Home-Grown Nazi Hunters

by Michelle . · 2009-08-20 06:56:00 +0930
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Did you know that the US government has its own cadre of Nazi hunters?

More specifically, the Justice Department Office of Special Investigations (OSI) includes a team of investigators who made careers out of tracking down suspected Nazi war criminals who fled to the US after World War II. OSI's statement of principle is simple and straightforward: "Those who perpetrate serious human rights violations abroad, including genocide, torture, extrajudicial killing, and persecution, should not find refuge in the United States and should face accountability for their crimes."

Here here.

But the profession made famous by Simon Wiesenthal isn't dying off with the aging Nazi fugitives --- rather, as a fascinating WaPo article highlights, Nazi hunters are now turning their attention to the perpetrators of other mass atrocities.

A man was arrested in Kansas earlier this year, for example, for allegedly participating in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Technically, the arrest charges that he lied on his immigration forms --- for not listing "genocidaire" as his last profession, I wonder? (Minor detail.)

Care to through a little work towards our intrepid purveyors of justice? OSI's website includes instructions on how to report a suspected human rights violator.

[Photo of Simon Wiesenthal holding pictures of ambulance used as mobile gas chamber, and of Nazi Walter Rauff.]

Michelle . has been involved in various activist endeavors, including the Teach Against Genocide pilot campaigns.
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