Australian Jews voice outrage over report of Nazi in their midst

SYDNEY, Feb. 9 (JTA) — A commander of a police battalion involved in Nazi murders in Lithuania is living undisturbed in Australia, according to an Australian newspaper. The newspaper article quoted Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Jerusalem office, as saying Lithuanian documents showed the man had been “sent on a mission to kill Jewish people” during World War II, but that the Australian government has not acted on this information. The report prompted the leader of Australian Jewry’s umbrella organization to charge that Australian officials are unwilling to prosecute alleged Nazi war criminals living in their midst. “Alleged war criminals continue to reside here, untroubled and unaccountable for crimes against humanity,” said Nina Bassat, president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. Bassat added that the failure of the government “to come to grips with the problem” constitutes “an indictment of our legal system.” Three Australian residents have been charged under legislation adopted in 1989 to deal with Nazi war criminals, but none of the prosecutions have been successful. The executive council and other prominent Jewish organizations argue that the way in which the Australian law has been framed and administered means there is little prospect of a successful prosecution, even in a case where an Australian citizen has been deported from another country because of evidence of involvement in the Holocaust.