June 22



USA:

STILL FREE-----The Nazi criminals among us; U.S. orders deportations, but
other countries balk


John Demjanjuk's last appeal to avoid deportation was rejected by the U.S.
Supreme Court on May 19. The 88-year-old accused Nazi concentration camp
guard was stripped of his citizenship and ordered sent to Ukraine, his
birthplace; Poland, the locus of the crimes; or Germany, the heir to the
Nazi regime under which he served.

Yet, as it now stands, he is still in the United States. Why? He can't be
exiled unless another country agrees to accept him. For the time being, he
remains free.

In this, Demjanjuk is not alone. There are five other former Nazi
criminals against whom the U.S. Justice Department successfully completed
deportation proceedings but whom no country has been willing to accept.
Romanian-born Johann Leprich, a guard at Mauthausen camp in Austria, is
one; his deportation was finalized in 2006. Another is Jakiw Palij, born
in a region of Poland that is now in Ukraine. He was a guard at Poland's
Trawniki labor camp (where in a single day in 1943, 6,000 prisoners were
murdered), and his deportation was finalized in January 2006. Mykola
Wasylyk, another Trawniki guard also found to be at the Budzyn camp, had
his final appeal denied in 2004.

Theodor Szehinskyj, also born in a part of Ukraine that used to be Poland,
was in the SS unit called the Death's Head Brigade and was a guard at the
Gross-Rosen, Sachsenhausen and the Warsaw concentration camps. His
deportation litigation was completed in March 2006.

Finally, there is Anton Tittjung. Tittjung was born in what was then
Yugoslavia and is now Croatia. He was a Waffen SS member and a guard at
Mauthausen.

Should any of these criminals worry that deportation is imminent, they
might take comfort from the fact that the Supreme Court declined to hear
Tittjung's final appeal way back in 2000. He still remains free in the
United States. In addition, in recent years, four of their denaturalized
Nazi peers died before they were ever deported.

In all of these cases, the countries of their birth, such as Ukraine,
Romania, Poland or Croatia, and the countries where their crimes were
committed, such as Austria or Poland as well as Germany, were contacted by
the Justice Department, and none expressed interest in receiving these now
"stateless" persons.

There is no law, domestic or international, that requires foreign
countries to accept or extradite these former Nazis or to give a reason
why they don't. However, their reasons are easy to divine and include not
wanting to burden the state with these aged citizens, no desire for an
expensive investigation and trial, and fear that nationalist or neo-Nazi
elements might be aroused by reopening Nazi-era wounds.

But that does not lift their moral responsibility to accept and/or
prosecute the criminals of the Nazi era. In what society do murderers go
free? What nation can forget the crimes of the Nazi era? Given that the
victims of the Holocaust cannot cry out for justice, who will?

Poland, Ukraine and Romania might make the argument that they were under
Nazi rule at that time. Germany has no such excuse. And although Germany
has prosecuted many native-born Germans for their World War II-era crimes,
they have been less eager to do so as time goes by. Germany has had even
less interest in prosecuting those non-Germans, like Demjanjuk, who served
the Nazis in the countries they conquered as though Germany could draw a
border around the Holocaust crimes it is responsible for.

Regardless of any moral impetus countries might have to extradite Nazi
criminals, until now there has been no legal one. That may change. On May
12, Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., introduced the World War II War Crimes
Accountability Act of 2008, which would require the United States to
evaluate foreign countries' cooperation in extraditing or prosecuting Nazi
criminals the United States wants deported. Assistance or lack thereof
would affect a nation's visa-waiver status for business travelers and
tourists.

More than 50 years after the end of World War II, it is fair to ask: Why
do we care? What's the point of expending our time, effort and money and
that of other countries on these old men? Why not move on? What of
forgiveness?

Forgiveness or mitigation as a legal, or even a moral, concept should only
be available to those who are willing to fully confess their participation
in the crimes of the Nazi era and express remorse. But to date, there have
been no complete confessions by the guilty and no remorse. Demjanjuk, for
example, continues to deny any Nazi involvement whatsoever, even in the
face of incontrovertible documentary evidence unearthed after the collapse
of the Soviet Union that confirmed his presence at numerous concentration
camps.

Still, time is passing. In the case of these criminals, there is some
irony in the fact that they have lived long enough to be exposed for who
they were and what they did.

If no country accepts them before they die, at least they won't pass from
this Earth as innocents.

It may not be final justice, but it is some comfort.

Teicholz writes the column Tommywood that appears in the Jewish Journal of
Los Angeles. He is also the author of the 1990 book, "The Trial of Ivan
the Terrible: State of Israel vs. John Demjanjuk." This article originally
appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

(source: Houston Chronicle)


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


The pariah loophole----Former Nazis remain free because no country will
accept them.


John Demjanjuk's last appeal to avoid deportation was rejected by the U.S.
Supreme Court on May 19. The 88-year-old accused Nazi concentration camp
guard was stripped of his citizenship and ordered sent to Ukraine, his
birthplace; Poland, the locus of the crimes; or Germany, the heir to the
Nazi regime under which he served.

Yet, as it now stands, he is still in the United States. Why? He can't be
exiled unless another country agrees to accept him. For the time being, he
remains free.

In this, Demjanjuk is not alone. There are five other former Nazi
criminals against whom the U.S. Justice Department successfully completed
deportation proceedings but whom no country has been willing to accept.
Romanian-born Johann Leprich, a guard at Mauthausen camp in Austria, is
one; his deportation was finalized in 2006. Another is Jakiw Palij, born
in a region of Poland that is now in Ukraine. He was a guard at Poland's
Trawniki labor camp (where in a single day in 1943, 6,000 prisoners were
murdered), and his deportation was finalized in January 2006. Mykola
Wasylyk, another Trawniki guard also found to be at the Budzyn camp, had
his final appeal denied in 2004.

Theodor Szehinskyj, also born in a part of Ukraine that used to be Poland,
was in the SS unit called the Death's Head Brigade and was a guard at the
Gross-Rosen, Sachsenhausen and the Warsaw concentration camps. His
deportation litigation was completed in March 2006.

Finally, there is Anton Tittjung. Tittjung was born in what was then
Yugoslavia and is now Croatia. He was a Waffen SS member and a guard at
Mauthausen.

Should any of these criminals worry that deportation is imminent, they
might take comfort from the fact that the Supreme Court declined to hear
Tittjung's final appeal way back in 2000. He still remains free in the
United States. In addition, in recent years, four of their denaturalized
Nazi peers died before they were ever deported.

In all of these cases, the countries of their birth, such as Ukraine,
Romania, Poland or Croatia, and the countries where their crimes were
committed, such as Austria or Poland as well as Germany, were contacted by
the Justice Department, and none expressed interest in receiving these now
"stateless" persons.

There is no law, domestic or international, that requires foreign
countries to accept or extradite these former Nazis -- or to give a reason
why they don't. However, their reasons are easy to divine and include not
wanting to burden the state with these aged citizens, no desire for an
expensive investigation and trial, and fear that nationalist or neo-Nazi
elements might be aroused by reopening Nazi-era wounds.

But that does not lift their moral responsibility to accept and/or
prosecute the criminals of the Nazi era. In what society do murderers go
free? What nation can forget the crimes of the Nazi era? Given that the
victims of the Holocaust cannot cry out for justice, who will?

Poland, Ukraine and Romania might make the argument that they were under
Nazi rule at that time. Germany has no such excuse. And although Germany
has prosecuted many native-born Germans for their World War II-era crimes,
they have been less eager to do so as time goes by. Germany has had even
less interest in prosecuting those non-Germans, like Demjanjuk, who served
the Nazis in the countries they conquered -- as though Germany could draw
a border around the Holocaust crimes it is responsible for.

Regardless of any moral impetus countries might have to extradite Nazi
criminals, until now there has been no legal one. That may change. On May
12, Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) introduced the World War II War Crimes
Accountability Act of 2008, which would require the U.S. to evaluate
foreign countries' cooperation in extraditing or prosecuting Nazi
criminals the U.S. wants deported. Assistance or lack thereof would affect
a nation's visa-waiver status for business travelers and tourists.

More than 50 years after the end of World War II, it is fair to ask: Why
do we care? What's the point of expending our time, effort and money --
and that of other countries -- on these old men? Why not move on? What of
forgiveness?

Forgiveness or mitigation as a legal, or even a moral, concept should only
be available to those who are willing to fully confess their participation
in the crimes of the Nazi era and express remorse. But to date, there have
been no complete confessions by the guilty and no remorse. Demjanjuk, for
example, continues to deny any Nazi involvement whatsoever, even in the
face of incontrovertible documentary evidence unearthed after the collapse
of the Soviet Union that confirmed his presence at numerous concentration
camps.

Still, time is passing. In the case of these criminals, there is some
irony in the fact that they have lived long enough to be exposed for who
they were and what they did.

If no country accepts them before they die, at least they won't pass from
this Earth as innocents. It may not be final justice, but it is some
comfort.

Tom Teicholz writes the column Tommywood that appears in the Jewish
Journal of Los Angeles. He is also the author of the 1990 book, "The Trial
of Ivan the Terrible: State of Israel vs. John Demjanjuk."

(source: Opinion, Tom Teicholz, Los Angeles Times)




GERMANY:

Germany seeks Demjanjuk's extradition


Germany is seeking the extradition of Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk to
stand trial.

The Germans want to prosecute Demjanuk, 88, of suburban Cleveland, on
charges that he participated in the killing of Jewish prisoners at the
Sobibor extermination camp. German authorities said he could be brought to
Germany by the end of the year.

In May, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal of a
deportation order issued in 2005, paving the way for a possible
extradition.

Demjanjuk, a retired autoworker, is No. 2 on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's
list of most wanted Nazi war criminals.

The Israeli Supreme Court revoked his death sentence in 1988 when
questions were raised about his identity as the notorious "Ivan the
Terrible."

The news that Demjanjuk might face deportation came the same week as the
U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals upheld a deportation order for another
alleged war criminal, Josias Kumpf of Wisconsin. The Office of Special
Investigations and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of
Wisconsin revoked Kumpf's citizenship in 2003. They are seeking to deport
him to Germany, Austria or Serbia.

Meanwhile, an alleged Nazi war criminal living in Austria was spotted
recently among fans of a soccer game in the city of Klagenfurt. Milivoj
Asner, 95, a Croatia native, had avoided standing trial because of a
diagnosis of dementia. He is alleged to have coordinated the deportation
of Jews and Gypsies to a fascist camp in occupied Croatia.

Asner has told reporters that he would welcome the chance to clear his
name in court. Asner is No. 4 on the Wiesenthal Center's most wanted list.
The center contests Asner's claim of exemption from standing trial.

(source: JTA)

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

Kate Winslet grows old for Holocaust drama film role----Kate Winslet plays
a former Nazi concentration camp guard


Prosthetics, a grey wig and a dowdy wardrobe have tranformed the
32-year-old star of Titanic into a wizened old lady.

She is pictured on the set of The Reader, a Holocaust drama currently
filming in Berlin and based on the best-selling novel by Bernhard Schlink.

Winslet plays Hanna Schmitz, a woman in post-war Germany desperately trying
to hide her past as a Nazi concentration camp guard. In the 1950s, she
begins an affair with a teenage student but disappears one day without
trace. Many years later, he discovers to his horror that she is standing
trial for war crimes.

Ralph Fiennes is her co-star and the film is directed by Stephen Daldry,
with a screenplay by David Hare.

The book was first published in 1995 and translated into English two years.
It became the first German novel to top the New York Times best-seller list
and was selected for Oprah Winfrey's influential book club.

Winslet was first choice for the role but turned down the project due to
schedule clashes as she had already committed to film Revolutionary Road,
a drama directed by her husband, Sam Mendes, and co-starring Leonardo
DiCaprio.

Nicole Kidman took the part but later dropped out when she fell pregnant,
leaving the way clear for Winslet to return. The Reader is due for
worldwide release in December.

This could be the role which finally nets Winslet an Oscar, on her sixth
attempt.

She was first nominated in 1996 for Sense and Sensibility, followed by
Titanic in 1998, Iris in 2002 and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in
2005. Her last nomination came in 2007 for the suburban drama Little
Children, when she was beaten by Dame Helen Mirren for The Queen.

(source: Showbusiness News)





USA//NORTH CAROLINA:

Message brings Holocaust survivors together


The Holocaust separated Robert Spitz from his childhood friends.
The Internet brought them back together.

Spitz, 78, a retiree who lives in North Raleigh, thought his upbringing in
Budapest, Hungary, and his travails at Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp
in Germany, were part of the past.

But when his friend Bill Jasper of Raleigh asked him to translate an
e-mail message he got from a friend in Hungarian, Spitz's past came
rushing back.

"I think I know this man," Spitz told Jasper, referring to the message
writer, Tomi Komlos.

Turns out, Spitz went to school with a boy named Robert Komlos. Robert had
a kid brother named Tomi. Could it be that Jasper's friend Tomi was the
brother of Spitz's classmate from all those years ago?

In the two months since that message, Spitz has struck up an e-mail
correspondence not only with Tomi Komlos, but with 13 other Jewish friends
from his school days in Budapest. They now communicate via e-mail and
Skype, a software program that allows users to make telephone calls over
the Internet.

Spitz's old buddies even e-mailed him photos they had of him from the
early 1940s. After the war, Spitz couldn't go back to Hungary because it
was under Communist dictatorship. He had no mementos from his childhood
and no photographs to speak of.

"I thought I was a person who never believed in miracles," Spitz said.
"This was a miracle."

Loaded on cattle train

Budapest once boasted a Jewish population of more than 200,000. Only half
survived the war.

In 1944, Spitz and his father were picked up on the streets of Budapest
and forced onto freight cars bound for Bergen-Belsen.

Spitz survived the camp. About March 1945, he was loaded onto a cattle
train, which was liberated by the U.S. Army. By then, he weighed 62 pounds
and was suffering from typhus.

So grateful was he to the Americans for providing him medical help and
later offering him a job as an interpreter, he was happy to put his past
behind him.

Arriving in the United States in 1949, he lived in Columbia, S.C., then in
Kansas City and Dallas, before retiring to North Raleigh.

For Spitz's classmates -- three live in Budapest and 11 in Israel -- the
news that he was still living came like a bolt from the sky.

"Everybody think he dead in Auschwitz," wrote Tomi Komlos, in imperfect
English.

As for Robert Komlos, Tomi's brother and Spitz's classmate, he died in a
car accident 18 years ago. Tomi now takes his brother's place in a
close-knit group of Hungarian classmates who meet regularly in Israel.

Spitz would love to see his old buddies. But a second hip replacement has
left him too frail to travel.

Tomi Komlos recently e-mailed Spitz to tell him the group gathered for
dinner recently and raised a glass in his honor.

"L'chaim," they clicked. "To life."

(source: The News & Observer)






ISRAEL:

Panel: Germany gave Israel NIS 61.5 billion, Holocaust survivors got about
half


The government has paid Israeli Holocaust survivors no more than a third
of the compensation funds transferred as part of the reparation agreement
with Germany, a report published on Sunday by the state commission of
inquiry into the government's treatment of Holocaust survivors.

The panel, headed by former Supreme Court judge Dalia Dorner, stated that
the reparation money Germany has paid Israel adds up to NIS 61.5 billion
according to current rates, whereas a mere NIS 38 billion have been paid
to the survivors themselves to date.

The 1952 Luxembourg Agreement stipulated that Germany would give Israel
$833 million in money and merchandise, and Israel would look after the
survivors, who would not be permitted to sue Germany directly.

The panel claims that Israel has discriminated against Holocaust
survivors, who were entitled to compensations from Germany as well as
other countries, and has paid each NIS 1.3-2.2 million less than it should
have.

The committee also said that the state defied a Supreme Court ruling from
1996, according to which Holocaust survivors' stipends should be increased
to match the sum paid by Germany.

The Dorner Committee report says the government should pay survivors NIS
250 million with immediate effect, so that 43,000 survivors will be
entitled to at least 75% of the German reparation funds.

Also, the panel strongly criticized the Finance Ministry's bureau for the
rehabilitation of the handicapped, which caters also to Holocaust
survivors, for obstructing their treatment and allocating the stipends in
a "random and arbitrary" manner.

(source: Ha'aretz)

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

Audit: Israel's Holocaust survivors cheated


Holocaust survivors in Israel have received less than two-thirds of the
German reparations allotted to them, an audit found.

A report issued Sunday by a commission of inquiry under retired Supreme
Court Justice Dalia Dorner found that of the Holocaust reparations paid to
Israel under a 1952 deal with Germany, only about 62 percent found their
way to survivors living in the Jewish state.

On average, each survivor was underpaid by an aggregate $400,000 to
$700,000, the Dorner Commission concluded. It urged the state to make
compensation available to entitled recipients who are still alive.

The commission was established following revelations last year that many
Holocaust survivors in Israel are destitute because of shortfalls in the
welfare payouts they receive from the state.

(source: JTA)




HUNGARY:

International conference on Roma Holocaust


An international conference will be held on the Holocaust of the Roma
starting on July 31, the Education Ministry announced on its web-page on
Saturday.

The four-day conference is scheduled to share experience in teaching
the Roma Holocaust in different countries.

In August 1944, over 3,000 Roma were killed in the Nazi death camp in
Auschwitz. WWII claimed the lives of over 500,000 members of that
community.

(source: Hungarian News Agency)




CANADA:

Canada moves toward membership in international Holocaust task force


Canada is set to become a member of an international task force dedicated
to keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive.

The Task Force for International Co-operation on Holocaust Education,
Remembrance and Research announced at meetings in Austria on Wednesday
that Ottawa was being given liaison country status in the body.

That is seen as an intermediary step to full membership next year in the
25-country organization that includes Israel, the United States, Austria
and Germany.

The task force was started in 1998 to co-ordinate national and
international efforts to encourage political and social leaders to support
Holocaust education, remembrance and research.

Jason Kenney, secretary of state for multiculturalism, describes the task
force as a critically important educational and human rights platform.

"Canada is a champion of human dignity and we think it is critically
important to be engaged in efforts to educate future generations about the
Holocaust," Kenney said by telephone from Ottawa ahead of Wednesday's
development in the Austrian city of Linz, where the task force met for a
twice-annual plenary session.

Austria is currently holds the group's rotating chairmanship.

Canada's move toward full membership was lauded by the United States, one
of the task force's founding members.

"This is a very positive event, we're delighted Canada is joining and we
want to work with them on their projects and we look forward to them
becoming a full-fledged member in a short amount of time," Ambassador J.
Christian Kennedy, the U.S. State Department's special envoy for holocaust
issues, said on the sidelines of the meeting.

Mark Weitzman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in New York noted that Canada
has a strong infrastructure of Holocaust-related organizations.

"We think that they and the international community can benefit from the
exchange of information between the diplomats, the experts and so on, and
we're very much looking forward to continuing to work with them," Weitzman
said.

"We welcome this government's policy in joining the international
community in dealing with this issue."

The task force is open to all countries committed to the declaration of
the 2000 Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust.

Among other things, the declaration states the Holocaust fundamentally
challenged the foundations of civilization and that its magnitude must
forever be seared in collective memory. Applying for membership is a
multi-step process.

Among other things, it promotes teaching about Nazi atrocities at all
education levels and encourages the opening of Holocaust-related archives.
It also contributes to the funding of projects.

The United Nations, the Council of Europe and the Organization for the
Security and Co-operation in Europe are permanent observers.

(source: Canada Press)



CROATIA:

Croat war crimes suspect says deported Jews, Serbs


A Croatian World War Two war crimes suspect said in a television
interview he had ordered deportations of Jews and Serbs during World War
Two, but only to their homelands and not to death camps in Croatia.

"Nothing ever happened to whoever was a loyal citizen of the Croatian
state. For others, my theory was: You are not a Croat, you hate Croatia,
okay, then please go back to you homeland," 95-year-old Milivoj Asner told
Croatian state television in an interview at his home in Klagenfurt,
Austria.

Asner went to Austria when a Nazi-tracking group found him living in
Croatia in 2005. He was filmed recently mingling with European
championship soccer fans in Klagenfurt.

Zagreb has sought Asner's handover for trial on suspicion of orchestrating
persecution of Serb, Jewish and Roma people under Croatia's pro-Nazi
Ustasha regime during World War Two, when thousands of non-Croats perished
in local death camps.

Austria rejected the request, saying Asner's physical and mental health
was fragile.

Austrian news agency APA said on Friday Klagenfurt prosecutors had
assessed Asner's health again, following the publication of an interview
with him in a British newspaper this month, and found him unfit for
questioning.

They also said he no longer had Austrian citizenship as he had misinformed
them on the status of his Croatian citizenship when he had been granted an
Austrian passport a few years ago.

The Croatian television reporter who conducted the interview said Asner
appeared senile and was only temporarily lucid.

But Asner said he was ready to appear before the Croatian court.

"I'm deeply convinced that the judges, if they are honest people, would
acquit me as I'm a Croat," Asner said in the interview broadcast on
Thursday evening.

The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center considers Asner the fourth most
wanted Nazi at large and says he was a senior Ustasha security official
during the war.

The Jerusalem-based organization said its director Ephraim Zuroff had
written to Austrian Justice Minister Maria Berger renewing a request for
Asner's extradition to his homeland.

Jewish groups have long accused Austria, which was annexed by Hitler in
1938 and supplied his Third Reich with many top officials, of a lack of
political will to punish Nazi criminals.

Vienna has cited problems unearthing evidence compounded by the passage of
time and ill health of suspects.

(source: Reuters)

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


Croatia Nazi Suspect Admits Deportations


One of the most wanted Nazi suspects has said he took part in
deportations of disloyal non-Croats but to their homelands, not to the
concentration camps.

Milivoj Asner, wanted by Croatia for war crimes committed while he served
as a police officer of the World War II Ustasha regime in the then Croatia
Nazi puppet state, told Croatian state television that those who were
disloyal had to go.

"I thought that if you are not a Croat and you hate Croatia, go to your
homeland, to Belgrade, to (Serbia's northern province) Vojvodina, and let
us Croats alone," Asher, who lives in Klagenfurt, Austria, under the first
name Georg, said.

London's The Sun newspaper spotted and photographed Asner, 95, in
Klagenfurt last week, while enjoying soccer at the European Championships
supporting his native Croatia entering the quarterfinals.

Asner, 95, denied to The Sun he was involved in the forced deportation of
Serbs, Jews and Roma from Croatia in 1941-1945.

Asner, the forth on the top ten list of most wanted Nazi suspects, told
Croatia television that we were expediting them to their countries and did
not send them to the camps because it would be costly you must guard them
and feed them.

Last week, Asner also told The Sun he would gladly face a Croatian court.

He reiterated to Croatias television he was not guilty of the charges and
said that any Croatian court would have cleared him from any accounts
merely because he was a Croat.

However, Austria is not willing to extradite him, ruling again, after yet
another medical check-up, that he was in a poor health to stand trial.

(source: Balkanlnsight)







FRANCE:

Hunt for Nazis behind forgotten French massacre
By Harry de Quetteville in Berlin
Last Updated: 10:09PM BST 22/06/2008
German investigators are to visit to the site of a Nazi massacre in France
in "an extraordinary" attempt to catch the perpetrators.
German troops levelled the village of Maille, killing 124 men, women and
children, on August 24, 1944, just as Paris was being liberated.

But while the French capital rejoiced in its freedom, Maille, 170 miles to
the southwest, was subjected to a brutal assault in retaliation for a
Resistance attack on German units nearby.

The German unit responsible has never been positively identified. Only one
soldier, Lieutenant Gustav Schlueter, has ever been convicted of taking
part, but died a free man in Germany in 1965.

Article continuesadvertisement

Now German investigators hope newly-released files could help them track
down the perpetrators, paving the way for war crimes charges against any
survivors.

"It is an absolutely extraordinary event," said local French prosecutor
Philippe Varin, who led a visit to Maille last week to prepare for the
German investigators' arrival, planned for July 14th.

He said the German team is expected to "interview witnesses, identify to
the German units behind the massacre, and, of course, the individuals".

The victims were aged between 3 months and 89 years old, according to
Sebastien Chevereau, who runs a memorial in Maille. "Here, we call it the
forgotten massacre," he said.

Serge Martin, now 74, was ten years old when the German troops arrived at
Maille at killed his parents, brother and younger sister.

"Not a day goes by that I don't think about August 25, 1944 and the
massacre of my family," he said. ""We want to know who did it and why."

(source: The London Telegraph)





GREECE:

Germans face charges over massacre on 'Corelli island'


German prosecutors are preparing to bring charges against 11 former
Wehrmacht officers allegedly involved in the massacre of 5,000 Italian
prisoners of war on the Greek island of Cephalonia, which featured in
Louis de Berniere's novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

The killings during the closing stages of the Second World War were one of
the most brutal atrocities perpetrated by regular German soldiers in
Nazi-occupied Europe, but none of the culprits has been brought to
justice. An inquiry in the 1960s was dropped through lack of evidence.

The state prosecutors in Dortmund said last week that they had reopened
the Cephalonia file after an interval of more than 30 years because of
fresh evidence contained in East German Stasi archives and disclosures in
two recently discovered war diaries.

As a result they are planning to bring murder charges against the former
Wehrmacht officers, now aged between 79 and 92, who were alleged to have
taken part in the killings.

The massacre of the Italian troops was prompted by Italy's decision to
pull out of its alliance with Nazi Germany in September 1943 after the
Allied invasion of Sicily.

Italian troops stationed on the Greek island of Cephalonia resisted
subsequent German demands that they surrender and fought a week long
battle with a Wehrmacht invasion force.

The Italian resistance was broken after the island was attacked by Stuka
dive-bombers. Adolf Hitler ordered that no prisoners should be taken on
the island, so the surviving Italian troops were rounded up and
slaughtered as retribution for their country's "treachery".

The village of Troianata on Cephalonia was one of at least five locations
on the island where the mass killings were carried out. Spiros Vangelatos,
a 75-year-old retired English teacher and Cephalonian resident, witnessed
the slaughter of about 600 Italian troops outside the village as a boy of
16.

The Italian troops were being held in the village school. Mr Vangelatos
said that they expected to be sent back to Italy and spent the night
before their murder singing sentimental songs of home.

The following morning they were marched out of the school into a field
next to the village and mown down by Wehrmacht machine-gunners.

"Bits of bodies, clothing and lumps of earth were hurled into the air as
the machine guns danced on their tripods. It lasted no longer than about
three to four minutes," Mr Vangelatos said in an interview with the
Tagesspiegel newspaper.

"The dying soldiers collapsed over each other next to a wall at the edge
of the field." The villagers were then forced to dump the bodies in a
well.

Mr Vangelatos's testimony forms part of the evidence supplied by six
surviving Cephalonian residents who witnessed the murders. Last week their
names were sent to the Dortmund state prosecutor as potential witnesses in
the case.

Others on the island such as Stavros Niforatos, a doctor now aged 95,
recalled how he passed a ravine full of butchered Italian troops after
delivering a baby in one of the island's homes. "They [the Germans] had
slit the Italians' throats with knives," he said. "It was as if they had
slaughtered a herd of sheep."

About 3,000 Italian troops avoided the initial German round-up by hiding
in caves on Cephalonia while the Wehrmacht laid waste to the island by
burning and plundering homes.

Once they were captured they were put aboard ships which were to take them
to prison camps in Germany, however the vessels hit mines after leaving
harbour and sank.

Those who survived the shipwrecks were taken to the Eastern Front and
forced to serve as labourers. Many ended up as Russian prisoners of war
after Germany was driven back by the Red Army. More than 200 Greek
civilians and resistance fighters were also shot or hanged during the
year-long Nazi occupation of the island that ended in 1944.

Attempts by Greek residents of Cephalonia to obtain compensation from
post-war Germany for the atrocities committed were rejected by the German
government in 1996 as not being in accordance with international law.

The state prosecutors in Dortmund now believe that they will have
sufficient evidence to put some of the surviving culprits on trial.

Ulrich Mass, the state prosecutor who is leading the investigation, said
he planned to visit Cephalonia this autumn to interview the witnesses.

Earlier attempts by Italy to prosecute the alleged perpetrators were
dropped because of a clause in German law which stipulates that its
citizens cannot be extradited to stand trial for crimes committed abroad.

Attempts to prosecute the culprits in Germany failed because of lack of
evidence that could convict them of murder rather than manslaughter - a
charge which automatically expires 15 years after the crime was committed.

"Most of the former Wehrmacht officers involved in the Cephalonia murders
are dead and the remainder are very old," Mr Mass said. "We are
nevertheless optimistic that we will manage to bring some before the
courts before they die."