A. Rationale

While the necessity of bringing those who committed the crimes of the Holocaust to justice is patently obvious, the practical difficulties of achieving this goal are becoming increasingly difficult as time goes on. Although there are at least many thousands of individuals who actively participated in the implementation of the Final Solution who have never been prosecuted for their crimes, the chances of their being held accountable are rapidly diminishing due to several obvious factors:

Under these circumstances, the Simon Wiesenthal Center decided two years ago that special innovative methods were required to maximize the efforts to bring Nazi war criminals to justice. In July 2002, therefore, the Center – together with the Targum Shlishi Foundation of Miami, founded by Aryeh Rubin, who conceived of this project – officially launched “Operation: Last Chance,” a special program designed and implemented by Israel Director Dr. Efraim Zuroff to help identify as many perpetrators and potential witnesses as quickly as possible and thereby facilitate the bringing to justice of hereto unprosecuted Holocaust perpetrators.

B. Why “Operation: Last Chance” Is Being Launched in the Baltics?

There are numerous reasons why the Baltics were chosen as the initial place to implement “Operation: Last Chance.” While several relate to the specific nature of the events of the Holocaust in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, others are a product of practical and technical considerations. The most important are the following:

C. Implementation – Stage 1

In July 2002, the Wiesenthal Center officially launched “Operation: Last Chance” in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia with press conferences in Vilnius (July 8), Tallinn (July 10) and Riga (July 11). At the press conferences, the Center announced its willingness to pay ten thousand U.S. dollars ($10,000) to anyone who would provide information which would lead to the prosecution and punishment of a Nazi war criminal. These press conferences were followed by imaginative ads which publicized the reward offer, while highlighting the active participation of local Nazi collaborators in the mass murder of the Jewish community.

D. Results To Date – Stage 1

During the initial two years of “Operation: Last Chance,” the Center received the names of a total of two hundred and sixty suspected Nazi war criminals from the Baltics and the Ukraine according to the following breakdown by country of origin:

Each of the names and all of the accompanying information were investigated by the Center to evaluate their validity and relevance. At the end of this process, the names of seventy-two of the suspects were submitted to local prosecutors as worthy of further investigation, according to the following breakdown by country of origin:

In the wake of the launching of “Operation: Last Chance” and the submission of the names of the suspects to local prosecutors, eighteen official pretrial murder investigations were opened by government prosecutors in Lithuania and Latvia against more than three dozen suspects. In addition, several preliminary investigations were initiated in the United States and Canada since some of the suspects identified, escaped many years ago to those countries (as well as to Sweden).

E. Expansion of “Operation: Last Chance”

Given the encouraging results achieved in the Baltics, the Center decided last summer to expand the project to several additional European countries. Thus in the fall of 2003, “Operation: Last Chance” was launched in Poland, Romania and Austria. The reasons these countries were chosen is as follows:

a. Poland

As the site of all six Nazi death camps, Poland was the country in which the majority of European Jewry were murdered by the Germans and their collaborators during the Holocaust. In addition millions of non-Jewish Poles were persecuted and murdered during the Nazi occupation. Although Poland suffered terrible losses during World War II, there were numerous Poles who assisted the Nazis in the implementation of the Final Solution and therefore it is only natural for the Wiesenthal Center to initiate “Operation: Last Chance” in Poland in order to help facilitate the prosecution of those responsible for Nazi crimes in that country.

In that context, it is important to note the important work already being done by the Institute of National Memory under the leadership of its president Prof. Dr. Leon Kieres. Since the establishment of the Institute, Poland has made significant progress in the investigation and prosecution of Nazi war criminals, especially in comparison to other post-Communist and post-Soviet countries. Thus the conviction in 2001 of Henryk Mania for crimes committed at the Chelmno death camp and the recent investigation of the murder by the local population of the Jews of Jedwabne are concrete examples of the existence of political will in Warsaw to investigate the cases of Holocaust perpetrators and bring them to justice, and the ability of the Institute to do so successfully.

The Center expects to work together with the Institute to help maximize the prosecution of Nazi war criminals and is hopeful that the results achieved by “Operation: Last Chance” in Poland will expedite the efforts of the Institute. To help achieve those goals, the Center has maintained close cooperation with Prof. Dr. Kieres and his staff and hopes that this cooperation will be enhanced by the successful implementation of “Operation: Last Chance” in Poland.

b. Romania

During World War II Romania was a satellite state of Nazi Germany and actively participated in the implementation of the Final Solution in Romania and in the territories it annexed, as well as in the Ukraine. In fact, the Romanian government under Marshal Ion Antonescu played a leading role in the mass murder of Romanian Jews, and tens of thousands of Jews in the Ukraine.

Despite the active complicity of Romanians in the crimes of the Holocaust, Romania has had considerable difficulty in facing its World War II past, as clearly evidenced by the following facts:

Under these circumstances, the Wiesenthal Center believes that the implementation of “Operation: Last Chance” in Romania can have a beneficial effect both in terms of facilitating the prosecution of Holocaust perpetrators and the sensitizing of Romanian public opinion regarding the severity of the crimes committed by Romanians during
World War II.

c. Austria

While Austria has made considerable progress in facing its Holocaust history during the past two decades, one major area in which it has been terribly deficient has been the investigation and prosecution of Nazi war criminals. Despite the existence of numerous Austrians who actively participated in the implementation of the Final Solution, not a single Austrian has been convicted of Holocaust crimes during the past quarter of a century.

Austria’s failure in this respect has been reinforced by recent research carried out the Wiesenthal Center which has shown that numerous Austrians served in German police battalions which committed the mass murder of civilians, primarily Jews, in Eastern Europe during the years 1939-1944. (The research in question was carried out in conjunction with German Labor Ministry by the Center’s researcher Dr. Stefan Klemp as a part of a project designed to cancel the special disability pensions of individuals who violated the norms of humanity, in accordance with a law passed by the Bundestag in January 1998.)

Under these circumstances, the Center hopes that the launching of “Operation: Last Chance” in Austria will help facilitate the investigation and prosecution of Austrian Holocaust perpetrators, and educate the Austrian public regarding the important role played by numerous Austrians in the implementation of the Final Solution.

F. Implementation and Results – Stage 2

The project was initially launched at press conferences held with the participation of local Jewish community leaders in Warsaw (September 10), Bucharest (September 12) and Vienna (September 15). Special “info lines” or “hotlines” were installed to help facilitate receipt of information from informants in Austria (December 2003), Romania (January 2004) and Poland (June 2004) and our initial ad campaigns have already been launched in Austria (December 15, 2003) and Romania (March 24, 2004), with ads slated to begin in Poland by July 2004.

To date we have received the names of twenty-five suspects from these countries according to the following breakdown by country of origin:

G. Future Expansion of “Operation: Last Chance”

During the coming six months “Operation: Last Chance” will be launched in Croatia (June 30), Hungary (July 13), Argentina (August), Germany (September 21) and the Ukraine (late November / early December).

Even before the project was officially initiated in these countries, the Center has already received the names of nine suspects, four from Germany, three from Hungary and two from Croatia.

H. Conclusion

During the past three years (2001-2004), more than two-dozen Nazi war criminals have been convicted in six different countries all over the world. During 2002, the United States alone filed ten new indictments against Holocaust perpetrators. These statistics clearly prove that it is still possible – even in 2004 – to bring Nazi war criminals to justice, but time is rapidly running out, which is the primary reason why “Operation: Last Chance” is so important.