Britain’s chief rabbi, Lord Immanuel Jakobovits, got a lukewarm response from his peers in the House of Lords on Monday, when he asked them to support a bill that would allow the trial of suspected Nazi war criminals in British courts.
To let the henchmen of Hitler go unpunished “would be handing the tyrant a posthumous victory,” Jakobovits declared. “We would make it easier for the dominion of evil to assert itself once again, at an incalculable cost in human suffering and degradation.”
But despite his eloquent, reasoned and impassioned plea, few peers who took part in the debate thought it would be wise to have war crimes trials in Britain.
Their reasons ranged from a dislike of retributive action so long after the event to a genuine worry that the trials would arouse latent anti-Semitism in Britain.
The peers were debating the report of an inquiry on Nazi war criminals living in Britain, conducted by Sir Thomas Hetherington, the former director of public prosecutions, and William Chalmers, his Scottish counterpart.
The report, published in July, concluded that there was sufficient evidence against at least three individuals to warrant criminal prosecution.
Douglas Hurd, who was home secretary at the time, said the government would listen to the views of both houses of Parliament before deciding whether to introduce a bill.
‘FIGHT AGAINST EVIL’
Jakobovits said he spoke neither as a Jew, a rabbi or even a refugee from Nazi persecution, but as a member of the human race.
“Until the perpetrators of crimes against humanity knew they would never be allowed to find safe refuge from justice, humanity would not be safe and justice would never be vindicated,” he said.
“We now have an historic opportunity to affirm the ceaseless fight against evil, by the unrelenting pursuit of mass murderers,” the chief rabbi said.
He argued vehemently against suggestions that Jews were seeking vengeance, an attitude often falsely attributed to the Old Testament.
“Let me once and for all lay the ghost of this vicious canard” to rest, he said. “My faith abhors vengeance.”
The chief rabbi said he was less interested in securing criminal convictions than in demonstrating moral convictions.
His position was strongly backed by the Hetherington report, which stated that “the crimes committed are so monstrous that they cannot be condoned. To take no action would be to taint the UK with the slur of being a haven for war criminals.”
However, the bishop of St. Albans, the Rt. Rev. John Taylor, warned that war crimes trials could raise anti-Semitism.
“I fear for the Jewish community in our midst. I am becoming conscious of a revival of anti-Semitism in this country. I have seen it in my diocese,” the bishop said.
He expressed concern that proposals to prosecute the last surviving war criminals would be used by the enemies of Judaism to promote hostility against the victims seeking justice instead of the criminals.
Taylor urged the government to re-examine the possibility of extradition, a move rejected at an earlier stage.
Lord Mayhew, who was a junior foreign office minister responsible for war crimes problems in 1946, explained why the government, two years later, decide to end war crimes trials, investigations and extraditions.
“The overriding reason was that we felt retribution had gone far enough,” he said.
Mayhew added that “the major difference between the policy we then established and the policy now recommended by the inquiry is that we thought that retaliation should end, and the inquiry recommends that retaliation should be revived.”
The only non-Jewish peer to support Lord Jakobovits’ position was Viscount Tonypandy, a former speaker of the House of Commons.
“I am old enough to know that if we close our eyes on an issue of this sort, we shall not be in harmony with the heritage of our people,” he said.
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.
