Hunt, Punishment of Nazi War Criminals Urged Before U.N. at Geneva

After two days of sharp debate over a Polish proposal for maximum efforts by members states to hunt down and punish all Nazi war criminals, the current session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission today sent the measure to a working group to draft an acceptable resolution.

The principal item on the agenda of the current session is a draft convention to outlaw all forms of religious intolerance. Debate on that issue was suspended yesterday for a discussion of the Polish proposal. The item had been placed on the agenda by Polish delegate A. Resich prior to the action by West Germany in extending the statute of limitations on prosecution of Nazi war criminals in that country by four-and-a-half years.

The Polish resolution asked all states to find and punish war criminals and perpetrators of crimes against humanity during World War II, to act to bar any statutes of limitation for prosecution of such criminals, and to endorse the UN Convention Against Genocide, which the United States has never approved. But other Communist spokesmen, representing the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Ukrainia and Byelorussia tried to turn the debate into an attack on West Germany instead of one concerning Nazi war crimes.

Israeli Supreme Court Justice Chaim Cohen, the Israel delegate, supported the main ideas of the Polish resolution. Dealing with the legal aspects of limitations statutes, the Israeli jurist ripped the arguments of supporters of such limitations on legal grounds.

ABRAM, PROF. CASSIN CITE THEIR FAMILY LOSSES IN HOLOCAUST

Morris B. Abram, the United States representative, also supported the Polish proposal in principle, disclosing that members of his family had been among the victims of the Nazi holocaust. However, he added, since West Germany had voted to defer the deadline for such prosecution, the matter was not as urgent as it had been before the extension was approved and Commission action could be postponed for another year.

Prof. Rene Cassin, the French delegate, disclosing that he had lost 37 members of his family to Nazi murderers, said he nevertheless did not want a resolution which appeared vengeful. He said he would prefer a measure which would call for preparation of an international convention to abolish all statutes of limitations for such crimes, past and future. He submitted a resolution to that effect, which was supported by the delegates of Ecuador, Dahomey, and the Phillipines.

Dr. Maurice Perlzweig, of the World Jewish Congress, said it was necessary to obtain the extradition of Nazi war criminals from countries–which he did not name–in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Europe.

Dr. S. Dopez, of the Phillipines, the Commission chairman then declared that, if the delegates could not adopt a resolution on a unanimous basis, or nearly unanimously, it would be better not to have any resolution at all. He named a working group of delegates from Poland, France, the Soviet Union, the Ukraine, Ecuador, Dahomey, the Phillipines and the United States to meet privately during the next three days, to try to resolve the differences.