Wiesenthal Center Seeks Action on Dutch Nazi War Criminal

The Simon Wiesenthal Center here has asked The Netherlands government to submit a new request to Canada for the extradition of convicted Dutch Nazi war criminal Jacob Luitjens, presently a lecturer of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, Dean and Associate Dean, respectively, of the Holocaust study center, made their request after being informed by Canadian Solicitor-General Robert Kaplan that “The Canadian Federal Department of Justice, which examined the extradition request, concluded that the offense for which this person (Luitjens) was found guilty was not extraditable under the existing extradition treaty between Canada and The Netherlands.”

The Wiesenthal Center immediately contacted the Dutch Ambassador to Canada, N. Van Dijl, asking that his government submit “a revised request for this murderer’s extradition.”

The Center also called on the President and Chancellor of the University of British Columbia to dismiss Luitjens on grounds that “a man who volunteered to help the Nazis and was convicted of war crimes by a court in an allied democratic country cannot be allowed to maintain a position of prestige and honor.”

Luitjens, 64, was convicted by a Dutch court in 1948 for his activities in the Nazi auxiliary police force the “Quisling Militia,” which rounded up anti-Nazis for deportation. He was personally involved in the murder of resistance fighters. He fled Europe after World War II, reportedly to South America from where he immigrated to Canada. He has been a member of the botany department at the University of British Columbia for more than 20 years. The Dutch government first sought his extradition in 1981.