THIS GUY HUNTS DOWN NAZISWhat Have You Been Up to Lately?
INTERVIEW BY ROCCO CASTORO
Dr. Efraim Zuroff oversees Operation: Last Chance, an organization that tracks down the remaining geriatric dickheads who were responsible for the Holocaust. He is after the true dregs of humanity, bona fide war criminals such as Dr. Aribert Heim, whose contributions to the world of medicine included injecting phenol, aka carbolic acid, into hundreds of beating hearts as a means of execution, and Adolf Eichmann protégé Alois Brunner, who is personally guilty of deporting over 120,000 Jews to death camps.
Now, you’d like to think that these kind of people would go to great pains to secure a safe hiding spot, but locating them is usually the easy part. Extradition and prosecution are where things start to get dicey. Many Nazis reside comfortably in asshole sanctuaries like Syria, Hungary, and Estonia, nations that, for ideological or legal reasons, refuse to take action against the old Nazis living inside their borders.
Zuroff grew up in Brooklyn, attended Yeshiva University, then spent his twenties bouncing back and forth between the US and Israel racking up history degrees before making the Middle East his permanent hunting grounds. Since then, he’s made certain that hundreds of guilty old Nazis on the lam were brought to justice and died behind bars. How long is it before Spielberg makes a tearjerker epic about this guy?
Vice: How does one get involved in the Nazi-hunting business?
Dr. Efraim Zuroff: After finishing my master’s in Israel, I came back to the US for my PhD. It just happened that the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization founded by the greatest Nazi hunter of all time, was looking for an academic director. They offered me the job. The American government had just started prosecuting Nazi war criminals and the Office of Special Investigations, which still exists to this day, solicited our help in encouraging Holocaust survivors to testify. Six years later, I was working on an investigation regarding Josef Mengele and discovered a research technique that ultimately allowed me to track down close to 3,000 Holocaust perpetrators.
How hard is it to get old Nazis to trial?
The problem is the difference between a Nazi war criminal and a serial killer. If a serial killer is on the loose, the government and police will do anything to find him. The case has a sense of urgency because you’re assuming he will strike again. The problem with Nazis is that they don’t have that immediacy, because no one thinks for a minute that they’re still going around killing people. In many countries it’s unpopular to press for the prosecution of local Nazi collaborators.
Why, the country doesn’t want to lose face for haboring Nazis? That sounds like “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
That’s part of it, no question. It’s also that nations protect their own. They think, “He’s one of us. There must be some reason why he did it. Maybe his wife had a migraine that day so he went out and killed a couple of Jews.” One of the most important things we do is fight against what I call “Holocaust distortion”—skewing the history of the Holocaust by deflecting the blame onto other people. This is particularly true in post-communist countries. In a place like Lithuania, you get the feeling they want all the blame to be placed on Germany and Austria.
Historically, what’s most misunderstood about the Holocaust?
Who’s responsible and who bears the blame in terms of countries facing the reality of their own complicity. This is especially true in Eastern Europe. People collaborated with the Nazis everywhere, but outside of Eastern Europe that relationship usually ended at the train station. The French police rounded up their Jews, the Dutch rounded up theirs; the Norwegians, Greeks, and Belgians all did the same. In their minds, they didn’t kill their Jews—they just put them on trains. But in Eastern Europe, local cooperation usually had the added dimension of active collaboration. For 40 years after the war these countries were communist and couldn’t really deal with their pasts. When they made the transition to democracy, they were desperate to get into NATO and the European Union. They thought it would be very important for them to mend fences because everyone knows how influential Jews are in Washington.
Do any of the Nazis ever own up to their crimes?
No. In one case not long ago, I met the children of one of the people we were accusing of war crimes. He was living in Perth, Australia. They said their father couldn’t have done it—it was impossible, he’s a good dad. I explained to them that we weren’t trying him for his role as a father.
 But no, in all my years of dealing with this business, I’ve never once had a single case of a Nazi who expressed any contrition.
Do they offer excuses?
Some people say, “I was there, but I didn’t do anything.” Right now we have a very important case in Hungary involving Sándor Képíró. His situation is that he was actually prosecuted for his crimes but never punished. He ran away to South America and later came back to Hungary. When we discovered him, he said, “I was there. It was terrible what happened, but I didn’t do anything.”
Who’s the biggest Nazi you’ve helped catch?
The worst criminal that I have helped convict was Dinko SŠakic´. He was the commandant of the largest concentration camp in Croatia. We discovered him in Argentina and helped engineer his extradition. He was prosecuted in Zagreb and sentenced to 20 years. He’s still in prison, rotting away.
How would you respond to claims that you’re a vigilante targeting dottering old men?
First of all, I don’t think for a minute that what I’m doing is the most important thing in the world. There are many other issues that are more important. But this is not revenge. We’re involved in a search for justice. In other words, I know where these people live and, at least in theory, I could go and kill them. We’re giving them a chance—a day in court. It’s far more than they gave their victims.
The passage of time does not diminish the guilt of the killers. If we set an artificial limit on prosecution for genocide, we’re basically saying you can get away with it if you’re lucky enough, smart enough, rich enough, and if you can live long enough. That’s morally outrageous. Let’s say someone murdered your grandmother 40 years ago and then, out of nowhere, you find the killer. It wouldn’t very much matter to you if the guy was 100 years old. He murdered your grandmother and you’d want him to be punished! Every one of these victims was somebody’s grandmother, grandfather, father, mother, son, daughter, niece, or nephew.
So how long before they’re all dead and you can hang up your spurs?
Within the next five years.
For more information about nazi busting, go to www.operationlastchance.org.
 Anonymous, on Sep 16, 2009 wrote:
Yawn. Get on with your lives, past is gone. Besides you missed Mengele. | | Anonymous, on Aug 28, 2009 wrote:
This guy should be distinghished | | Anonymous, on Aug 8, 2009 wrote:
punish israelis for what they are doing to palestine and then i can take this guy seriously. | | Anonymous, on Dec 18, 2008 wrote:
another puff piece peppered with expletives to give it that stale "vice" edge. nice effort though... i imagine it’s tough to make this guy look badass when his job consists of flipping through phone books and harassing kids about their fathers. | | Anonymous, on Dec 18, 2008 wrote:
looks like rocco castoro came pretty close to just sucking on this guy’s dick instead of interviewing him. dr. zuroff can defend what he does by throwing out some lofty phrases about morality and justice - but we all know that nobody actually benefits from what he does. it’s a show, and it’s a show for self engrossed jews. | | Anonymous, on Oct 17, 2008 wrote:
i just said that people killed and got away with it... then followed it up with ’people cant get away with it’. (i meant its not guaranteed... writings hard) | | Anonymous, on Oct 17, 2008 wrote:
at no point in the article does anyone mention that he does it for the risk : hes doing it because there are bastards out there who killed and got away with it. getting justice for their victims IS helping people alive today -its showing you can’t get away with it | | Anonymous, on Jun 18, 2008 wrote:
stal hertz is a liberal homo | | Anonymous, on Jun 17, 2008 wrote:
i agree that perhaps hunting nazis is not ’cutting edge’ for many who view daily atrocities and remember more but i can personally see why it is still important for jews around the world who live on with this very real memory. i would expect tutsis and armenians who suffered genocide to do the same and equally expect vice to write an article on the subject as to whether hunting very old killers from a time forgotten, has relevance, when it happens. | | Anonymous, on Jun 15, 2008 wrote:
wait.. how is anyone "coming out" against anything? it’s just an interview with a guy who has an interesting job. | |
| Springtime for Kitties, on Jun 15, 2008 wrote:
It’s inaccurate (and a touch wiggery) to allege anyone is "hatin’ on" this article’s subject. I’m sure he’s a very nice man who has only the best of intentions. What’s being challenged is exactly how cutting-edge it is to come out against Nazis. It would have been bold in Berlin in 1943, but in NYC in 2008 it’s entirely risk-free. And as others have pointed out, there are ongoing atrocities and human purges that don’t get nearly the same play as something that happened six decades ago. For example, there’s all sorts of horrific shit going on in Africa which some might not protest for fear of being racist. Is that clearer to you? | | Anonymous, on Jun 14, 2008 wrote:
how are people hating on someone dedicating his life to convicting war criminals ? | | |
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