[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 119 (Monday, July 21, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Page S6969]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     COMMENDING DR. EPHRAIM ZUROFF

 Mr. SMITH. Madam President, today I commend Dr. Ephraim Zuroff 
and the Simon Wiesenthal Center for their efforts to track down the 
last Nazi war criminals from World War II. Their work is enormously 
important, both in bringing the guilty to justice and preventing future 
acts of genocide. The statute of limitations does not--must not--expire 
on crimes against humanity. I am proud to assist Dr. Zuroff and his 
organization through the World War II War Crimes Accountability Act, 
which I introduced with Senator Nelson earlier this year.
  Over the past weeks, Dr. Zuroff has traveled throughout South America 
in an effort to locate Dr. Aribert Heim, one of the most wanted Nazis 
still at large. Dr. Heim, a former SS concentration camp doctor, was 
nicknamed ``Dr. Death'' for his brutal and sadistic experiments on camp 
inmates. At Mauthausen, the camp where he committed his worst crimes, 
Dr. Heim was known for murdering inmates by injecting toxins directly 
into their hearts. Though detained after the Second World War, Heim was 
subsequently released and remained free until 1962. After he was tipped 
off that German authorities intended to prosecute him for war crimes, 
he fled Germany and disappeared. Today, Dr. Heim is believed to be 
living in either the Chilean or Argentinean Patagonia region at the tip 
of South America. His family claims he died in 1993 after fleeing 
Germany, but Dr. Zuroff points out that the family has still not 
claimed one of his bank accounts holding over a million dollars. If he 
were dead, his relatives could receive that money by showing evidence 
of his death.
  The Simon Wiesenthal Center launched Operation: Last Chance in 2002 
to identify and assist in the prosecution of the remaining Nazi war 
criminals still at large. Dr. Zuroff, who has been leading this effort, 
should be highly commended for his outstanding efforts in bringing the 
most guilty Nazis to justice. Of these, Dr. Heim is at the top of his 
list.
  Even today, the crimes of Heim and the Nazi regime strain our 
understanding of hate. National Socialist Germany today is an icon 
remembered only for its brutality, its mantra of genocide, and its 
culture of racism. And those last Nazis, who are waiting out their last 
days under the coming twilight, must not be allowed to go quietly into 
the night, as did too many of their victims. For the souls that were 
lost, and even more for those that remain, there must be justice. I 
commend Dr. Zuroff and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in the highest 
possible terms, and urge the U.S. Government to do all it can to help 
them in their cause.

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