Instead of providing readers with a serious, in-depth analysis of current developments in the field of Nazi hunting, Steven Kotler simply turned the stage over to Rambam, who quite frankly is no expert and has his own personal agenda.  The result is an article replete with errors of commission and omission, which leaves the average reader with the totally mistaken impression that if only Rambam had been entrusted years ago with the task of hunting Nazi war criminals, not a single Holocaust perpetrator would be left un-prosecuted anywhere in the world.

The fact that Rambam directs his criticism primarily at Jewish organizations, is the best proof that he understands very little about what it really takes to get Nazis prosecuted these days.  The proverbial bottom line is — and always has been — that only governments can prosecute Nazi war criminals.  Thus even if Jewish organizations or private individuals were able to uncover Holocaust perpetrators and find incriminating evidence against them, there is no guarantee that such individuals would ever be prosecuted.  The key issue in this regard is whether there is sufficient political will to take legal action against an individual in the country in which the crime was committed and/or in the criminal’s current country of residence.  A refusal to proceed by the judicial authorities in either country could prevent such a prosecution.

Thus while Rambam unequivocally blames the major Jewish organizations as the main culprits ("My main problem is with the major Jewish organizations who, for 50 years, have allowed the Jewish community to believe that Nazi war criminals are being aggressively and efficiently hunted."), the real problem is the outright refusal or reluctance of governments to take action.  Kotler does mention Canada and Australia in this regard (because Rambam has been active in the former and has set his sights on the latter), but the problem is worldwide.  Sweden, for example, refuses in principle to investigate, let alone prosecute Holocaust perpetrators (due to a statute of limitations on murder), and in post-Communist Eastern Europe — and especially in the Baltic region — where numerous Nazi war criminals currently reside, it is almost impossible to convince local governments to take legal action against these criminals.  But since Rambam has not (yet?) set out to make waves in these countries, they are not on Kotler’s radar screen.

Another problem is that Kotler uncritically accepts Rambam’s totally fallacious equation that only detective work equals serious Nazi hunting.  Thus, he almost derisively writes about someone like me who uncovered more than 2,000 suspected Nazis since 1986 but who (honestly) "concedes that little shoe leather has been expended in the process."  Besides the condescending manner in which Kotler refers to those who apparently do not have to travel to the boondocks to be able to find Nazis, it’s incredible chutzpa to suggest that it is merely a lack of good detective work a la Rambam that is plaguing contemporary Nazi hunting.  That is simply not the case.

Kotler also makes the mistake of taking everything Rambam tells him at face value as if it were Torah from Sinai.  Thus, for example, it is a little hard to take seriously his assertion that "Rambam went undercover in Canada for five years," (even Rambam admits he is only a part-time Nazi hunter) or to accept his figures.  In fact, despite repeated requests for copies of his interviews or at least the supposed confessions, I have never received a single page and have only heard one taped interview — the one with Antanas Kenstavicius, whose name and home town Rambam received from me personally.  In fact, I strongly doubt whether the material he claims to have found is anywhere near as incriminating as he would have us all believe.  In that respect, the results are very indicative.  Not a single prosecution has been initiated in Canada based on Rambam’s "evidence," and even his only legal achievement to date — the Julius Viel case — came about because Adalbert Lallier, a key witness, contacted him, not the opposite.  Rambam had no idea that Lallier existed.

If I add the numerous factual errors and contradictions in the article itself, one can only wonder why on earth a serious magazine like Moment agreed to publish Kotler’s shoddy reporting, let alone make it a cover story.  Thus, for example, he writes that "All told the American catch [125 denaturalizations and deportations] has been bigger than every other nation in the world combined," but two pages later writes in his Nazi Hunting Report Card that Germany has convicted nearly 7,000 people.

Other mistakes include his reference to a photo of Marvin Hier and Eli Rosenbaum "at the trial of U.N. Secretary General and subsequent President of Austria Kurt Waldheim" (such a trial unfortunately never took place); and a life sentence for Viel (who was sentenced to 12 years in prison), as well as referring to the Simon Wiesenthal Center dean and founder Rabbi Marvin Hier as "acting director" of that institution.

It is apparent that this important subject deserves far more serious treatment.  One can only hope that Moment will fulfill that responsibility to its readers in the near future.

Dr. Efraim Zuroff
Director, Simon Wiesenthal Center
Jerusalem

As for Dr. Zuroff’s assertion that Rambam’s Canadian undercover work did not last five years, I can only assume several key facts might have slipped his mind.  Specifically, Rambam’s investigation was an ongoing undercover investigation and lasted five years.  When he was done, his work was applauded by major Canadian Jewish organizations.  Marvin Hier, the director of Dr. Zuroff’s organization, wrote a letter to the Canadian minister of justice, urging him to take Rambam’s work seriously.  On top of all of that, the story of his undercover investigation was profiled on 60 Minutes, Nightline, and America’s Most Wanted.  Then again, Mr. Zuroff knows all of this because he was in direct contact with Rambam throughout that period.

Which brings me to Dr. Zuroff’s assertion that "despite repeated requests for copies of his interviews or at least the supposed confessions, I have never received a single page ..."  In a three-month period from February 1996 to May 1996, Steven Rambam faxed Dr. Zuroff more than 100 pages of documents at his request, including the names and locations of 15 suspected Nazi war criminals living in both the U.S. and Canada.  As for the taped confessions Dr. Zuroff speaks about — the one he has never seen nor heard — was entered into evidence as prosecution exhibit 51 in the trial of Kenstavicius and was played on a number of the aforementioned news programs.