For 25 years, Efraim Zuroff has been hunting Nazis. And now time is running out for him. Within five years, by his own estimate, the last of the Nazi war criminals will be either dead or too old or ill to bring to justice. "We're in a battle against time," he says, bluntly.

And for all of those 25 years, Zuroff has travelled the world, tracking down leads on Nazis responsible for the slaughter of 6 million Jews and others during the Holocaust in the 1940s.

He has had some major success — and major frustrations.

Still, he never stops hunting, even though virtually all of the big names are gone, having died or been already prosecuted and found guilty. Now, he's going after the "small fry," the people who actually pulled the trigger on orders from their superiors.

"How can I give up?" Zuroff asked during a visit this week to Toronto. "How can you give up when there are thousands of Nazis still alive who murdered people because they were the wrong nationality, the wrong religion. We owe it to the victims to find the guilty and hold them to account."

Zuroff is the energetic 56-year-old director of the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He has been dubbed "the last Nazi hunter," a label he likes. "To me, it is a badge of honour," he says.

These days, with the big trials mainly over, Zuroff is promoting "Operation Last Chance," a project that offers up to 10,000 euros (about $16,000 Canadian) for information that will facilitate the prosecution and punishments of Nazi war criminals.

Started in 2002, it now covers nine countries in eastern and central Europe. To date, 329 suspected criminals have been identified, 74 of which have been submitted to local prosecutors.

Some Holocaust groups in Europe have criticized "Operation Last Chance," saying it is the equivalent of a bounty. The money was put up by Miami businessman Aryeh Rubin. And the project has run into legal obstacles in Hungary and Poland, where officials say it violates data protection laws.

But Zuroff is unapologetic. "Because time is running out, we need to be more proactive" to find the guilty, he says.

Also, the project is aimed at providing a new generation of Europeans historical accuracy about their countries' past and allowing them to confront that history in a meaningful way.

In Canada, the centre has placed ads for "Operation Last Chance" in a Lithuanian immigrant newspaper. "There is a lot of information here," Zuroff says, adding he hopes the ad will encourage people to come forward or to help fund the project.

Each day, Zuroff pitches his latest campaign to eager audiences. Clearly, he is still excited by the hunt. "I was a child of the '60s," he says.

"I remember it as a time of activism, of environmentalists. I liked to deal with activists, and I found this is what I wanted to do and what I was good at doing."

Raised in Brooklyn, Zuroff earned a doctoral degree in history from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He first worked at the Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, then worked for a special office of the U.S. Justice Department investigating war crimes, before joining the Wiesenthal Center full time as its chief Nazi hunter.

During his career, he has been praised by Jews as a hero — and condemned by other Jews as a "Holocaust pimp" and a publicity hound.

"If I feel frustrated, and believe me I do at times, I think of the victims and their fate," he says when asked about the personal attacks on him and about the failure to bring more Nazi war criminals to justice.

And when asked why he keeps at it, trying to track down men in their 80s and 90s for crimes committed more than 50 years ago, he sighs. Obviously, it's a question he has been asked hundreds of times, a question he likely has asked himself at times.

"The passage of time in no way lessens the crime," he says. "If a Nazi war criminal avoids prosecution for 50 years, he doesn't become a Righteous Gentile. I don't believe just cause they have reached an elderly age, there should be misplaced sympathy. These people don't deserve sympathy because they had none for their victims.

"To ignore these killers would send the worst possible message to people, that you can get away with genocide."

As for charges he is now only dealing with the "small fry," he says that if he finds the person who killed your grandmother, you don't care if it's a general or a private.

And for Efraim Zuroff there are plenty of "small fry" still out there, somewhere, hiding.

"The hunt will only be over," the last Nazi-hunter says with slow determination, "when the last Nazi is dead.

TORONTO STAR, February 19, 2005