Justice Ministry officials, have reported that Syria has yet to respond to a West German request for the extradition of alleged Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner who served as a top aid to Adolph Eichmann and was responsible for the deportation of thousands of European Jews to Nazi death camps during World War II.
According to officials here, West Germany made the extradition request to the Syrian Foreign Ministry December 18. Brunner is reported to have lived in Damascus under the assumed name of George Fischer for more than 20 years.
Brunner, 72 years old, served as Eichmann’s secretary in Vienna in 1938 when Eichmann headed the Nazi Central Office for Jewish Questions, and later headed the office himself. He later became the commander at the Drancy concentration camp in France.
Paris-based Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld, who first traced Brunner to Syria in 1982, asserted that Brunner is responsible with the deaths of 100,000 Jews. Brunner is personally accused of ordering the arrest and deportation on July 31, 1944 of over 300 children, none of whom was every seen again.
A warrant for Brunner’s arrest in connection with the deportation of Jews from France was issued last October 10 by the Cologne prosecutor. In 1954, Brunner was sentenced to death in absentia in France for crimes against humanity.
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.
