Israel formally requested the United Nations Thursday for access to two more files on alleged Nazi war criminals in the UN archives, Israeli diplomats and UN officials said. One of them is on Alois Brunner, a major Nazi war criminal who has been living in Syria since World War II under the protection of the Syrian government.
A spokesperson for the Israeli Mission to the UN told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the second file was indexed under the surname Klenner and contained his Nazi Party membership card and identification number.
The spokesperson said there is good reason to assume that the file is on Hermann Klenner, Vice Chairman of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva and head of the East German delegation. Israel has accused him in the past of having been a Nazi.
‘OTHER INTERESTING NAMES’ IN ARCHIVES
The files are apparently not related to the file on former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim which Israeli representatives examined at the archives Wednesday. Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Binyamin Netanyahu, inspected the Waldheim file and dispatched a copy to his government in Jerusalem.
He said on the CBS-TV Morning News Thursday that “we came across other interesting names” in the archives index and noted that one was Brunner. He said he will ask the UN for access to the files and hopes it will be granted as speedily as was access to the Waldheim file. A UN official said the UN legal department is studying the Israeli request but did not say when a reply would be given.
Netanyahu said that in addition to the Waldheim file, Israel will seek more documents relating to Waldheim’s wartime activities from the government of Yugoslavia. Waldheim has been accused of a role in atrocities in Yugoslavia when he served there as an officer with the German General Staff during World War II.
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.
