Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies at Yeshiva University here, and Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean of the center, have expressed concern that the removal of Martin Mendelsohn as deputy director of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI) casts doubt on the seriousness of the government’s intentions to prosecute alleged Nazi war criminals who entered the United States illegally by concealing their past activities.
Mendelsohn, who set up the government’s program to investigate Nazi war criminals living in the U.S. in 1977 and pursued it vigorously, has been replaced by Allan Ryan Jr., a lawyer from the Solicitor General’s Office. Ryan is slated to take over the OSI when Walter Rockler, who was Mendelsohn’s superior, leaves March 31.
Zuroff called Mendelsohn’s removal “a most distressing step, which places severe question made on the continued efforts to prosecute Nazis living in the United States.” Noting that “Mendelsohn is the most knowledgeable person in this field,” Zuroff said that the claim that “personality conflicts” with Rockler led to his dismissal “is highly suspect in view of Mr. Rockler’s imminent departure.”
QUESTIONS REASON FOR REMOVAL
He observed that “Given the three decode delay in moving to prosecute these criminals and the minimal progress mode to date, we wonder whether the decision to remove Mr. Mendelsohn was done for the good of the issue or perhaps is another in a long series of steps taken to squash the proceedings against these criminals, many of whom represent ethnic groups whose votes will be courted in the upcoming election.”
Zuroff mentioned, in that connection, the pending trial of Archbishop Valerian Trifa, head of the Rumanian Orthodox Church in America, who as a youth leader of the fascist Iron Guard in Rumania, was responsible for the Bucharest pogrom in 1941.
Hier, in a telegram to President Carter, said the “Ousting of Martin Mendelsohn calls into question administration’s commitment to pursue Nazi criminals in this country. His departure at this critical time means unnecessary delay in prosecuting Nazis that have already escaped justice for 35 years. Urging your personal intervention to investigate circumstances of his removal and personal assurances that regardless of changes in staff, administration attaches highest priority to the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in this country.”
Opposition to Mendelsohn’s removal also come in New York from One Generation After, an organization of children of Holocaust survivors. In a letter to Assistant Attorney General Philip Heymann, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, Ruth Bork, the group’s president, praised Mendelsohn for “extremely aggressive pursuit” of Nazi war criminals in the United States.
“By all accounts, he is both a talented attorney and a genuine expert on the Holocaust,” Bork wrote. “We were especially impressed by his courage in pressing the government to release funds appropriated by Congress for these prosecutions. We can only suspect that it is lingering animosity within the Justice Department over this campaign” which has caused his ouster.
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