Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal has refused to set foot in Canada for the past decade because of what he believes is the reluctance of the Canadian government to prosecute Nazi war criminals living in Canada.
Wiesenthal, head of the war crimes documentation center in Vienna, has been invited to speak by the Canadian Jewish Congress and other Jewish institutions since his brief visit to Vancouver in 1972. But he will not enter the country and has explained his reasons in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and in communications with Jewish leaders in Canada.
Wiesenthal contends that despite information about known Nazi war criminals living in Canada, the government in Ottawa has refused to act. He decried the inertia of the government and what he called “empty promises” by a representative of Canada’s Solicitor General that the Nazis would be prosecuted.
Last month, Canadian officials did move against Albert Rauca, an alleged Nazi executioner who murdered Jews in Lithuania and presently lives in Toronto. After a hearing, a Canadian judge ordered Rauca extradited to West Germany where, presumably he will stand trial. But Wiesenthal was not impressed by that action.
He has pointed out that what was involved was an extradition hearing, not a trial and that the impetus come from Bonn, not from Canada. Rauca’s attorney meanwhile is appealing the extradition order.
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