The Simon Wiesenthal Center will launch this week a large scale operation to capture thousands of Nazi war criminals estimated to still be hiding in South America, some 62 years after the fall of the Third Reich. The “Operation Last Chance” will seek in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and Bolivia, wanted Nazis as Alois Brunner, Aribert Heim and Sandor Kepiro, among others in what will probably be the final major effort to locate and bring to justice Nazis in hiding scattered around the world.
According to the center, which announced the launch of the operation this week, the South American phase "Operation: Last Chance" offers money in exchange for information that helps find and prosecute former Nazis. It was first launched in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in July 2002, and spread to countries throughout Europe, including Germany, Poland, Hungary and Croatia.
According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, It has brought forth some 488 suspected Nazi war criminals, of which 99 names were submitted to local law enforcement in the countries where the suspects resided. The result so far has been three arrest warrants, two extradition requests and dozens of continuing investigations.
The final number may not sound like much, "but it's actually a lot [considering] the late date and bureaucratic obstacles," said the center's chief Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff, as quoted by the Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post. "The problem is not finding these people, but getting them into a courtroom. Political will is turning out to be more difficult than finding information and catching the [suspects]”, he said.
While "the atmosphere is different now, and there is less willingness [than in the past] to give shelter to exposed Nazi war criminals" on the part of South America's center-left governments, "most have not been willing to undertake comprehensive investigations to find Nazis," Zuroff complains. Even so, "if we find the Nazis, today they will extradite them”, he told according to the Israeli newspaper.
According to the Wiesenthal center, “the operation will formally launch at a press conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Tuesday, in Chile on Friday and in Brazil and Uruguay the following week”. “The next step will involve advertising in media and setting up telephone hot lines in these countries calling on those with any knowledge to come forward. The third and final phase will be a thorough investigation to evaluate the information, using local detectives and researchers.”
After World War II thousands of Nazi war criminals managed to escape from Europe to South America, including notorious butchers as Adolf Eichmann, Klaus Barbie, Josef Menguele and Ante Pavelic. Some of them were eventually arrested and tried in Europe and Israel, but most of them found shelter in the region.
In Argentina, for example, some Nazi war criminals worked for local governments and became part of its society under new identities.
A civil lawsuit was filed in Miami-Dade on Monday against the Fairmont Turnberry Isle Resort and Club in Aventura for breach of contract by a vacation operator specializing in Kosher holiday vacations.
The lawsuit claims, the Passover vacationers are being pushed aside so the resort can instead host a Ladies' Professional Golf Association tournament.
Rabbi Jonah Gerwitz said, "LPGA… let Passover go away. We can't really do that, but I guess they want to."
Stuart Vidockler of Presidential Kosher Holidays said, "We have families that count on this and make their plans literally a year in advance."
For the past two years, Presidential Kosher Holidays has brought hundreds of observant Jewish families from around the world to the Aventura resort for the Passover holiday.
The company already has reservations for next year's event, but last month the resort abruptly cancelled the 2008 contract.
Tour operators say their contract clearly states the resort cannot cancel solely for more profitable or easier to handle business opportunities.
Normally, travel agents say they'd just get another hotel but because this is an orthodox kosher Passover vacation, there are religious requirements that take months of planning like finding a place with two kitchens, one for meat one for dairy and setting up a synagogue on site.
Rabbi Gerwitz added, "They ought to find a way that even golf doesn't take precedent over the word of God."
Tour operators could get $100,000 in exchange for having the contract cancelled, but that's not what they want. They say between now and April, they don't have time to find another place that meets the religious requirements.
The OU Kashrus organization has sued a Baltimore-based spice company for trademark infringement, alleging that the company used the agency’s kosher certification symbol on its products without being certified.
The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, which owns the OU kosher certification mark, filed suit against The Wilder Spice Co. in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.
“Consumers are clearly going to be misled as to whether the OU certified the product, and it may well be that the product is not kosher; we don’t know,” said David Butler of Washington, D.C.’s Bingham McCutchen LLP, who filed the complaint on behalf of the Orthodox Union.
The complaint alleges that the OU mark appeared on at least four Wilder products and that Wilder forged a “letter of certification” saying that the Orthodox Union had certified its products, allowing it to use the symbol.
“The whole thing is a huge misunderstanding,” said Danny Christofano, executive vice president of Wilder.
He said the company’s raw materials are certified kosher, most of them by the Orthodox Union, and that some of Wilder’s own products are certified by a smaller supervision agency, EarthKosher. Wilder put the OU symbol on some of its products by mistake because it did not understand “that we had to have permission” from the Orthodox Union to use the mark even if its suppliers’ products are kosher, Christofano said.
He said that after the Orthodox Union contacted Wilder about the problem, the company asked if the certification agency would agree to inspect its facilities and certify its products as kosher, but “they refused us.”
Wilder is no longer sending out spices that contain the OU mark, Christofano said.
Kosher agencies charge a fee to supervise or inspect a food company’s facilities to ensure that the food is manufactured in accordance with Jewish dietary laws. In exchange, the company may display the agency’s kosher symbol on its packaging, a privilege that can gain the company religious Jewish customers, as well as non-religious buyers who believe kosher products are made under stricter standards.
The Orthodox Union alleges federal trademark infringement and dilution of a famous mark, among other claims. It seeks an injunction forbidding Wilder from using the OU symbol and requiring it to remove any products containing the symbol from the marketplace. It also seeks actual and punitive damages to be determined at trial.
Wilder was founded by Ann Wilder and her son, Robert Wilder. Ann Wilder also founded Vanns Spices Ltd. in the 1980s, but the family later sold its interest in the company and started Wilder a few years ago, Christofano said. He said the company mainly sells its spices to food service and industrial clients.(dr)
Around 15,000 people on Monday took part in a
demonstration at the Western Wall to protest the Middle East peace
summit being held Tuesday in Annapolis, Maryland.
After more than 60 years a vast archive of wartime German documents on the Nazi Holocaust has been opened to the public.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center will launch this week a large scale operation to capture thousands of Nazi war criminals estimated to still be hiding in South America, some 62 years after the fall of the Third Reich. The “Operation Last Chance” will seek in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and Bolivia, wanted Nazis as Alois Brunner, Aribert Heim and Sandor Kepiro, among others in what will probably be the final major effort to locate and bring to justice Nazis in hiding scattered around the world.
A civil lawsuit was filed in Miami-Dade on Monday against the Fairmont Turnberry Isle Resort and Club in Aventura for breach of contract by a vacation operator specializing in Kosher holiday vacations.
