Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS -- (Senate - May 12, 2008)

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Mr. NELSON of Florida. Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon and I are introducing the World War II Accountability Act, which seeks to compel foreign governments harboring Nazi war criminals to prosecute and extradite those individuals. It is a sad truth that more than 60 years after World War II some countries continue to provide safe haven for these war criminals. Bringing these surviving Nazis to justice is a time-sensitive affair, and one that can bring much needed peace to those remaining holocaust survivors who have already suffered so much.

In the United States, the Office of Special Investigations, OSI, of the Department of Justice is responsible for detecting, investigating and taking legal action to denaturalize or deport persons who took part in Nazi sponsored acts of persecution committed between 1933 and 1945. As of August 2005, OSI had successfully prosecuted 100 persons involved in Nazi war crimes who were residing in the U.S.

Nongovernmental organizations are also integral to these detection and investigation efforts. In 2002, the Simon Wiesenthal Center launched Operation: Last Chance to maximize identification and to help facilitate the prosecution of remaining Nazi war criminals.

Of the most egregious Nazi war criminals, Operation: Last Chance has identified suspects like Mr. Milivoj Asner, who served as the police chief of the city of Slavonska Pozega. Mr. Asner orchestrated the persecution and destruction of the local Serb, Jewish, and Gypsy communities, which culminated in the deportation of hundreds of civilians to Ustasha concentration camps. Mr. Asner currently resides in Klagenfurt, Austria. The center has also identified Dr. Aribert Heim, who served as a medical doctor at the Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, and Mauthausen concentration camps. His most terrible crimes occurred at Mauthausen, where he murdered hundreds of prisoners by administering lethal injections into their hearts or by other tortuous killing methods. Dr. Heim's whereabouts are unknown.

Unfortunately, even the best efforts of OSI and organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center to identify and investigate Nazi war criminals are not enough. Some foreign governments hinder the extradition of convicted Nazi war criminals between the U.S. and their country of origin.

The World War II Accountability Act seeks to remedy this situation by making cooperation in the extradition of Nazi war criminals a prerequisite to a country's inclusion in the U.S. visa waiver program. This is a powerful incentive for countries that continue to harbor these criminals. I believe it is a necessary tool to compel the relevant countries to cooperate with our search for justice. For holocaust survivors, this justice is long overdue.

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