Slightly more than a
year ago, the Simon Wiesenthal Center launched “Operation:
Last Chance” in Romania at a press conference hosted by the
Federation of Romanian Jewish Communities in Bucharest. Romania
was the fifth country in which the project was initiated. It was
started in July 2002 in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and was
expanded in the fall of 2003 to Poland, Romania and Austria. This
year it has already been launched in Croatia and Hungary. They
were chosen because the local population in these countries actively
participated in the mass murder of European Jewry and have done
practically nothing to bring these murderers to justice.
The basic motivation for the project was the understanding that
time was running out in terms of bringing Nazi war criminals
to justice. Although many thousands of those who actively participated
in the persecution and murder of Jews in the Holocaust have never
been prosecuted for their crimes, fifty-seven years had already
passed since the end of World War II when “Operation: Last
Chance” was launched. Thus Aryeh Rubin, the founder of
the “Targum Shlishi” charitable foundation, which
is funding “Operation: Last Chance” and myself realized
that in order to maximize justice we would have to find more
innovative and effective ways of tracking down Nazi war criminals
and finding evidence. We decided to offer a financial reward
for information which would lead to the prosecution and punishment
of Nazi war criminals and thus “Operation: Last Chance” was
born.
Where do we currently stand two years after “Operation:
Last Chance” was launched and a year after it started in
Romania? In the Baltics we received the names of 247 suspects,
mostly from Lithuania (198) and Latvia (43), of which fifty-nine
were submitted to local prosecutors. About twenty murder investigations
have already been initiated, involving approximately fifty suspects,
but to date no indictments have been filed. We are hopeful that
at least a few of those currently under investigation will ultimately
be brought to trial, most probably in Lithuania. In Austria and
Poland the number of suspects is considerably lower but the campaign
in the latter had not yet been fully launched, so it is too early
to assess the Polish results. In Austria, we received far less
information than we anticipated and the project was the subject
of numerous anti-Semitic attacks.
In Romania, “Operation: Last Chance” has had several
stages. The first was our September 10, 2003 press conference.
That was followed by the launching of our toll-free info line (0800-800-125),
in December 2003, our poster and newspaper ad campaign in Iasi
in March 2004, and a nationwide poster and ad campaign in the summer
of 2004, which is being followed by television ads. Each of these
elements, the last three of which have been prepared by Tempo Advertising,
has helped inform and educate the public about “Operation:
Last Chance” and, more important, about the events of the
Final Solution in Romania and the role of Romanians in the crimes
of the Holocaust, both in Romania and in other countries.
The figures speak for themselves. To date, more than four dozen
individuals have contacted us by phone, letter and email. Almost
two dozen of the callers submitted information regarding crimes
committed in Romania and its annexed territories during the Holocaust
and/or the identities of specific criminals, of whom fifteen men
have already been named. The ages of the informants ranged from
under forty to over ninety. They represented a geographic cross-section
of the entire country, although quite a few came from Bucharest
and Iasi. Some were eyewitnesses to crimes, others had heard about
them, either from the killers themselves or from friends and/or
relatives. The crimes they described took place in different parts
of Romania and Bessarabia such as Botosani, Caraciunesti (Maramures
district), Cernauti, Popricani village, Oradea, Dorohoi, Bucharest
and Iasi.
It is important to note that not all the callers had information
regarding the killers. Some, for example, related how they or others
had saved Jews during the Holocaust, while others sent books or
manuscripts on Holocaust crimes. One of the most touching letters
came from a woman named Cornelia Nistor in Iasi who wrote a poem
dedicated to Mira Greenberg, the four year old girl killed in the
Iasi pogrom whose photo appeared on our “Operation: Last
Chance” poster. Other callers had strange requests such as
the women who sought help in finding a Jewish husband like “the
Biblical Joseph” or a family which sought help to emigrate
to Israel, but there were also a few obvious provocations and anti-Semitic
responses. For some of the informants, the motive for contacting
us was clearly financial, but in many cases the people said that
they did not want the reward.
We are currently investigating all the leads we received in order
to decide which to submit to the Romanian judicial authorities
for possible prosecution. Only those names of individuals against
whom there is solid evidence and who have not previously been prosecuted
for their crimes will be submitted, with our demand that these
cases be thoroughly and expeditiously handled. So far “Operation:
Last Chance” had been fairly successful in Romania, but we
will only be able to fully assess its impact upon its completion.
Obviously, a lot will depend on whether any trials of Holocaust
perpetrators will take place. Having said that, a large measure
of its relative success to date can be attributed to the excellent
cooperation and assistance of the Jewish community and especially
of the Association of Holocaust Survivors, headed by Otto Adler.
In terms of its public impact, we are indebted to Tempo Advertising,
which has provided expertise and services at the highest possible
level to produce the most intensive “Operation: Last Chance” campaign
of its kind anywhere in the world.
The main principle behind “Operation: Last Chance” is
that the passage of time in no way diminishes the culpability of
the criminals and the fact that Nazi murderers eluded justice for
fifty years does not make them innocent. To ignore them, moreover,
would be tantamount to excusing genocide, a message which would
only encourage such crimes in the future.
In addition, I believe that this project helps fulfill our obligation
to the victims to try and bring their murderers to justice, an
obligation always emphasized by Simon Wiesenthal himself. In addition,
we must also note the educational dimension of such a campaign
and its importance in the current fight against anti-Semitism,
which in recent years is again raising its ugly head in Europe.
In conclusion, I would like to share a letter which we recently
received form Letitia Demusca of Onesti in the Bacau district.
She had seen a television program on the Holocaust in which a professor
had claimed that none of the Romanians who had rescued Jews during
the Holocaust were still alive. Letitia Demusca was writing to
inform us that not only was she still alive but that she vividly
recalls how her family rescued David Candel and his family in Fundoaie,
near Bistrita by hiding them in a hay stack for five months. Yad
Vashem, the Israeli national Holocaust memorial, honored Ms. Demusca
and her sister the late Ana Craciun, but her letter is an important
reminder and lesson. Just as she is still alive and has clear memories
of deeds of courage and kindness which took place sixty years ago,
numerous people are still alive who can testify about the crimes
of the Holocaust. It is to encourage such people to come forward
to reveal the truth and identify those who committed the murders,
that “Operation: Last Chance” was created. Let us all
hope and pray for its success.
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