A group of Holocaust survivors from the United States and Europe met here to press the American government to act decisively to deport Nazi war criminals back to the countries where they committed their crimes and urged that the expulsion of war criminals from the U.S. “be openly dealt with” and not arranged “behind the clock of secret diplomacy.”
At the same time, Benjamin Mead, chairman of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, told the meeting that a group of international experts on Nazi war criminals has been named to a special panel that will be part of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors in Philadelphia in April.
The meeting, at Lincoln Square Synagogue, was attended by representatives of survivor groups from Latvia, Poland, Estonia and Rumania, along with leaders of the younger Second Generation and the Generation After organizations in the U.S.
SERIES OF PRINCIPLES APPROVED
The participants approved a series of principles advanced last year by the Holocaust Survivors and Friends in Pursuit of Justice, an Albany, N.Y.- based group, at its national conference. The principles are:
* “Any deportable Nazi war criminal in the U.S. shall be sent back to the soil on which he committed his crimes in order to face justice. Such action is in accord with the precedents of the 1943 Moscow Declaration, the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, the 1949 Geneva Convention governing war criminals and their extradition, as well as the other declarations and agreements of which the U.S. has been a major leader.”
* “The U.S. government should openly inquire of any nation whose soil was violated by such war criminals if that country does or would want such criminals handed over. All such matters are to be openly dealt with and openly arrived at. No expulsions are to be arranged behind the clock of ‘quiet diplomacy’.”
* “Failing all else, Israel must be approached on a case-by-case basis for probable extradition and trial in Israel of such proven Nazi criminals.”
It was pointed out at the Lincoln Square Synagogue meeting that in a special report last year, Rep. Peter Rodino (D. NJ), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, charged that the State Department had not been “aggressive enough” in pursuing Nazi deportations.
Discussing the special panel at the forthcoming Philadelphia gathering, Mead told the meeting that “you should demand” that the principles it had approved “be part of the deliberations of that panel. ” He said that “I am with you” in the goal of pursuing “aggressive” deportations of Nazis.
PANELISTS NAMED ‘THUS FAR’
Mead said that “thus far,” those named to the panel are Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld of Paris, Brooklyn District Attorney and former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, former director of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations Allan Ryan, and historian David Wyman who is the author of the recent widely acclaimed book, “The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941-1945.”
Mead said that in addition to these panelists, “I promise you that whoever you name, if qualified, will certainly be considered for that panel.” In fact, he added, “why don’t you tell us, no, demand, that we name whoever you think is qualified.” Charles Allen, Jr., generally regarded by the media as an authority on Nazi war criminals in the U.S., was proposed as another panelist by one of the participants at the meeting.
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