In the first such statement by any American President, President Carter has endorsed the Justice Department’s investigation and prosecution of alleged Nazi war criminals.
The January 1980 issue of “Jewish Living, ” expected to appear in two weeks, carries Carter’s statement saying: “I will lend my full support to the Justice Department’s efforts to denaturalize and deport ex-Nazis living illegally in the United States, because I believe that we can never forget the actions of those responsible for the Holocaust…”
A previous statement by Carter about Nazi war criminals in the United States was made in defense of alleged Nazi was criminal Konstantin Warvariz. At on Oct. 31, 1977 Presidential press conference, Carter said: “…Insofar as the allegation that has been made in the Soviet press about his supposedly pro-Nazi activities in the 1940s, Mr. Warvariz has stated to us… that there is not an iota of truth to the charges. He is a career diplomat.” Warvariz, a high-ranking officer of the U.S. State Department, who represents the United States at UNESCO, is accused of having been employed by the SS in Rovno, the Ukraine, from 1942 to 1943.
Carter’s remarks in Jewish Living were part of a statement that we specifically prepared for the magazine, its editor L. Aryeh Rubin, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The magazine had sent out a questionnaire to eight Presidential candidates, asking for answers on “specific hard-nosed facts about the candidate’s positions on issues of special Jewish concern.”
Rather than responding to the questionnaire perse, Carter issued a statement to the magazine which included his endorsement of Justice Department efforts on war criminals. Since this question was not part of the Jewish Living questionnaire, the other seven candidates did not express their views on that issue.
Rubin said that Jewish Living, an independent “Jewish lifestyle” magazine, has a circulation of 150,000. Launched with a trial issue called “Kosher Home ” in Oct. 1978, it become the bi-monthly Jewish Living in March, 1979 and is now published nine times a year.
Rabin, 29, founded the magazine after a visit to Auschwirz five years ago convinced him that such a magazine was necessary “as a medium to help Jewish life flourish. (See related stories about Nazi war criminals in America on pages 1 and 4.)
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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.
