Israeli Sailors Capture Nazi Fugitive in Italy; Turn Him over to Police

Four Israeli seamen, on shore leave in Naples harbor, identified and captured the Nazi fugitive, Ludwig Zind, and turned him over to the Italian police, it was disclosed today. Zind, a former German school-teacher, had evaded the German police for two years following his conviction for anti-Semitism in Offenburg. A one-year prison sentence awaits him there.

Four members of the crew of the Israeli liner, the S.S. Herzl, spotted Zind in Naples last Monday evening as he was about to board the Egyptian freighter, Cite de Tunisia, for Tripoli, Libya. One of the quartet recognized the Nazi fugitive and they followed him. One of the seamen engaged Zind in conversation while the others went to call the police. Two Italian detectives arrived quickly and, after identification, detained the fugitive.

Zind, who was sentenced in West Germany for making anti-Jewish remarks publicly, fled before he was to begin serving his sentence. It was established in court that he called a Jewish businessman “another dirty Jew whom someone forgot to gas.” When he was detained Monday in Naples, he was on his way to take up a Job as a professor of geology at the University of Tripoli. He was traveling on a so-called lasser-passer.

The four Israeli sailors cabled Haifa today that “we captured the Nazi criminal.” A cable confirming the role of the four crewmen was received by the line which operates the Herzl. The cable was signed by Zvi Trebish, 30, who was Premier Ben-Gurion’s personal waiter last year when the Prime Minister sailed to France aboard the Herzl; Moshe Leizerowitz, 38, who publishes the ship’s newspaper, Baruch Marco, 28, and Zvi Mader, 34.