Austrian officials have assured the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith that the extradition from Syria of SS-Hauptsturmfuerher (Captain) Alois Brunner, one of Adolf Eichmann’s principal collaborators, will be vigorously pursued.
The assurance came from Leopold Gratz, Austria’s Foreign Minister, at a meeting last week with Frank Reiss, ADL’s director of European Affairs, and Elliot Welles, director of the ADL’s Task Force on Nazi War Criminals, at the Austrian Mission to the United Nations.
Responding to ADL urging for intensified action, Gratz promised to seek the Nazi war criminal’s extradition expeditiously and forthrightly.
According to Reiss and Welles, the Foreign Minister’s response was particularly heartening since it contrasted sharply with the former Kreisky regime which had given the matter routine treatment. They noted, too, that Gratz acknow ledged the serious nature of Brunner’s “countless crimes against the Jewish population of Central Europe, including the deportation of thousands of men, women and children to the death camps.”
Also present at the meeting was Karl Fischer, the Austrian Ambassador to the UN.
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