It is Necessary to Continue Nazi Hunting?

On January 10, 2014, there was a post on the New York Times Editorial Board about why Nazi hunting remains crucial.

Time is running out on trying to capture the WWII war criminals who have had decades of undeserved freedom. Old age is taking these men before they have the chance to be captured, let a long stand trial for their crimes against humanity. With this fact, it is more noteworthy that an 88 year old German man was finally charged with the murder of 25 people in a WWII massacre in the French village of Orandour-sur-Glane. The case was prosecuted by German authorities and serves as a reminder of a period of history that must remain fresh in the minds of everyone so that people know how evil genocide truly is.

People are tempted to relegate the slaughter to the deep past needs to know of the current development that is no coincidence. There is a boom in the popularity of the ebook, ‘Mein Kampf,” which was penned by Hitler while he was imprisioned in the 20s. It is his blueprint for the mass extermination of all European Jews. The ebook version of the manuscript was reported to be the top seller in the political psychology list. The phenomenon demonstrates that, now more than ever, people need to know of the genocide that was in Hitler’s ideas and those facts need to be laid out in trials.

There have been more than 100 successful legal actions against Nazi war criminals since 2001, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center—the Nazi hunting organization. There are dozen more trials prepared, but workers say other nations are less committed as Germany to follow through with the obligatory search for justice. (The French government has been aggressively attempting to block crowd-baiting appearances by Dieudonne M’bala M’bala who is a controversial comedian who was convicted of using anti-Semetic hate speech in his routine.)

Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the director of the Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office feels that the Nazi hunt needs to continue, especially since more of the war criminals are possibly nearing the end of their lives due to old age.

“I’m one Hew who prays for good health for these fugitives.”