Efraim Zuroff has been nothing if not persistent. For years he’s been urging reluctant governments, particularly in the former Communist Bloc, to prosecute Nazi war criminals before time runs out.

As the biological clock continues to tick 60 years after the end of the Holocaust, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Zuroff, the director of its Jerusalem office, have started using a novel approach: offering substantial cash rewards for information leading to the conviction and punishment of war criminals.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, in conjunction with the Tirgum Shlishi Foundation, a Florida charitable organization headed by philanthropist Aryeh Rubin, are offering rewards of up to $10,000 as part of Operation: Last Chance.

So far, the program has been introduced in a handful of European countries, including Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Austria, Croatia and Germany.

A few weeks ago, it was launched in Hungary where it has generated more than 329 leads, 78 of which have been passed along to local prosecutors.

“Eastern Europe is in desperate need of a Nazi war crimes trials,” said Zuroff, who was in Toronto and Winnipeg recently.

Not only was it the place where most Jews were murdered, but many of the perpetrators continue to reside there, he said.

Zuroff said one of the goals of Operation: Last Chance is to spur governments to action, despite widespread reluctance to do so. Such an exercise will have valuable long-term benefits, he believes. Not only will those who committed horrendous deeds finally be brought to justice, but the trials and publicity surrounding the investigations will have a valuable educational component about the countries’ real wartime activities, he said.

Prosecutions have proven unpopular in the three Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. “In the eyes of many Lithuanians, the people who assisted the Nazis were heroes because they also fought the communists,” Zuroff stated. “The fact they murdered Jews doesn’t factor in, for the most part.”

Collaboration in the Baltics was extensive and helped account for the high death tolls of local Jewish populations. In Lithuania, 212,000 out of 220,000 Jews were murdered; in Latvia, 67,000 out of 70,000; and in Estonia, 993 of 1,000 were killed, he said.

In addition, Jews from other parts of Europe were brought to these countries to be killed, and later in the war, many Nazi collaborators were part of armed units sent to other parts of the Soviet Union to murder Jews.

Pressed by the United States, Israel and other countries, Lithuania indicted two suspects, but they were so frail they were declared medically unfit for trial. The Lithuanian government hoped that “trick” would relieve the pressure, but it instead prompted creation of Operation Last Chance, along with its requirement that the reward is contingent on conviction and punishment, Zuroff said.

Since it was inaugurated in July 2002, Operation: Last Chance has generated two cases that appear “very promising,” Zuroff said.

In Croatia, Milivoj Asner, the former wartime police chief of Slavonia Pozega, is under investigation after the country’s president personally urged the attorney general to proceed. Asner fled to Klagenfurt, Austria in July 2004 after his wartime role was exposed.

In Hungary, a former army officer is under investigation for murdering a young Budapest Jew in 1944 for not wearing a yellow star. Charles Zentai is now believed to be living in Perth, Australia, Zuroff said.

Turning to the Canadian scene, Zuroff said he was shocked at the lack of progress on the Nazi war crimes file.

“What’s going on here is just unbelievable,” he said. Only three new cases have been launched in Canada in the last two years (21 since 1994) while the United States has stripped 74 suspects of citizenship and deported 54 in the last four years.

“It’s a total failure of political will to finish off these cases in the manner they should be. It’s an across-the-board failure. To me it’s clear these cases are in bad need of strong political will, to complete them and deny them the privilege of living in Canada.”

He suggested the local Jewish community, preoccupied with issues of anti-Semitism and Israel-bashing, have not pushed hard for action on the war crimes dossier.

CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS