Nazi ideology is alive and competing in the marketplace of ideas in Latin America, Rabbi Morton M. Rosenthal told a Midwest regional meeting of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Rosenthal, who heads the ADL’s Latin American affairs department, has just returned from a visit to Brazil, Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela. Although hopeful that democracy will gain strength in Latin America, Rosenthal asserted that the Nazi war criminals who found haven in the region and their supporters pose a continuing threat to efforts to reestablish democracy in the Southern Hemisphere.
He expressed his concern that if the German government permits the statute of limitations on war crimes to expire at the end of 1979, the Nazis who have found refuge there will be emboldened to act more aggressively.
Speaking of the former commander of the Sobibor concentration camp, Gustav Franz Wagner, Rosenthal expressed optimism that the Supreme Court of Brazil would grant the German government’s request for his extradition. Wagner, who has lived in Sao Paulo since fleeing Germany, was arrested earlier this year after a Nazi meeting outside Rio de Janeiro.
POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ARGENTINA
Rosenthal told the group that the most vexing problem with which the ADL’s Latin American affairs department is now confronted is that of political prisoners in Argentina and those who have disappeared in that country.
Relatives and friends of Jews in Argentina have been appealing to ADL for help in locating the disappeared and securing the release of those detained without charges. More than 1000 such cases have been registered with the ADL. Rosenthal indicated that the problems of disappearances and political detentions are affecting all segments of the Argentine society and are not specifically Jewish problems.
The leading human rights group in Argentina (The Permanent Assembly on Human Rights) has submitted to the government more than 3000 names of documented cases of disappeared persons, he said. Newspaper advertisements appear with some frequency requesting that the government explain the disappearance of specifically named Argentine citizens.
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