Free Republic

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria's legal system and its insufficient zeal in investigating alleged crimes committed under Hitler's Third Reich make it a "paradise for Nazi war criminals," a top Nazi hunter said on Wednesday. Frustrated at slow progress in finding suspected war criminals in Austria and bringing them to court, Simon Wiesenthal Center director Efraim Zuroff came to Vienna for talks with ministers aimed at accelerating the process. "The law in this country does more to protect Nazis than to bring them to justice," Zuroff told reporters after talks with Austria's ministers for justice and the interior. "There is a...

Demjanjuk in court to fight extradition to UkraineLong story, short: John Demjanjuk is an ill, wheelchair bound 85 year old Russian immigrant who originally served as a Russian soldier, but was taken prisoner by the Germans in WW II. As a Russian prisoner of war he may have been assigned to Jewish death camps [his entire history is conjecture] Wilkipedia He emigrated to the U.S. in 1951 and spent the most of his American life working at a Ford plant and raising a family. In the late seventies Nazi Hunter Simon Wiesenthal with fellow U.S. Justice Department Nazi Hunters...

Jews Worldwide Bombard* I.D.F. Soldiers with Pizza An Internet Site Allows People From All Over the World to Send Pizza to Soldiers in the Field -- and the Interest is High I.D.F. soldiers out in the field have been suprised in recent days, but the surprise introduces a new trend: without any prior warning a box of pizza suddenly arrives. Behind the pizza boxes is an internet site that was set up by a group of reserve soldiers. The site, http://PizzaIDF.org, offers supporters of Israel throughout the whole world the opportunity to join the war effort in the territories and...

US lawmakers introduced legislation honoring Simon Wiesenthal. Bills were introduced Tuesday in the US Senate and House of Representatives marking the Nazi hunter's death at age 96. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) introduced the bill in the House; Sens. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) introduced the bill in the Senate. The legislation honors Wiesenthal's life and reaffirms Congress' commitment to fighting anti-Semitism and prosecuting remaining Nazi war criminals. "In his pursuit of justice, he honored the memory of Nazi victims and inspired world leaders and individuals to fight anti-Semitism and intolerance," Waxman said in a statement. President Bush also...

In taking note of the life of Simon Wiesenthal, the great Nazi hunter who died yesterday at 96 after surviving the Soviet NKVD, numerous German death camps and a 1982 assassination attempt, we are reminded of Andrew Jackson's famous aphorism: "One man with courage makes a majority." ...[I]t is difficult to remember that when Mr. Wiesenthal began tracking Nazis from a tiny "Documentation Center" in the Austrian city of Linz, his work was hardly popular. Much of Europe wanted to put its collaborationist chapters behind it; some of the most prominent Nazis had fled to distant corners and assumed new...

Simon Wiesenthal: "The Conscience of the Holocaust, Dies in Vienna" at 96 Simon Wiesenthal, the famous Nazi Hunter has died in Vienna at the age of 96, the Simon Wiesenthal Center announced today (September 20th). "Simon Wiesenthal was the conscience of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the International Human Rights NGO named in Mr. Wiesenthal’s honor, adding, "When the Holocaust ended in 1945 and the whole world went home to forget, he alone remained behind to remember. He did not forget. He became the permanent representative of the victims, determined to bring the perpetrators of...

ALARM - Died of Simon Wiesenthal, hunter of Nazis VIENNA - Simon Wiesenthal, celebrates it Austrian "hunter of Nazis", died Tuesday at the 96 years age in Vienna, announces the center which bears its name on its Internet site.

PARIS - An Internet film clip that depicts the Auschwitz death camp as a rave party drew sharp criticism from a leading Jewish rights group Wednesday, which urged authorities to order the film to be removed from several European Web sites. ADVERTISEMENT The 3-minute video depicts SS soldiers as DJs and flashes offensive messages over images of concentration camp victims. The video alternates black-and-white photos of Holocaust atrocities with color images of youths partying at an open-air rave. The Simon Wiesenthal Center's European office in Paris denounced the film as "outrageous," saying in a statement that it goes "beyond the...

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish human rights organization, is urging Bishop Mark Hanson and the leadership of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to reject a proposed resolution by the Church’s Caribbean Synod that denies Israel’s legitimacy and calls for ELCA to push for divestment of the Jewish State. ELCA is convening its biennial Assembly in Orlando today. "The Caribbean Synod’s proposed resolution is a major escalation in the worldwide political campaign to delegitimize Israel and is in keeping with the spirit of the 1975 UN resolution that equated Zionism with racism," charged Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate...

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has urged President Bush to protest the broadcast of an antisemitic sermon by Palestinian TV during his May 26th White House meeting with PA President Abbas. The request to the President by Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, dean and associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (respectively) came on the heels of a May 13th genocidal sermon broadcast live on Palestinian Television by Gaza cleric Sheikh Ibrahim Mudairis. In that sermon, Mudairis, who appears frequently on Palestinian Television, charged that, "The Jews are the cancer spreading all over the world...the Jews are a virus like...

Against the backdrop of continuing hate crimes against French Jewry, France's Broadcasting Authority had banned Hezbollah's Al-Manar viciously antisemitic and anti-Israel TV (see right and below) for violating French anti-incitement laws. Earlier this week, French Broadcasting Authority announced that it had reversed its ban thereby giving Al-Manar the license to continue broadcasting into France and elsewhere in Europe via French satellite television after the Beirut-based mouthpiece of the terrorist Hizbollah organization allegedly agreed not to broadcast any hate programming. The Wiesenthal Center has protested to French Broadcasting Authority President Dominique Baudis (click here to read) and we urge you now...

SIMON Wiesenthal, the last great Nazi hunter, will be knighted by Britain today in a tribute to his role in tracking down more than 1000 war criminals from the Third Reich. The presentation for the appointment as Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, by John Macgregor, the British ambassador to Vienna, is likely to be a poignant one. Mr Wiesenthal, 95, is ill - so frail that the ceremony will be conducted in his living room - and has withdrawn from the search for Nazi criminals. Since many of the suspects are almost as old as Mr...

Simon Wiesenthal believes his work must continue to remind world of a tarnished past SIMON WIESENTHAL, the last great Nazi hunter, will be knighted by Britain today in a tribute to his role in tracking down more than 1,000 war criminals from the Third Reich. The presentation for the appointment as Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, by John Macgregor, the British Ambassador to Vienna, is likely to be a poignant one. Mr Wiesenthal, now 95, is ill — so frail that the ceremony will be conducted in his living room — and has withdrawn from the...

WARSAW, Poland - The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Wednesday launched a drive to track down remaining Nazi war criminals in Poland by offering a $12,000 reward for information leading to their prosecution, drawing criticism from prominent Polish figures. The Los Angeles-based center opened a telephone hotline and plans to broaden its campaign with newspaper ads in the next months. Efraim Zuroff, its chief Nazi hunter, said a similar drive already has led to eight investigations in Lithuania and one in Latvia. But critics worried it sent a message that Poland, which was invaded by Germany in 1939 and lost millions...

<p>GRAZ, Austria -- Those of us from his hometown here who have known Arnold Schwarzenegger a long time -- indeed consider him a friend -- never had any doubt that he could win the California election to become governor.</p> <p>First, America is the land of immigrants: Where else but in America could an immigrant, a former bodybuilder turned Hollywood star, become governor? Second, as we know well, the word that defines Arnold is "discipline"; what he sets his mind to he gets. He would not be derailed by the lies that were told about him or by those dismissive of his abilities.</p>

WASHINGTON - Nazi hunters are reopening their investigation into Arnold Schwarzenegger's father's war record. Schwarzenegger, the leading Republican in California's recall election, has long known - and made public his dismay - about his father's membership in the Nazi Party. But last year's unsealing of records showing his father was a member of the paramilitary SA — the Sturmabteilung, known as the brownshirts, or storm troopers — prompted the new probe. The Simon Wiesenthal Center will comb the information and make a new report to the actor before the Oct. 7 recall vote, Rabbi Marvin Hier told The Associated Press,...

VIENNA, Austria - Austria has an exceptionally poor record in bringing Nazi war criminals to justice even though numerous suspects still live there, the Simon Wiesenthal Center said in a new report. The 40-page report, which was posted Saturday on the organization's Web site, reviewed Nazi investigations and prosecutions in 39 countries between April 2002 and this past March. "Austria has failed to convict a Holocaust perpetrator in more then two decades and refuses to establish a special prosecution agency despite the existence of numerous suspects in the country," the center said. At least a dozen countries, including some in...

An international conference on intolerance opened Monday with a stern warning that acts of hatred against Jews, particularly in Europe, have reached their highest level since World War II. "A new generation of haters has been brought up and are ready to act," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based Jewish rights group. The center jointly organized the three-day meeting in Paris with the United Nations' cultural agency to discuss ways to reverse the trend and promote religious tolerance in schools and universities. But dozens of protesters outside UNESCO's Paris headquarters accused the Wiesenthal...

PARIS - An international conference on intolerance opened Monday with a stern warning that acts of hatred against Jews, particularly in Europe, have reached their highest level since World War II. "A new generation of haters has been brought up and are ready to act," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based Jewish rights group. The center jointly organized the three-day meeting in Paris with the United Nations' cultural agency to discuss ways to reverse the trend and promote religious tolerance in schools and universities. But dozens of protesters outside UNESCO's Paris headquarters accused...

<p>At 94, Simon Wiesenthal has to be chauffeured to his office by his secretaries, skips public appearances, and cannot get out of his chair without bracing himself against the wall.</p> <p>But the legendary Nazi hunter perseveres in his unending mission: to keep the Holocaust from being forgotten.</p>