The last Nazis

As they get older the chances that old Nazi war criminals will escape earthly justice increase. The Simon Wiesenthal center is making efforts to find some of the surviving few to bring them to justice, especially in South America.

In recent decades the rate of such discoveries has slowed, though there are still sporadic sightings. The Wiesenthal Center hopes one of the next to be found will be Aribert Heim, an Austrian-born doctor wanted for killing hundreds of prisoners at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria by performing lethal operations without anesthesia.Heim has a daughter in Chile and is believed by Zuroff and others to be alive in either Chile or Argentina. Although Heim’s family has said he is dead, German authorities have discovered a bank account with more than $1.5 million that could be claimed by his children if they were to offer proof of his death. They haven’t, and now, believing that the account might still be financing Heim, Germany has created a special task force to track him.

“There’s now a prize of 310,000 euros on his head — 130,000 offered by the German government, another 130,000 offered by us, and this July the Austrians added another 50,000 euros,” Zuroff said.

But even if Heim is found, trying him in court could prove difficult, if not impossible. The extradition process can take years. The Wiesenthal Center’s leaders met last week with government officials in Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Uruguay to plead for cooperation if any war criminals are found.

While old Nazis are still protected by governments, it is especially perverse that now Israelis like Avi Dichter have to fear traveling abroad lest they be arrested as war criminals.

If the Geneva conventions were being observed, the blame for the civilian deaths when Salah Shehada was killed rested with Shehada. As Ralph Peters wrote 5 years ago:

Earlier this week, Israel succeeded in killing Salah Shehada, a savage Hamas mastermind, and one of his top aides. A dozen Palestinian civilians died in the attack, including members of Shehada’s family. The civilian deaths may be lamentable, but they also were justifiable. A terrorist leader used his relatives and neighbors as shields, and they died with him. Their deaths were Shehada’s fault, not Israel’s.

The Geneva conventions specifically address a case where a combatant hides among non-combatants. Hiding in that fashion does not render the combatant immune from attack. Yet there are those who would twist the meaning of the conventions and argue that Dichter, involved in killing someone who targeted non-combatants is a war criminal.

Meanwhile some old Nazis continue to go free.

International law is an …

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.