A delegation of Vilna Jews today presented the Austrian Ambassador here with a petition demanding the retrial of Franz Murer, the Nazi gauleiter of the Vilna ghetto in World War II, who has been accused of the mass murder of Jews. The petition, addressed to the President of Austria, cited new evidence by ghetto survivors that Murer had personally murdered Jews. The Nazi was acquitted by a jury in Graz in 1963 for lack of evidence. Austrian law holds a defendant accountable only for crimes committed by his own hand but not for criminal acts he may have ordered.
The demand for a new trial arose during a world congress of Vilna Jews held here recently. The petition was presented by Dr. Marc Dvorzetzki, a researcher of the Nazi holocaust who is himself a survivor of the Vilna ghetto. It cited testimony given by seven other ghetto survivors before a special department of the Israeli police investigating war crimes, which implicated Murer directly in the murder of Jews. One witness identified Murer as the killer of her three-year-old child. The Austrian Ambassador, Arthur Ankster, promised to transmit the petition to the President and expressed hope that a retrial will be ordered.
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.
