to learn about the
Holocaust and other acts of genocide.

House Joint Resolution 6 is named after the late Ernie Marx of Louisville,
a Holocaust survivor who made a life's mission to spread education about
the horrors he witnessed.

It passed the Senate on a voice vote and the House by a vote of 83-12. It
now goes to Gov. Steve Beshear.

The resolution would direct the Department of Education to make curriculum
materials available for optional use in public schools by March 2009.

The material would be part of the Kentucky Program of Studies, which has
state approval but is not required.

The resolution reflects four years of efforts by middle-school students at
St. Francis of Assisi School in Louisville, where Fred Whitaker offers
instruction on the Holocaust and takes students to the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum in Washington.

He said the pupils began lobbying for legislation that would give students
in public schools access to opportunities to study the Holocaust, in which
6 million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.

"These middle school students really knew something we should all know,"
Whitaker said. "They really knew there was something powerful that
(happens) to anyone when they study the Holocaust and genocide."

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, D-Louisville, said she's
"thrilled for the eighth-graders at St. Francis."

The Senate deleted a clause in the House version that cited other people
the Nazis deemed "undesirable" because of their "race, nationality,
ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, religion, and political
ideology."

Whitaker said he received indications earlier in the session that the
reference to sexual orientation was a "red flag" that could have
endangered the bill.

But Senate Majority Leader Dan Kelly, R-Springfield, said in an interview
that was never an issue for Senate leadership.

He said he had no problem with curricula discussing homosexual victims of
the Holocaust as long as it's "age-appropriate."

Whitaker said that, even without the language on other victims of the
Nazis, "you can't study the Holocaust and not also come across pink
triangles," the insignia that homosexual prisoners were forced to wear.

The Holocaust museum says the Nazis arrested about 100,000 men as
homosexuals and that an unknown number died amid brutal conditions.

Marzian said she could accept the Senate changes.

"You have to compromise in legislation," she said.

Whitaker said he regretted that Marx, who died last year at age 81, didn't
live to see passage of the bill.

"This was something he was excited about and hoped he would live to see,"
Whitaker said.

Upon his death last year, Marx was hailed as the local "face of the
Holocaust" for his many talks on the subject.

When he was 13, just days from his bar mitzvah, the Nazis burned his
synagogue during an infamous night of pogroms in 1938 known as
Kristallnacht.

Marx was twice detained in concentration camps and later was sheltered by
a French priest. He then joined the French resistance and eventually came
to America.

In his retirement, he led at least 77 student groups in visits to the
Holocaust museum.

(source: Louisville Courier-Journal)

**************


USA//WASH., DC:

The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936 Exhibition Opens at U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum on April 25



The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum today announced the April 25
opening of a special exhibition, The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936.

"Holocaust history offers a useful perspective for understanding the
questions and challenges we face today," says Museum Director Sara J.
Bloomfield. "This exhibition provides a fascinating backdrop to the
contemporary Games."

The 1936 Olympic Games were awarded to Berlin prior to Adolf Hitler's rise
to power in 1933. Hitler originally eschewed the idea of hosting the
Games, but soon realized that they could be exploited for propaganda
purposes.

"Nazi Germany wanted to show the world that it was ready to re-join the
community of nations after its defeat in World War I," says exhibition
curator Susan Bachrach. "Hosting the Olympics presented the Nazi
leadership with an extraordinary opportunity to project the illusion of a
peaceful, tolerant Germany under the guise of the Games' spirit of
international cooperation. That effort was largely successful, and the
relatively young regime scored a major propaganda victory."

However, as the world watched Nazi Germany's re-militarization, extreme
nationalism, rampant racism, and persecution of Jews, Roma, Sinti,
political opponents and others, many expressed doubts about the
appropriateness of holding the Games in Berlin. A widespread and
passionate debate arose, especially in the United States, about boycotting
the Games centering on the interplay between sports and politics.
Ultimately, 49 teams from around the world competed.

The exhibition, which debuted at the Museum in 1996 in conjunction with
the opening of the Atlanta Games, is now returning to Washington, D.C.,
following a 10-year national tour to 16 cities. Many artifacts have been
added including an original torch from the 1936 torch run, and Gold medals
won by Jesse Owens, John Woodruff and Ralph Metcalfe. A Chinese-language
version of the exhibition is scheduled to be featured on the Museum's web
site, www.ushmm.org, in April, with Arabic and Spanish translations to
follow shortly.

Topics in the exhibition include:

-- The U.S. boycott debate, especially as it played out within the sports,
Jewish and African-American communities.

-- The first torch run in the modern Olympic Games. The Nazis resurrected
the idea of a run, originally conceived for the 1916 Berlin Games which
were cancelled because of World War I.

-- Nazi Germany's banning of Jewish members from competing on Germany's
Olympic team, including Gretel Bergmann (now Margaret Lambert), a
world-class German-Jewish track athlete.

-- The historic success of many of the 18 African-American athletes (three
times the number that competed in 1932 in Los Angeles) including Jesse
Owens, Ralph Metcalfe, and Mack Robinson (Jackie Robinson's brother).

-- The Nazification of German sport, the exclusion of Jews from all
sporting clubs, and the use of athletics to militarize German youth and
prepare them for war.

The exhibition concludes by examining the fates of Olympic athletes from
the 1936 and previous Games who were caught up in the events of World War
II and the Holocaust.

The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936 opens at the Museum on Friday, April 25 and
runs through August 17, 2008 in the Kimmel-Rowan Gallery. No passes are
needed. The Museum is open from 10:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. seven days a week,
with extended hours until 6:30 p.m., Monday-Friday through June 17.

A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum strives to inspire leaders and citizens to confront hatred, prevent
genocide, promote human dignity and strengthen democracy. Federal support
guarantees the Museum's permanence, and donors nationwide make possible
its educational activities and global outreach. For more information,
visit www.ushmm.org.

(source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)




CZECH REPUBLIC:

Bronze plaques stolen from Terezin

Hundreds of bronze plaques were stolen from the cemetery at the former
Terezin concentration camp.

Officials from the Terezin memorial and museum said last week's theft of
327 plaques containing the names of Holocaust victims had more to do with
the bronze rather than any political statements.

The officials added that security at the site north of Prague is lacking
because of financial problems. Restoring the plaques with a cheaper resin
material to discourage thieves would cost $64,000, they said.

Some 35,000 people died at Terezin between 1941 and 1945. More than
150,000 passed through the camp during that time. Some were sent on to
Nazi camps in the east, particularly Auschwitz, where nearly all perished.

(source: JTA)







AUSTRALIA/CROATIA:

Melbourne eatery hails leader of Nazi-allied Croatia


Melbourne's Katarina Zrinski restaurant held a celebration this past
weekend to honor World War II Croatian leader Ante Pavelic, whose
genocidal policies led to the deaths of 400,000 Serbs, Jews and Gypsies.

The restaurant is attached to the local Croatian club.

The event honoring the head of the Croatian fascist Ustasha movement and
the leader of Nazi-allied Croatia was an "outrageous affront" both to his
victims and to any persons of morality and conscience who oppose racism
and genocide, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi-hunter and Israel
director Dr. Efraim Zuroff said on Wednesday.

According to local press reports, a large photograph of Pavelic was hung
in the restaurant, T-shirts with his picture and that of two other
commanders in the 1941-1945 Ustasha government were offered for sale at
the bar, and the establishment of the "Independent State of Croatia" was
celebrated.

Zuroff noted this was not the first time that Croatian migrs in Australia
had openly defended Croatian Nazi war criminals.

"It is high time that the authorities in Australia find a way to take the
necessary measures to stop such celebrations, which clearly constitute
racist, ethnic, and anti-Semitic incitement against Serbs, Jews, and
Gypsies," he said.

About 30,000 Croatian Jews - or 80 percent of the country's Jewish
population - died during the Holocaust.

(source: Jerusalem Post)





ITALY:

Nazi hunt: Italians do it better


Italy and the United States are the two most successful countries in
bringing former Nazi war criminals to justice or managing to
at least convict them in absentia.

The praising report comes from the Jerusalem office of the Simon
Wiesenthal Centre (SWC), the international Jewish human rights
organization dedicated to "repairing the world," a task that includes
confronting anti-Semitism, hate, and terrorism, but also chasing Nazi war
criminals.

In a conversation with EJP, Efraim Zuroff, the SWC Jerusalem coordinator,
recited by heart the latest data concerning Italy: "Between 2005 and 2006,
Italy convicted six Nazi criminals in absentia. Then between April 2006
and March 2007, the Italian justice convicted 14 Germans and one Austrian
man. Overall, Italy issued 21 judgments in absentia."

In the last weeks, the medias attention focused on the Italian justice
against a former SS, corporal Michael Seifert, extradited by Canada to
Italy, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment in his absence.

From June 1944 to April 1945, Seifert served as commander of the
concentration camp of Bolzano, an Italian town close to the Austrian
border. Seifert, who had been living in Canada since 1951, was found
guilty of 11 murders by the military tribunal in Verona in 2000, and the
life sentence was confirmed in October 2002.

Better than Italy are only the United States, who get a full "A" for their
"Highly Successful Investigation and Prosecution Program," granted to the
countries that have adopted a proactive stance on the issue.

Less brilliant a grade, "C", was given to Denmark, Serbia and Hungary
("Minimal Success That Could Have Been Greater, Additional Steps Urgently
Required").

The SWC then gave France and Romania a "D" ("Insufficient and/or
Unsuccessful Efforts"), highlighting that Paris and Bucharest "could
achieve important results if they were to change their policy."

Bosnia, Finland, Russia, Slovakia and Uruguay only scored an "E" and are
described as "countries in which there are no known suspects and no
practical steps have been taken to uncover new cases."

Following are Norway, Sweden, Syria, F1 countries that, according to the
SWC, "refuse in principle to investigate, let alone prosecute, suspected
Nazi war criminals because of legal (statute of limitation) or ideological
restrictions."

The report then lists the F2 countries (Australia, Austria, Canada,
Croatia, Estonia, Germany, Great Britain, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,
Ukraine ) "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 it ends with a long list of South American but also European 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" (grade: X, Argentina, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia,
Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Greece, Luxemburg,
Netherlands, New Zealand, Paraguay, Slovenia, Spain, Venezuela).

A short version of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre 2008 report will be issued
around next Yom HaShoah or Holocaust Day, in May, a SWC spokesperson told
EJP.

The full report is likely to be published in August.

Continue 'Nazi hunt'

Italy's intention to continue the "Nazi hunt" is witnessed by the words of
chief military prosecutor of Verona, Bartolomeo Costantini. He told EJP
that in the next days he will travel to the prison near Naples were
Seifert is currently being detained.

Costantini said he wants to question the former SS commander over the
destiny of Otto Sein, also a former Bolzano guard indicted for murders and
brutalities, and who has been untraceable in the last 60 years.

Costantini said: "The Italian justice cannot prosecute a ghost, and more
in general, it is really hard to counter crimes that were committed such a
long time ago, let alone get the criminals extradited. Nevertheless, every
time we get to sentence someone we believe we have accomplished something
very important under a juridical, historical, and ethical profile."

(source: European Jewish Press)