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How did you come to start working Tell us about one of your major case, Ivan Demjanjuk was eventually
for the Wiesenthal Center? cases. convicted of being an accessory to the
murder of 28,000 people at the Sobibor
In 1978, I was invited to become the One day I got an email from a death camp. He was sentenced to five
first director of the Simon Wiesenthal gentleman in Scotland, a non-Jew years, but wasn’t jailed, unfortunately,
Center in Los Angeles, and I spent two who had a Hungarian girlfriend, and because he died before his appeal was
years there. I returned to Israel in 1980 who participated with her in some concluded. I always joke that I’m the
and worked here for the United States social gatherings of Hungarians. only Jew in the world who prays for the
Office of Special Investigations for six He wanted me to know that he had good health of Nazis – at least the ones
years. I began to develop the tools with met an older man there who used to who can be brought to justice.
which I could identify the escape paths brag that he helped deport Jews to
of thousands of Nazi war criminals, Auschwitz. With the assistance of a
but at that time the only country that journalist from the Glasgow Herald, I There are so many who have avoided
was taking any legal action against discovered that this man was still in justice…
these Nazis was the USA. Yet we knew touch with his former superior officer, Look, there are many great obstacles to
that many were living free, not only Sandor Kepiro, a major Hungarian securing a conviction. Most countries
in South America, but in several other war criminal who was involved in the just don’t want to prosecute, so I have
democratic countries. I approached massacre of Jewish, Serb and Roma to console myself with even partial
Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and residents of the city of Novi Sad in victories. I made myself a scale of
dean of the Wiesenthal Center, and told January 1942. He initially escaped to achievement: 1) the person is publicly
him that I could flood those countries Argentina but returned to Budapest exposed; 2) a government starts an
with the names of so many suspects in 1996, thinking he was safe. In 2006, official investigation; 3) there’s an
living in their midst that they would when I learned that he was still alive, I indictment; 4) the person stands trial;
not be able to walk away from the went to Budapest and with the help of 5) they are convicted; and 6) they go to
issue. We did just that, and I’m proud some local investigators I found that he prison before they die.
to say that Canada in 1987, Australia was living quite openly, ironically right
in 1989 and the United Kingdom in across the street from a shul. What a
1991 all passed laws to enable the view for a Nazi mass murderer! It Your achievements speak for
prosecution of Nazis who had entered took five years to get him into court, themselves, but on a personal note,
their countries illegally. but in the end, to my great dismay, he how has your work impacted your
was released by the Hungarian court personality?
Most people probably think of you as on a very questionable technicality. I have never allowed what I do to ruin
a sort of James Bond character with Meanwhile, he had sued me for libel my life and I’ve never turned this quest
for labelling him as a Nazi, which he,
all kinds of exciting adventures. into a personal obsession. I am at heart
of course, denied. If I had lost the case a historian of the Shoah, and my books
You said before that no one grows I might have been sentenced to two testify to that. I remain committed
up thinking that they’re going to be years in jail. What could have been to making sure that the Shoah will
a Nazi hunter. But you have no idea more ironic? That I would sit in a neither be forgotten, nor ignored, nor
how often people come up to me and Hungarian jail while this war criminal denied, nor distorted, and that those
say, “You have my dream job!” And they would walk free! countries which still today deny their
want to volunteer, thinking that I’m involvement and their collaboration
going to send them off to some exotic How do you feel when a Nazi whose will not be left in peace.
place with a big budget to go look for case you’ve worked on is brought
who knows what. But that’s not the
way it works. Although I do spend a to trial? David Olivestone is an award-winning
lot of time traveling around the world, I don’t feel any sense of relief, if that’s writer who served on the staffs of the British
it’s almost all careful and protracted what you mean, until the person Museum and of the Encyclopaedia Judaica.
research, devoting years to following is convicted and punished. But in He was Director of Communications at the
a trail, helping the authorities build a Germany, for example, as long as the Orthodox Union in New York before making
case, and searching for survivors who defendant’s appeal has not been heard, Aliyah to Jerusalem with his wife Ceil in 2013.
can testify in court. they don’t go to jail. In a well-known (PHOTO ON FACING PAGE: ILANA DREYER-ZUROFF)

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