War crimes

‘Auschwitz cook’ arrested on war crimes charges

Zoe Winograd — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:25:41 +0100

A 93-year-old alleged SS member was arrested in Germany last night.

Hans Lipshis, who was taken into custody from his care home near Stuttgart, was accused of taking part in murder and genocide at Auschwitz.

The accused has admitted to working at the camp from 1941-1945 but has denied any knowledge of the killings that took place. He told reporters that he was a “cook for the entire time.”

Mr Lipshis was allegedly a member of the SS-Totenkopf Sturbann, which guarded the camp. He fled to the US in 1956 but was deported to Germany in 1983 after being accused of being a Nazi war criminal. The Lithuanian-born man was added to the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's list of wanted Nazis a few weeks ago.

Director of the Simone Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem Efraim Zuroff said: “We welcome the arrest. I hope this will only be the first of many arrests, trials and convictions of death camp guards.”

Karen Pollock, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, commented: “More than anything, the arrest of Hans Lipschis sends out a clear message that old age and the passage of time are no barrier to the prosecution of alleged Nazi war criminals – that is exactly as it must be.”

Forgotten, but not by everybody

Tracy-Ann Oberman — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 19:55:46 +0100

One of the problems of getting older is short-term memory loss versus the clarity of long-term memory gain. Of course, being only 39-ish and fully intending to be that age for the next decade - as Dorothy Parker said, 39 is the best 10 years of a woman's life - my niggle with memory failure is only just starting.

Ask me at teatime what I had for breakfast or did the night before and my mind goes blank. But ask what I did on November 5 1987 and I can remember almost every detail of that night and indeed every night in that November and the years before. I can remember with every sense memory (the Stanislavskian concept of sound, taste and smell forming memory) the following events, beginning with the death of Elvis on August 16 1977. I was swimming with armbands in an over-chlorinated pool, my eyes stinging, the tinny radio blaring and Mum crying at the news.

I can look back to the death of John Lennon on December 8 1980. The heating was on the blink so we were freezing cold in our house in Stanmore, and Mum was crying at the news. The night Thatcher won, my parents held an election party for the neighbours. We kids were allowed to stay up late, stealing smoked-salmon bagels and biscuits.

I wore a hideous scratchy knitted jumper and watched Mum, Aunty Celia and Aunty Lesley jumping up and down in the kitchen like a gang of suffragists, shouting: "She won." And Mum cried at the news.

My great-grandma, at the ripe old age of 91, could recall with clarity and great detail her home in Kiev, which she fled on account of the pogroms when she was 14. She could remember the sickening journey on the boat and how her back hurt, waking up every day on the floor of the factory where she slept in her early years in the East End. But ask her to remember where she left her teeth or which was her bedroom and she was a goner.

I am therefore surprised to find that Laszlo Csatary, 96, who was recently discovered in Hungary and arrested for "unlawful torture of human beings", claims that he cannot remember much about his Holocaust years. Csatary is on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's list of most wanted war criminals, accused of torturing Jewish prisoners and sending more than 15,000 of them to their deaths in Auschwitz.

The years of 1939-45 are apparently a blur to this former commander of a Jewish ghetto. His younger years were spent making life-and-death decisions and he has been described as a sadist. In his dotage, these must be the events that come back to him in vivid colour, day and night.

But sadly it is not just individuals like Csatary who have lost their long-term memories. Efraim Zuroff, of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, notes that, beyond the old, unrepentant Nazis who seem to forget their past, entire swathes of Eastern Europe - including countries such as Hungary - are demonstrating long-term memory loss.

Call for alleged Nazi war criminal to be extradited

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:45:49 +0100

Slovakia's Jewish community have called on the Hungarian authorities to extradite an alleged Nazi war criminal.

Ladislaus Csizsik-Csataray, 97, has been detained by authorities in Budapest after his alleged involvement in the deportation of 15,700 Jews to Auschwitz. He was police commander in the town of Kosice during the Holocaust, then in Hungary, but now part of Slovakia.

According to the Associated Press, Jaroslav Franek, spokesman for the Slovakian Federation of Jewish Communities has said that local Jews want Csizsik-Csataray to stand trial in Slovakia.

Slovakia's Justice Ministry is looking into the case.

Last week, Csizsik-Csataray was placed under house arrest and charged with the "unlawful torture of human beings".

No hiding place

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 15:03:23 +0100

László Csizsik-Csatáry, aged 97, is a Nazi war criminal who has spent his life dodging justice since he helped to organise the deportation of nearly 16,000 Jews to Auschwitz.

Living comfortably in Budapest, he only showed up on the world's radar this week when he was confronted, at the instigation of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, by journalists from the Sun. It scarcely needs saying that his great age should not be a protection. This man should not end his life in peace.

"Most wanted" Nazi war criminal arrested in Hungary

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 11:53:58 +0100

The world’s most wanted Nazi war criminal has been arrested in Hungary.Prosecutors in the country said Ladislaus Csizsik-Csatary, 97, was arrested in Budapest and charged with war crimes early on Wednesday.

Accused of complicity in sending 15,700 Jews to their deaths at Auschwitz in 1944 while serving as a police officer in the then-Slovakian city of Kosice, Csizsik-Csatary was tracked down by Nazi-hunters from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

After escaping a war crimes sentence in 1948, Csizsik-Csatary moved to Canada and was only tracked down again in 1997.

Canadian authorities decided to deport him but before he was deported, he escaped, and his location has remained unknown for the past 15 years.

On Sunday, after a tip-off from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s Israel director, Dr Ephraim Zuroff, journalists from the Sun newspaper confronted Csizsik-Csatary at his home where he has apparently been living openly, taking leisurely strolls in the city centre.

Last September Dr Zuroff handed over a large file of evidence to the Hungarian authorities about Csizsik-Csatary. But when the government took no action, Csizsik-Csatary was made number one on the centre’s “Most Wanted Nazi War Criminal” list. Additionally, Dr Zuroff provided new material, including his participation in 1941 of transporting approximately 300 Jews from Kosice to Kamenetz-Podolsk, Ukraine, where it is believed almost all were murdered.

On Monday, members of the European Union of Jewish Students demonstrated outside Csizsik-Csatary’s home.
By coincidence the Hungarian president, Janos Ader, was in Jerusalem and met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Before the meeting Dr Zuroff wrote an open letter to Mr Ader pressing him to support the prosecution of Csizsik-Csatary. It may well have been such pressure that led to the 97-year-old’s arrest this week.

Most wanted Nazi charged in Hungary

Jennifer Lipman — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 10:46:22 +0100

The world's most wanted Nazi war criminal has been arrested in Hungary.

Prosecutors in the country said Ladislaus Csizsik-Csatary, 97, was charged with war crimes early this morning.

Accused of complicity in sending 15,700 Jews to their deaths at Auschwitz while serving as a police officer in the then-Slovakian city of Kosice, Csizsik-Csatary was tracked down by Nazi-hunters from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

After escaping a war crimes sentence in 1948, Csizsik-Csatary moved to Canada and was only tracked down again in 1997.

Before he was deported, he escaped and his location has remained unknown for the past 15 years.

He was found on Sunday hiding in plain sight in Budapest.

Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk dies a free man

Jennifer Lipman — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:00:22 +0000

A man sentenced to five years in jail last May for his role in the mass murder of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust has died at the age of 91.

John Demjanjuk was convicted of being an accessory to the deaths of more than 28,000 people while he was a guard at Sobibor concentration camp.

After his conviction prosecutors agreed he could remain free pending an appeal. He died earlier today as a free man, in a nursing home in Germany.

Demjanjuk’s trial, which was delayed over questions about his health, will likely be one of the last case of Nazi-era war crimes to be tried in Germany.

The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk always claimed he was a victim of the Nazis, but a judge found that he agreed to serve as a guard.

Demjanjuk avoided justice for years, emigrating to Ohio and building a family and a career as a mechanic. In 1988 he was deported and sentenced to death in Israel, but the sentence was later overturned on the grounds of mistaken identity. It took another two decades for a Munich court to file charges against him.

Demjanjuk’s son, who said Demjanjuk died of natural causes, maintained today that his father was innocent.

The president of Germany's Central Council of Jews said that he believed it had been the right decision to put Demjanjuk on trial.

"A death is always tragic,” said Dieter Graumann. But he added: “Justice does not know a statute of limitation, and age does not protect from punishment. This was never about revenge, but about justice.”

Long-lost Nuremberg Trials film restored, 66 years late

Martin Bright — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:50:08 +0000

An extraordinary lost film of the Nuremberg war crimes trial enjoyed its UK premiere this week six decades after it was first made. The newly-restored film, Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, was unveiled at a screening in Parliament on Wednesday. It includes footage from the trial of 21 members of the Nazi high command and extracts from Nazi films, collected by a unit under the command of Hollywood director John Ford.

Attorney General Dominic Grieve, who hosted the event, said: "The Nuremberg Trial was a defining moment in the history of international justice, establishing principles which are still in use today." He paid tribute to his predecessors in the post of Attorney-General, Sir Hartley Shawcross and Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, who acted as prosecutors at the trial, he added that the film provided "a unique opportunity to hear and see the events of 66 years ago, as they happened."

The film has been restored by Sandra Schulberg, daughter of the original filmmaker Stuart Schulberg.

A symposium to mark the film's release in Britain was held at Hendon Town Hall on Wednesday hosted by Wiliam Schabas, professor of international law at Middlesex University. Panellists included US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes issues, Stephen J Rapp, and Don Ferencz, founder of the Global Institute for the Prevention of Aggression. Jewish veteran Leslie Sutton, who was present at the Nuremberg trials, also spoke. "I was just 24 years old and didn't understand the full impact of the camps. I didn't quite know at the time what I was witnessing," he said.

Nazi accomplice loses US deportation appeal

Jennifer Lipman — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 10:18:33 +0100

A US judge has upheld a deportation order for a man described as an "indispensable" part of the Nazi campaign in the Ukraine.

John Kalymon was found to have voluntarily served in the Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian Auxiliary Police for three years during the Holocaust.

He moved to the US four years after the war ended, gained US citizenship and settled in Michigan, where he worked in a Chrysler factory. In 2007 he was stripped of his citizenship for concealing his wartime collaboration and last January a judge ordered that the 90-year-old should be deported.

The US Justice Department said Kalymon "personally shot Jews" and took part in "lethal acts of Nazi-sponsored persecution" and "violent anti-Jewish operations in which Jews were forcibly deported to be murdered in gas chambers and to serve as slave labourers".

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer added that Kalymon and his Ukrainian police accomplices "were indispensable participants in Nazi Germany's campaign to exterminate the Jews of Europe".

Around 900,000 Jews were killed in the Ukraine during the Holocaust. The figure was some 60 per cent of the country's pre-war Jewish population.

If Kalymon is successfully deported, he could go to Germany. In May the Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk was convicted, in a German court, of Nazi-era war crimes.

On this day: A Nazi sentenced

Jennifer Lipman — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 09:41:38 +0100

At the age of 25, in 1944, Josef Scheungraber was a Nazi commander operating in Italy. It was on his orders that the military police massacred 14 people in a quiet Tuscany village. His victims were ordered into a barn and the barn was then blown up.

It would take another 65 years for justice to be done. But finally a Munich court sentenced him to life after convicting him on 10 counts of murder as well as one count of attempted murder.

Scheungraber had denied the charges and his lawyers argued there was no evidence, despite the fact that he had already been convicted in an Italian military court for the same crime.

The case rested on photographs placing him at the scene and a conversation about why Scheungraber could not return to Italy, recounted by a key witness.

The sole survivor of the attack, then a 15 year old, told the court: "I heard a scream, and that was it then. They were all dead."

What Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff told the JC: People see a frail old gentleman. War criminals might be old now but in the prime of their lives they put all of their energy into murdering innocent people. I call it misplaced sympathy syndrome. These people had no mercy for their victims.

See more from the JC archives here