Simon Wiesenthal, the director of the Jewish documentation center in Vienna, who has devoted his life to tracking down wanted Nazi war criminals, said in Strassbourg yesterday that Hitler’s deputy, Martin Bormann, and a host of other wanted Nazis are alive and hiding in South America. Mr. Wiesenthal also asserted that other war criminals have found a safe haven in East Germany where one of them is now a member of Parliament. He identified the latter as Stefan Roick, who allegedly directed the extermination of the Lublin ghetto.
Mr. Wiesenthal spoke at a conference organized by the Strassbourg branch of the B’nai B’rith. He said Bormann was constantly on the move between Paraguay, Chile and southwestern Brazil. He is constantly watched by bodyguards who use special transmission equipment to warn him of the presence of strangers in his vicinity, Mr. Wiesenthal said. In addition to Bormann, South America has provided a haven for Gestapo chief Heinrich Muller, Richard Glucks, who was inspector-general of the concentration camps, and Josef Mengele, the notorious “death camp doctor” of Auschwitz, Mr. Wiesenthal said.
He declared that according to “highly reliable sources,” these men, if apprehended and extradited, would not benefit from the statute of limitations on war crimes prosecutions that is scheduled to go into effect in West Germany on Dec. 31, 1969. The Bonn Government would try them as it has at its disposal huge amounts of evidence against them, Mr. Wiesenthal said. He added, however, that because of the safety precautions they take, the wanted Nazis could be arrested only by the authorities of the countries in which they live.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
