Posted on 10/15/2005 11:29:03 AM PDT by nickcarraway
JERUSALEM -- A Nazi war criminal known as "Dr. Death" for sadistic experiments that killed hundreds of prisoners during World War II has been tracked down to Spain, an Israeli newspaper's Web site said Saturday. Spanish police said they had not yet found the man.
The German weekly Der Spiegel said Spanish investigators believe the 91-year-old suspect, Aribert Heim, has been in Spain recently.
Police said they had not found Heim during searches after receiving indications that he was living in the northeastern province of Girona.
"We haven't detained anyone with that name," said Joan Lopez, a police spokesman in Girona. "All we know is that he may have been in the area of Palafrugell recently."
Heim has been a fugitive since he was charged by German authorities in 1962 with killing hundreds of concentration inmates in Germany and Austria with lethal injections. He is thought to have evaded capture in Germany, Argentina, Denmark, Brazil and Spain.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said Heim would be arrested soon by Spanish police.
Its Web site quoted a spokesman for the Nazi watchdog Simon Wiesenthal Center, Stephen Clem, as saying the center had evidence that Heim is still alive and has amassed more than $2 million in a Berlin bank.
A call to the center's Israeli branch requesting comment was not immediately returned.
Der Spiegel said Spanish investigators think a relative of Heim transferred about $363,000 to an acquaintance in Spain over the past five years and are looking into the possibility that at least some of it may have been used to support Heim.
The magazine said Spain was suspected as Heim's possible hiding place as long ago as the mid-1980s and there had been increasing indications in recent weeks that he might have until recently lived somewhere near Denia on the Mediterranean coast.
During the war, Heim earned the nickname of "Dr. Death" for experimenting on inmates at the Buchanwald and Mauthausen camps. The research included performing surgery without anesthesia and injecting prisoners with gasoline, poison and lethal drugs to see how much their bodies could take before dying, Haaretz said.
Although Heim never completed medical training after studying at the University of Vienna, after the war he worked as a doctor in southern Germany until he was indicted. German authorities have offered a $159,000 reward for his arrest and the Wiesenthal Center $12,200.
I protest!
"What is bitter about a desire to see justice being served?"
Justice will be served, in this life time or the next.
"Unless you have had a relative die at the hands of a monster...you really shouldn't say such things."
I have, so I will.
I also have a friend who lost his entire family to the Nazi's in poland during the early days of the war.
I've also toured the Bergen-Belsen memorial. What the Nazi's did was deplorable and unexcusable.
However, after 60 years, we look almost as sick and demented hunting down old geezers in their 90's for crimes they may or may not even remember.
It's not like these folks have spent the last 60 years constantly dwelling on the Holocaust. The survivors, most of them, have gone on to have lives like anyone else's, with children and grandchildren and moments of great joy, despite the lingering pain of the past.
It's not a question of bitterness. The issue is justice. Let the truth come out -- even if you can't do much to punish a 90+ year old man, at least you can let him see the pain and distrust in the eyes of his children and neighbors.
Let the people he's hidden among see that they walked past a monster on the sidewalk every day. Expose the banality of evil, and send the message to Osama and his ilk that justice does not carry an expiration date. Justice will be done, and his days are numbered -- even if that number is a very large one.
Let the world see that atrocities carry consequences, and they cannot be escaped, just postponed. Let the people running the next Bosnia or the next Rwanda know that we who favor civilization will be tireless and relentless, and however far they run, they will never know a moment's peace.
This isn't something we owe our ancestors; it's something we owe our children. Hitler was emboldened by the fact that no one remembered, and no one was punished for, the Armenian genocide. Don't let the next lunatic believe no one will care.
A very excellant reply. There is a BIG difference between bitterness and seeking justice. Sorry, but that analogy that was posted about " we look as demented as they were" is such relative moralism, I will not own that. That's as ridiculous as the rest of the psychobabble about bitterness.
This is about sending the message to those who knew about the Nazi crimes when they were being comitted and after and still believe that it was right back then. There are many Nazis around today. Sorry, but the statue of limitations isn't up on monstors.
Maybe not.
That bitterness is only a poison if one allows it to be. For instance...I don't hate the German people who had nothing to do with this. I've visited Germany and enjoyed it. But simply because someone is now a "sweet little old man" is not enough to erase their crime against humanity. Views like yours is what these men were counting on when they went into hiding. They were counting on their "sweet little old man" status to get them off the hook much the same way Deborah LaFave's lawyer is counting on her looks (as in "she's too pretty to go to prison) to get her off the hook despite the fact that she's a twisted child molester.
I agree with every word you say here. Hatred in some cases is not only justifiable, but praiseworthy.
I would also say that it is the height of presumptuousness for someone to "forgive" a wrongdoer, and demand tender-hearted "forgiveness" from everybody else, when the "forgiver" is not the one who suffered the wrong.
True forgiveness can only come from an individual victim, and even then it is only meaningful in the realm of spirituality and psychology. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's (Nazi criminals swinging at the end of a rope) and render unto God that which is God's (forgiveness of those who trespass against you).
Moreover, if there is no repentance on the part of the wrongdoer, there is no obligation for forgiveness under the laws of God or Man. This man hid from his pursuers. He is unrepentant. I hate him, and wish for the state to execute him no matter his age or state of health.
If someone killed a loved one of mine, and begged me for forgiveness on the night of his execution, I would try my best to find it within myself to give that forgiveness to him before the eyes of God. But I would agree and expect that Caesar (the state) perfom its duty the next morning, and put him to death. I would not try to stop the execution, nor would I forgive him if he did not repent, nor would I demand that other victims of other crimes "forgive" or "forget" or "move on." If I were the Governor of the state, I would grant a stay of execution only upon petition of the victim's family, and only upon evidence of sincere repentance.
The "forgiveness" mongers and move-on crowd are like a liberal busybody who pats himself on the back for his enlightened social consciousness when he calls for higher taxes from everbody else. Spare me the moral superiority...
Charity is easy when it's someone else's money. Forgiveness is easy when it's someone else's suffering.
-ccm
Hear, hear!
-ccm
I disagree. It is useful as an example to others, and for the comfort of the survivors.
However, if they bother to investigate whoever was complicit in his escape, and whoever while aware of his crimes knowingly assisted him in living to a ripe old age, and then hang *them*... then, maybe, I'll be impressed.
Can't argue with that! Hang 'em all on the same gallows.
-ccm
I don't know...good question!
Never! People like this should know one of the consequences of their decisions is they will be hunted down like dogs for the rest of their lives and made to pay for the horror they inflicted on other human beings! Money be damned!
No, there isn't.
Good. Thanks!
Wanting justice is bitterness?
Hang 'em.
"Zell!! ZELL!!!"
Disgusting.
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