The Canadian Justice Minister has signed an extradition order to facilitate the transfer of Albert Helmut Rauca to West Germany to stand trial there on charges of wartime mass murders of Jews.
For security reasons, no date was given for Rauca’s date of departure from Canada. Rauca,74, a Canadian citizen since 1946, who was a retired hotel manager, gave up his fight two weeks ago against extradition.
Rauca, the first person accused in Canada of war crimes, was convicted in absentia in Holland for several wartime murders. He faces charges of murdering 11,584 Jews in German-occupied Lithuania between 1941 and 1943.
Arrested in his Toronto home last June, he had been in a city jail since, apparently at his own choice. He had appealed to the Supreme Court an order from the Ontario Court of Appeals rejecting his claim that he was guaranteed the right to remain in Canada under the federal charter of rights because he had Canadian citizenship. Rauca indicated his decision to stop his fight to prevent extradition by dropping his appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
