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Last chance to catch Nazis, say campaigners

A final effort to track down and prosecute Nazi war criminals who fled to South America after the Second World War was launched in Argentina on Tuesday.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a Jewish human rights group, called its initiative Operation Last Chance because there was little time left to catch the suspects before they died.

It will take the form of a media campaign in Chile, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil and offer rewards for information that leads to convictions. The scheme, announced at a press conference in Buenos Aires, shone fresh light on South America’s murky and embarrassing role as a haven for Nazis after Hitler’s defeat in 1945.

Between 150 and 300 suspected war criminals are believed to have slipped across the Atlantic to new lives, in some cases with the connivance of host governments, notably Argentina where President Juan Peron branded the Nuremberg trials an “infamy” and organised rescue missions to smuggle Nazi officers out of Europe and relocate them as “technicians” in Argentina’s armed forces.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre first launched its scheme in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in 2002. The operation yielded the names of 488 suspects from 20 countries, it said. Of that number, 99 cases have been submitted to local prosecutors, resulting in three arrest warrants, two extradition requests and dozens of ongoing investigations.

“Given the large number of Nazi war criminals and collaborators who escaped to South America, the launching of Operation Last Chance has the potential to yield important results,” said the centre’s chief Nazi-hunter, Efraim Zuroff. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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