[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 14 (Tuesday, January 29, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S440-S441]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                JUSTICE

  Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I rise to speak about justice.
  Today, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, in coordination with the Targum 
Shlishi Foundation, is conducting Operation: Last Chance, a final 
effort to bring the most guilty Nazis to justice before they die. The 
perpetrators of the Holocaust must not be allowed to cheat their 
deserved fate.
  The uniqueness of the Holocaust crime lies not wholly in its number 
of

[[Page S441]]

victims, though that number was horrifyingly large. Its singularity is 
also the reality of a modern government's methodically executed plan to 
annihilate an entire race, an effort that is now one of the greatest 
crimes against humanity the world has ever seen. Even in a century 
where so much blood was shed--in China, Russia, Africa, and the Middle 
East--the Holocaust stands alone. For the victims of the Holocaust were 
chosen not based on any threat to the state, real or imaginary. Indeed, 
some victims had served with distinction in the German Army during the 
First World War, and many had then given their lives for their country. 
They were chosen instead simply for who they were, one of the most 
ancient peoples to grace this Earth, and one which has never before 
come so perilously close to utter oblivion.
  Historians have argued for years about why and how the Holocaust 
occurred. But for the survivors, and even more for victims, that 
question is entirely secondary. There is only the reality of the crime 
and the ongoing quest for justice.
  We can argue about which Nazi organizations are the most culpable and 
which were relatively ignorant. As the Nuremburg war crimes trials 
showed, all Germans are not guilty, and not all are innocent. In some 
cases, the line blurs slightly. But that does not mean the line does 
not exist because some--many, perhaps all--are certainly guilty. The 
Einsatzgruppen. The concentration camp guards. The SS. The bureaucrats 
who signed off on orders with little thought of the immense crime which 
they were committing. For these people, there can be no amnesty. There 
can be no looking away. There must be justice.
  Unfortunately, after the war, many of the guilty scattered to the 
four corners of the earth. Some, like Klaus Barbie, fled to South 
America. Others remained in Germany, Austria, and the Balkans, where 
successor governments to the Axis gradually lost interest in 
prosecution. Many fled to the United States, which had only finished 
fighting the Nazi threat when it faced a resurgent Soviet threat. The 
Cold War diverted, partially, the Western governments from bringing 
Nazi killers to justice. Living in homes across the United States and 
Europe, working at normal jobs and raising families, the most culpable 
killers may have thought they escaped a reckoning. And, for a time, 
they did. The Government was certainly not looking for them. But one 
man was. One man had himself been a prisoner in those terrible camps 
and had seen firsthand the horrors perpetrated there.
  Simon Wiesenthal began searching for Nazis and documenting the crimes 
of them after World War II, and continued for many years. The Simon 
Wiesenthal Center was founded in 1977 and has an impressive track 
record of combating modern bigotry and antisemitism, promoting human 
rights, and ensuring the safety of Jews worldwide. These efforts 
complement Simon Wiesenthal's life's work in hunting Nazi fugitives and 
trying to repair, in part, the damage of the Holocaust.
  Today, however, the hour grows late. It is now almost 63 years since 
the end of World War II. Every week, Nazi criminals are passing away, 
80 and 90-year-old men escaping the long arm of justice. Many of the 
host countries in which they reside are grateful for this quiet end, 
avoiding uncomfortable legal proceedings and revisiting old specters 
from the past.

  But the easy way is almost never the right way. In these later days, 
it is incumbent on all of us to help finish the task Simon Wiesenthal 
began decades ago. In view of the dwindling time available, the center 
launched Operation Last Chance in 2002, which is aimed at finding Nazi 
fugitives in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, Germany, Austria, 
Croatia, and Hungary. There is much work to do: the opening of the 
Soviet archives since 1991 offers a magnificent opportunity to identify 
some of the most guilty Nazis, previously hidden behind the Iron 
Curtain.
  Operation Last Chance is fittingly named, after a final opportunity 
to bring those remaining Nazis to earthly justice before they meet 
eternal justice. To date Wiesenthal Center has identified nearly 500 
war crimes suspects, 99 of whom have been turned over to prosecutors. 
Operation Last Chance primarily focuses on offering rewards for the 
location and arrest of such criminals as Dr. Sandor Kepiro, a Hungarian 
police official; Milivoj Asner, a police chief in fascist Croatia; 
Charles--Karoly--Zentai, a fascist Croatian city governor; Erna 
Wallisch, a German concentration camp guard; and many others; and Dr. 
Aribeit Heim was nicknamed ``Dr. Death'' for the medical murders and 
torture he inflicted on hundreds of concentration camp inmates. He is 
at large, and his whereabouts unknown. Finding him, and prosecuting all 
of the wanted Nazi criminals, is a task of the utmost moral importance.
  The roadblocks are many, and the shortcuts few. This late hour 
demands that the U.S. Government make every effort to help with 
Operation Last Chance. I call upon the President and Secretary Rice to 
make it clear to our European and South American allies that we will 
not tolerate footdragging on extradition orders, deportation, and 
criminal indictments. We will not tolerate the easy way. We demand that 
they commit the resources of the U.S. Government to this cause that our 
descendents will not look back on us and say: In the end, they did too 
little. In the end, they turned away.

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