El Al Airlines has responded to the Simon Wiesenthal’s grass roots postcard campaign to get a former high Nazi official expelled from Chile by flying 50,000 postcards and leaflets to Israel, it was announced by Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Wiesenthal Center at Yeshiva University. This was confirmed in New York by David Schneider, general manager of El Al, who said a plane had taken the material to Israel this week.
The campaign, initiated by the Center last month, calls on the Chilean government of President Augusto Pinochet to expel Walter Rauff, the inventor of the mobile gas vans responsible for the murder of 250,000 Jews, who has been living in Chile since 1958.
In Israel, the postcard distribution is being coordinated by the Efrat Town Council. The issue was brought to the Town Council by one of its members, Efraim Zur-off, former director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. So far, over 1.5 million cards have been distributed by the Center to participating religious, academic and social agencies here and abroad, according to Hier. The initial distribution was through the Center’s network of more than 250,000 dues-paying members.
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