The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith has called on Chile’s Minister of Interior, Sergio Onofre Jarpa, to act affirmatively on the request of his country’s Jewish community that Nazi war criminal Walter Rauff be expelled from Chile. During World War II, some 250,000 Jews were murdered in Europe by the movable gas vans invented by Rauff.
In a cablegram to the Chilean official, Abraham Foxman, ADL’s associate national director and head of its International Affairs Division, said that “world public opinion and international law demand that Walter Rauff be brought to justice for his crimes against humanity. Now, the Jewish community of Chile has appealed to you, asking for the expulsion of Rauff. We… urge that you, using the powers of you office, respond affirmatively to the request of the Comite Representativo de Entidades Judias de Chile,” the representative organization of Chilean Jewry.
Foxman also cabled West German Justice Minister Hans Engelhard calling on his government to request that Chile expel Rauff so that the Federal Republic of Germany could bring him to trial there. Engelhard replied that his government “is now investigating what measures can be taken or solution found” regarding Rauff’s expulsion or extradition to the Federal Republic, Foxman said.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS DISCLOSED
Meanwhile, Foxman disclosed a number of other developments in connection with Rauff:
* B’nai B’rith of Chile, acting on behalf of B’nai B’rith International, presented a letter to Interior Minister Onofre Jarpa urging him to favorably consider the request of the government of Israel that Rauff be expelled.
* Leaders of the Peruvian Jewish community met in Lima with Chilean Embassy officials to also call for Rauff’s expulsion for his “crimes against humanity.” They told the Chilean diplomats that the statute of limitations does not apply to such crimes.
* There has been increasing support from the non-Jewish community of Chile to expel Rauff, with demonstrators outside his home calling him a “Nazi assassin” and demanding he be tried for war crimes.
Foxman said that because the government forced thousands of Chileans into exile for political reasons many in Chile now ask “who is more deserving of being a Chilean, the war criminal Walter Rauff or those deprived of their nationality and forced to live outside of Chile?”
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