Efraim Zuroff
Encyclopedia
Efraim Zuroff is an Israeli historian of American
origin, who has played a role in bringing Nazis indicted for war crimes to trial. Zuroff is the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center
office in Jerusalem, is the coordinator of Nazi war crimes research worldwide for the Wiesenthal Center and the author of its annual (since 2001) "Status Report" on the worldwide investigation and prosecution of Nazi war criminals.
, Zuroff moved to Israel
in 1970 after completing his undergraduate degree in history (with honors) at Yeshiva University
. He obtained an M.A. degree in Holocaust studies at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry of the Hebrew University, where he also completed his Ph.D., which chronicles the response of Orthodox Jewry in the United States
to the Holocaust and focuses on the rescue attempts launched by the Vaad ha-Hatzala
rescue committee established by American Orthodox rabbis in 1939.
In 2000, Yeshiva University Press and KTAV Publishing House published his study of the history of the Vaad ha-Hatzala
, which was awarded an Egit Grant for Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Literature by the Israeli General Federation of Labor (Histadrut) and also received the 1999-2000 Samuel Belkin Literary Award for the best book published by a Yeshiva University alumnus in the field of Jewish studies.
in Los Angeles
, where he played a leading role in establishing the Center’s library and archives and was historical advisor for the Center’s Academy award-winning documentary Genocide. He returned to Israel
in 1980, where he served as a researcher for the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations. His efforts assisted in the preparation of cases against numerous Nazi war criminals living in the United States
.
In 1986, his research uncovered the postwar escape of hundreds of Nazi war criminals to Australia
, Canada
, Great Britain
and other countries, and he rejoined the Wiesenthal Center
to coordinate its international efforts to bring Holocaust perpetrators to justice. These efforts have influenced the passage of special laws in Canada (1987), Australia (1989) and Great Britain (1991) which enable the prosecution in those countries of Nazi war criminals.
Since the dismemberment of the Soviet Union
and the fall of Communism
, Zuroff has played a major role in the efforts to convince Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and other post-Communist societies to confront the widespread complicity of their nationals in the crimes of the Holocaust and to prosecute local Nazi collaborators. His public advocacy on these issues has been instrumental in the submission by Lithuania and Latvia of indictments (Lileikis, Gimzauskas, Dailide) and/or extradition requests (Kalejs, Gecas) against local Holocaust perpetrators.
In 1991, he exposed the rehabilitation of Nazi war criminals in Lithuania
and led the campaign to stop this process. Zuroff was appointed by the then Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
to serve on the joint Israeli-Lithuanian commission of inquiry established to deal with this issue, which has succeeded to date in achieving the cancellation by the Lithuanian authorities of approximately 200 rehabilitations granted to individuals who had participated in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust. In 2000 he exposed the rehabilitations granted by the government of Latvia
to Nazi war criminals and has led the efforts to cancel these pardons.
Zuroff played an important role in the exposure, arrest, extradition and prosecution of Dinko Šakić
, the former commandant of the Ustasha concentration camp Jasenovac
. In early October 1999, Šakić who lived for more than 50 years in Argentina
, was sentenced in Zagreb
to 20 years’ imprisonment (which was the maximum penalty under Croatian law at the time) for his crimes in the first-ever trial of a Nazi war criminal in a post-Communist country.
In his book Occupation: Nazi-Hunter; The Continuing Search for the Perpetrators of the Holocaust (KTAV; Hoboken, 1994), Zuroff chronicles the belated efforts to prosecute Nazi war criminals in western democracies and explains the rationale for such efforts several decades after the crimes. The book was published in German by Ahriman Verlag. In June 1999, his activities as a Nazi-hunter were the subject of several television documentaries. The first, entitled “The Nazi-Hunter,” was produced by ZDF(German Channel 2) in 1999 ; the second, entitled “The Last Nazi-Hunter” was produced by SWR (German Channel 1-regional station) in 2004 and the third “The Final Hunt for the Nazis” by France Trois (Channel 3) was broadcast in December 2005.
His second book on the hunt for Nazi war criminals, "Chasseur de nazis"(Michel-Lafon: Paris, 2008), which was written together with French journalist Alexandre Duyck, continues with the story of the renewed efforts spearheaded by Zuroff to hold Holocaust perpetrators accountable, especially in the wake of the breakup of the Soviet Union and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, and focuses on the results achieved by "Operation: Last Chance". That book was published in Serbian by the Zavod za udzbenike publishing company under the title "Lovac na naciste" in 2009 and in Polish by Wydawnictwo Dolnoslaskie under the title "Lowca Nazistow" in 2010.
He almost completely rewrote the French book about Operation Last Chance in a volume published in English in 2009 by Palgrave Macmillan
: Operation Last Chance: One Man's Quest to Bring Nazi Criminals to Justice. That book will be published in German by Prospero Verlag in 2011 and is also slated for publication in Serbian, Croatian, Hungarian, Russian and Finnish.
In 1995 and 1996, Zuroff was invited to Rwanda
to assist the local authorities in their efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of the genocide which took place in that country in spring 1994, and he has served as an official advisor to the Rwandan government.
In recent years, Zuroff has lectured extensively to audiences all over the world regarding the efforts to bring Nazi war criminals to justice. During the years 1992-1999, he served in the Education Corps of the Israeli Defense Forces (reserves) and lectured to thousands of soldiers about his work.
Over the years Zuroff has published more than 300 articles on various topics relating to the Holocaust, as well as other issues of concern in the Jewish world. His publications have appeared in scholarly journals such as Yad Vashem Studies, Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual, Jewish Political Studies Review, and American Jewish History, as well as in the Los Angeles Times
, Sueddeutsche Zeitung [Germany], Profil [Austria], Boston Globe, Jerusalem Post, Tikkun, Jerusalem Report, Maariv
, Haaretz
, Yediot Achronot, Jewish Chronicle , Eretz Acheret, and other publications.
In 2002, together with Aryeh Rubin, the founder of the Targum Shlishi Foundation of Miami, Florida
, he launched Operation Last Chance
, which offers financial rewards for information which will facilitate the prosecution and punishment of Nazi war criminals. To date, the project has been initiated in Lithuania
, Latvia
, Estonia
(all in 2002); Poland
, Romania
, Austria
(2003); Croatia
, Hungary
(2004) and Germany
(2005). To date, it has yielded three arrest warrants, two extradition requests, and numerous criminal investigations. Recently, Sándor Képíró
was identified as supposedly the world's oldest war criminal in Budapest on September 30, 2006. On January 15, 2008, the prize was increased from $10,000 to $25,000. Charles Zentai
, who is accused of murdering an 18-year-old Jew, was exposed by Dr. Zuroff and is currently fighting extradition from Australia
to Hungary.
In 2006, his exposure in Budapest
of convicted but unpunished Hungarian gendarme war criminal Dr. Sándor Képíró, who was said to be among the officers responsible for the mass murder of approximately 2, 000 civilians
in the city of Novi Sad
, led to a criminal investigation against him. Even though he was only accused of the cooperation in the murder of 30 civilians.
On February 14, 2011, Képíró was charged with war crimes by the Hungarian prosecutors, with his trial opening on May 5, 2011. A lawsuit by Képíró against Zuroff for libel, was denied. On July 18, 2011 the first degree judgment declared Sándor Képírós innocence. At the same time leading Hungarian historian László Karsai said, that "Zuroff had to show up something right now. I honestly wish him to already stop what he does. That he tries to mire people with such methoods, with such a low amount of evidences. It can not be done with anyone, not even with a former gendarme officer."
On July 6, 2008, Zuroff headed to South America
as part of a public campaign to capture Aribert Heim
. He elaborated on July 15, 2008 that he was sure Heim was alive and the groundwork had been laid to capture him within weeks.
Zuroff, who continued the hunt for the Nazi war criminal Aribert Heim
after the death of Simon Wiesenthal
in 2005, has been lukewarm in his reaction to the reported death of Heim in Cairo in 1992. He observed in February 2009 that:
Zuroff concedes, however, that Heim had undoubtedly lived in hiding in Egypt. Aribert Heim had reportedly killed "hundreds of inmates at the Mauthausen
concentration camp in Austria by injecting gasoline into their hearts and performing surgery and severing organs without anaesthesia" notes Zuroff. In a 2011 interview he called Heim, "his biggest failure." In the light of fresh revelations about the extent to which the CIA
and West German intelligence co-operated with Nazi criminals after the war Zuroff said he thought it quite possible that Heim worked for West German intelligence and that this may have been the reason why he was never prosecuted.
and the members of parliament of the Democratic Party of Serbia
as a candidate for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize
.
On January 22, 2009, Zuroff was granted the honorary citizenship of the Serbian city of Novi Sad
, in appreciation for the exposure of Sándor Képíro, who allegedly helped organize the murder of the city's Jews.
On January 15, 2010, Zuroff was decorated with the Order of Prince Trpimir
by Croatian President Stjepan Mesić
for special contribution against historical revisionism and for the reaffirming of antifascist foundations of modern Republic of Croatia.
. They have four children and eight grandchildren.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
origin, who has played a role in bringing Nazis indicted for war crimes to trial. Zuroff is the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center
Simon Wiesenthal Center
The Simon Wiesenthal Center , with headquarters in Los Angeles, California, was established in 1977 and named for Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter. According to its mission statement, it is "an international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to repairing the world one step at a time...
office in Jerusalem, is the coordinator of Nazi war crimes research worldwide for the Wiesenthal Center and the author of its annual (since 2001) "Status Report" on the worldwide investigation and prosecution of Nazi war criminals.
Early life
Born in New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Zuroff moved to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in 1970 after completing his undergraduate degree in history (with honors) at Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel. Founded in 1886, it is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012...
. He obtained an M.A. degree in Holocaust studies at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry of the Hebrew University, where he also completed his Ph.D., which chronicles the response of Orthodox Jewry in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to the Holocaust and focuses on the rescue attempts launched by the Vaad ha-Hatzala
Vaad Hatzalah
Vaad Hatzalah was an organization to rescue Jews in Europe from the Holocaust.It was founded in November 1939 by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada...
rescue committee established by American Orthodox rabbis in 1939.
In 2000, Yeshiva University Press and KTAV Publishing House published his study of the history of the Vaad ha-Hatzala
Vaad Hatzalah
Vaad Hatzalah was an organization to rescue Jews in Europe from the Holocaust.It was founded in November 1939 by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada...
, which was awarded an Egit Grant for Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Literature by the Israeli General Federation of Labor (Histadrut) and also received the 1999-2000 Samuel Belkin Literary Award for the best book published by a Yeshiva University alumnus in the field of Jewish studies.
Work
In 1978, he was invited to be the first director of the Simon Wiesenthal CenterSimon Wiesenthal Center
The Simon Wiesenthal Center , with headquarters in Los Angeles, California, was established in 1977 and named for Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter. According to its mission statement, it is "an international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to repairing the world one step at a time...
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, where he played a leading role in establishing the Center’s library and archives and was historical advisor for the Center’s Academy award-winning documentary Genocide. He returned to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in 1980, where he served as a researcher for the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations. His efforts assisted in the preparation of cases against numerous Nazi war criminals living in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
In 1986, his research uncovered the postwar escape of hundreds of Nazi war criminals to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and other countries, and he rejoined the Wiesenthal Center
Simon Wiesenthal Center
The Simon Wiesenthal Center , with headquarters in Los Angeles, California, was established in 1977 and named for Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter. According to its mission statement, it is "an international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to repairing the world one step at a time...
to coordinate its international efforts to bring Holocaust perpetrators to justice. These efforts have influenced the passage of special laws in Canada (1987), Australia (1989) and Great Britain (1991) which enable the prosecution in those countries of Nazi war criminals.
Since the dismemberment of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and the fall of Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, Zuroff has played a major role in the efforts to convince Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and other post-Communist societies to confront the widespread complicity of their nationals in the crimes of the Holocaust and to prosecute local Nazi collaborators. His public advocacy on these issues has been instrumental in the submission by Lithuania and Latvia of indictments (Lileikis, Gimzauskas, Dailide) and/or extradition requests (Kalejs, Gecas) against local Holocaust perpetrators.
In 1991, he exposed the rehabilitation of Nazi war criminals in Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
and led the campaign to stop this process. Zuroff was appointed by the then Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres
GCMG is the ninth President of the State of Israel. Peres served twice as the eighth Prime Minister of Israel and once as Interim Prime Minister, and has been a member of 12 cabinets in a political career spanning over 66 years...
to serve on the joint Israeli-Lithuanian commission of inquiry established to deal with this issue, which has succeeded to date in achieving the cancellation by the Lithuanian authorities of approximately 200 rehabilitations granted to individuals who had participated in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust. In 2000 he exposed the rehabilitations granted by the government of Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
to Nazi war criminals and has led the efforts to cancel these pardons.
Zuroff played an important role in the exposure, arrest, extradition and prosecution of Dinko Šakić
Dinko Šakic
Dinko Šakić was a convicted Croatian war criminal, an army leader of the fascist Independent State of Croatia , established under Third Reich and Italian tutelage, and commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp during World War II.-Biography:He was born in Studenci, in the Kingdom of Serbs,...
, the former commandant of the Ustasha concentration camp Jasenovac
Jasenovac
Jasenovac is a village and a municipality in Croatian Slavonia, in the southern part of the Sisak-Moslavina county at the confluence of the river Una into Sava.The name means "ash tree" or "ash forest" in Croatian, the area being ringed by such a forest....
. In early October 1999, Šakić who lived for more than 50 years in Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, was sentenced in Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
to 20 years’ imprisonment (which was the maximum penalty under Croatian law at the time) for his crimes in the first-ever trial of a Nazi war criminal in a post-Communist country.
In his book Occupation: Nazi-Hunter; The Continuing Search for the Perpetrators of the Holocaust (KTAV; Hoboken, 1994), Zuroff chronicles the belated efforts to prosecute Nazi war criminals in western democracies and explains the rationale for such efforts several decades after the crimes. The book was published in German by Ahriman Verlag. In June 1999, his activities as a Nazi-hunter were the subject of several television documentaries. The first, entitled “The Nazi-Hunter,” was produced by ZDF(German Channel 2) in 1999 ; the second, entitled “The Last Nazi-Hunter” was produced by SWR (German Channel 1-regional station) in 2004 and the third “The Final Hunt for the Nazis” by France Trois (Channel 3) was broadcast in December 2005.
His second book on the hunt for Nazi war criminals, "Chasseur de nazis"(Michel-Lafon: Paris, 2008), which was written together with French journalist Alexandre Duyck, continues with the story of the renewed efforts spearheaded by Zuroff to hold Holocaust perpetrators accountable, especially in the wake of the breakup of the Soviet Union and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, and focuses on the results achieved by "Operation: Last Chance". That book was published in Serbian by the Zavod za udzbenike publishing company under the title "Lovac na naciste" in 2009 and in Polish by Wydawnictwo Dolnoslaskie under the title "Lowca Nazistow" in 2010.
He almost completely rewrote the French book about Operation Last Chance in a volume published in English in 2009 by Palgrave Macmillan
Palgrave Macmillan
Palgrave Macmillan is an international academic and trade publishing company, headquartered in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom and with offices in New York, Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong, Delhi, Johannesburg. It was created in 2000 when St...
: Operation Last Chance: One Man's Quest to Bring Nazi Criminals to Justice. That book will be published in German by Prospero Verlag in 2011 and is also slated for publication in Serbian, Croatian, Hungarian, Russian and Finnish.
In 1995 and 1996, Zuroff was invited to Rwanda
Rwanda
Rwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
to assist the local authorities in their efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of the genocide which took place in that country in spring 1994, and he has served as an official advisor to the Rwandan government.
In recent years, Zuroff has lectured extensively to audiences all over the world regarding the efforts to bring Nazi war criminals to justice. During the years 1992-1999, he served in the Education Corps of the Israeli Defense Forces (reserves) and lectured to thousands of soldiers about his work.
Over the years Zuroff has published more than 300 articles on various topics relating to the Holocaust, as well as other issues of concern in the Jewish world. His publications have appeared in scholarly journals such as Yad Vashem Studies, Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual, Jewish Political Studies Review, and American Jewish History, as well as in the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, Sueddeutsche Zeitung [Germany], Profil [Austria], Boston Globe, Jerusalem Post, Tikkun, Jerusalem Report, Maariv
Maariv
Maariv is a Hebrew language daily newspaper published in Israel. It is second in sales after Yedioth Ahronoth and third in readership after Yedioth Ahronoth and Israel HaYom. In a TGI survey comparing the last half of 2009 with the same period in 2008, Maariv saw its market share fall slightly...
, Haaretz
Haaretz
Haaretz is Israel's oldest daily newspaper. It was founded in 1918 and is now published in both Hebrew and English in Berliner format. The English edition is published and sold together with the International Herald Tribune. Both Hebrew and English editions can be read on the Internet...
, Yediot Achronot, Jewish Chronicle , Eretz Acheret, and other publications.
In 2002, together with Aryeh Rubin, the founder of the Targum Shlishi Foundation of Miami, Florida
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
, he launched Operation Last Chance
Operation Last Chance
Operation Last Chance was launched in July 2002 by Simon Wiesenthal Center in order to track down ex-Nazis still in hiding, as most of them would be nearing the end of their lifetimes, hence the operation's name...
, which offers financial rewards for information which will facilitate the prosecution and punishment of Nazi war criminals. To date, the project has been initiated in Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
(all in 2002); Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
(2003); Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
(2004) and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
(2005). To date, it has yielded three arrest warrants, two extradition requests, and numerous criminal investigations. Recently, Sándor Képíró
Sándor Képíró
Sándor Képíró was a former gendarmerie captain during World War II accused of war crimes committed by Hungarian forces, and found not guilty....
was identified as supposedly the world's oldest war criminal in Budapest on September 30, 2006. On January 15, 2008, the prize was increased from $10,000 to $25,000. Charles Zentai
Charles Zentai
Charles Zentai, is a Hungarian-born resident of Australia accused of a Holocaust-related war crime. He has resided in Perth, Australia for many years after living in the American- and French-occupied zones of post-World War II Germany.- Background :Zentai, who denies the charges against him, was...
, who is accused of murdering an 18-year-old Jew, was exposed by Dr. Zuroff and is currently fighting extradition from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
to Hungary.
In 2006, his exposure in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
of convicted but unpunished Hungarian gendarme war criminal Dr. Sándor Képíró, who was said to be among the officers responsible for the mass murder of approximately 2, 000 civilians
1942 raid in Novi Sad
The 1942 raid in southern Bačka was a genocidal attack against civilians in Hungarian occupied Bačka in January 1942, after the Axis invasion and partition of Yugoslavia...
in the city of Novi Sad
Novi Sad
Novi Sad is the capital of the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, and the administrative centre of the South Bačka District. The city is located in the southern part of Pannonian Plain on the Danube river....
, led to a criminal investigation against him. Even though he was only accused of the cooperation in the murder of 30 civilians.
On February 14, 2011, Képíró was charged with war crimes by the Hungarian prosecutors, with his trial opening on May 5, 2011. A lawsuit by Képíró against Zuroff for libel, was denied. On July 18, 2011 the first degree judgment declared Sándor Képírós innocence. At the same time leading Hungarian historian László Karsai said, that "Zuroff had to show up something right now. I honestly wish him to already stop what he does. That he tries to mire people with such methoods, with such a low amount of evidences. It can not be done with anyone, not even with a former gendarme officer."
On July 6, 2008, Zuroff headed to South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
as part of a public campaign to capture Aribert Heim
Aribert Heim
Aribert Ferdinand Heim was an Austrian doctor, also known as Dr. Death. As an SS doctor in a Nazi concentration camp in Mauthausen, he is accused of killing and torturing many inmates by various methods, such as direct injections of toxic compounds into the hearts of his victims...
. He elaborated on July 15, 2008 that he was sure Heim was alive and the groundwork had been laid to capture him within weeks.
Zuroff, who continued the hunt for the Nazi war criminal Aribert Heim
Aribert Heim
Aribert Ferdinand Heim was an Austrian doctor, also known as Dr. Death. As an SS doctor in a Nazi concentration camp in Mauthausen, he is accused of killing and torturing many inmates by various methods, such as direct injections of toxic compounds into the hearts of his victims...
after the death of Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal KBE was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter....
in 2005, has been lukewarm in his reaction to the reported death of Heim in Cairo in 1992. He observed in February 2009 that:
Zuroff concedes, however, that Heim had undoubtedly lived in hiding in Egypt. Aribert Heim had reportedly killed "hundreds of inmates at the Mauthausen
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp
Mauthausen Concentration Camp grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly east of the city of Linz.Initially a single camp at Mauthausen, it expanded over time and by the summer of 1940, the...
concentration camp in Austria by injecting gasoline into their hearts and performing surgery and severing organs without anaesthesia" notes Zuroff. In a 2011 interview he called Heim, "his biggest failure." In the light of fresh revelations about the extent to which the CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
and West German intelligence co-operated with Nazi criminals after the war Zuroff said he thought it quite possible that Heim worked for West German intelligence and that this may have been the reason why he was never prosecuted.
Honors
In recognition of his efforts as a Nazi-hunter and Holocaust scholar, he was nominated by Serbian President Boris TadicBoris Tadic
Boris Tadić is the President of Serbia and leader of the Democratic Party. He was elected to a five-year term on 27 June 2004, and was sworn into office on 11 July. He was re-elected for a de facto second five-year term on 3 February 2008 and was sworn in on 15 February...
and the members of parliament of the Democratic Party of Serbia
Democratic Party of Serbia
The Democratic Party of Serbia is a political party in Serbia.-Foundation:The Democratic Party of Serbia was founded when a faction of the Democratic Party that supported its involvement in the Democratic Movement of Serbia split from the party and formed their own in 1992.Soon after the March...
as a candidate for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
.
On January 22, 2009, Zuroff was granted the honorary citizenship of the Serbian city of Novi Sad
Novi Sad
Novi Sad is the capital of the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, and the administrative centre of the South Bačka District. The city is located in the southern part of Pannonian Plain on the Danube river....
, in appreciation for the exposure of Sándor Képíro, who allegedly helped organize the murder of the city's Jews.
On January 15, 2010, Zuroff was decorated with the Order of Prince Trpimir
Order of Duke Trpimir
The Order of Duke Trpimir , or more fully the Order of Duke Trpimir with Neck Badge and Morning Star , is an order of the Republic of Croatia. It ranks fifth in the Croatian order of precedence after the Grand Order of King Dmitar Zvonimir...
by Croatian President Stjepan Mesić
Stjepan Mesić
Stjepan "Stipe" Mesić is a Croatian politician and former President of Croatia. Before his ten-year presidential term between 2000 and 2010 he held the posts of Speaker of the Croatian Parliament , Prime Minister of Croatia , the last President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia , Secretary General...
for special contribution against historical revisionism and for the reaffirming of antifascist foundations of modern Republic of Croatia.
Personal life
He currently resides with his wife in EfratEfrat
Efrat , or officially Efrata , is an Israeli settlement established in 1983 and a local council in the Judean Mountains of the West Bank. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this...
. They have four children and eight grandchildren.