ROME (EJP)---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 media’s 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”.