S 1704 ISCommentsClose CommentsPermalink

To hold the surviving Nazi war criminals accountable for the war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity they committed during World War II, by encouraging foreign governments to more efficiently prosecute and extradite wanted criminals.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

September 24, 2009CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

Mr. NELSON of Florida (for himself, Ms. SNOWE, and Mr. CARDIN) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the JudiciaryCommentsClose CommentsPermalink

To hold the surviving Nazi war criminals accountable for the war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity they committed during World War II, by encouraging foreign governments to more efficiently prosecute and extradite wanted criminals.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘World War II War Crimes Accountability Act of 2009’.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress finds the following:CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(1) Surviving Nazi war criminals are becoming increasingly rare.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(2) The identities of many of the remaining criminals were made known only after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Communist governments throughout eastern Europe.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(3) In most of these formerly communist countries, the volume of available information is enormous, and the available resources to study it and identify war crimes suspects is comparatively small.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(4) 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 abroad between 1933 and 1945.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(5) As of April 2009, OSI had successfully prosecuted more than 107 people involved in Nazi war crimes who were residing in the United States.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(6) As a government office with limited resources, OSI is under enormous strain to identify and prosecute those criminals identified by newly released records before it is too late.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(7) Some foreign governments hinder the efforts of OSI, Congress, and the United States Government to extradite or deport convicted Nazi war criminals from the United States to their country of origin or other relevant jurisdiction.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(8) Certain nongovernmental organizations have been instrumental in the search for wanted Nazi war crimes suspects for over 60 years.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(9) Simon Wiesenthal, a survivor of the Nazi death camps whose work stands as a reminder and a warning for future generations, dedicated his life to--CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(A) documenting the crimes of the Holocaust; andCommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(B) hunting down the perpetrators still at large.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(10) As founder and head of the Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna, Simon Wiesenthal successfully brought to justice wanted Nazi war criminals, including Franz Stangl, the commandant of the Treblinka death camp.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(11) Mr. Wiesenthal’s work, which contributed enormously to the modern understanding of justice, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, should be continued.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(12) In 2002, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, in collaboration with the Targum Shlishi Foundation of Miami, Florida, launched Operation: Last Chance to maximize the identification and help facilitate the prosecution of the remaining unprosecuted Nazi war criminals, helping to achieve justice for the victims of the Holocaust.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(13) Of the most guilty Nazis and Nazi collaborators still at large, Operation: Last Chance has identified the following suspects:CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(A) Dr. Aribert Heim, who served as a medical doctor at the Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, and Mauthausen concentration camps, is the most wanted ex-Nazi still at large. His most terrible crimes were committed at Mauthausen, where he murdered hundreds of inmates by administering lethal injections of phenol to their hearts or by other torturous killing methods during the fall of 1941. Press reports indicate that he may have died in Cairo, Egypt in 1992, but serious doubts remain about the veracity of that information. If he is alive, his current whereabouts are unknown.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(B) Dr. Sandor Kepiro, who served as an officer in the Hungarian gendarmerie, was 1 of several Hungarian officers convicted in 1944 for the mass murder of several thousand civilians (mostly Jews) in the city of Novi Sad on January 23, 1942. In the wake of the occupation of Hungary in March 1944, he was pardoned, promoted, and returned to active service. He escaped to Austria in 1945, fled to Argentina in 1948, and returned to Hungary in 1996.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(C) Milivoj Asner, who served as the police chief of the city of Slavonska Pozega. During 1941 and 1942, Mr. Asner orchestrated the robbery, persecution and destruction of the local Serb, Jewish and Gypsy communities, which culminated in the deportation of hundreds of civilians to Ustasha concentration camps, where most of the deportees were murdered. After his exposure in Operation: Last Chance, the former police chief later escaped once again to Klagenfurt, Austria, where he currently resides.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(D) Charles Zentai is accused of murdering 18-year-old Peter Balazs, a Jewish boy he caught riding a Budapest tram without the requisite yellow star on November 8, 1944. Zentai was able to immigrate to Australia in February 1950, where he currently lives. Hungary is seeking his extradition.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(E) Algimantas Dailide, who volunteered for Lithuania’s secret police, Saugumas, arrested 10 Jews and 2 Poles, including women and children, who were attempting to escape from the Vilnius ghetto in October 1941 and turned them over to the Nazis for likely execution. After Mr. Dailide’s deportation from the United States to Germany, the Lithuanian courts convicted him for his crimes in 2006, but refused to imprison him on medical grounds. He currently resides in Kirchberg, Germany.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(F) Harry Mannil is accused of playing a role in the death of at least 7 Jews and Communists while serving in the Estonian police in 1941 and 1942 during the Nazi occupation of Estonia. Although Estonian prosecutors have claimed on multiple occasions, most recently in 2006, that they had uncovered no evidence proving Mr. Mannil’s guilt of war crimes, they discovered that the 7 people he interrogated were later executed. Mr. Mannil is living in Venezuela and is barred from entering the United States.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(G) Mikhail Gorshkow is alleged to have been an interrogator for the Nazi Gestapo and is accused of helping kill about 3,000 men, women, and children in the Slutsk ghetto in Minsk, Belarus. He was stripped of his United States citizenship and ordered deported for concealing his wartime service for the Nazis. He is under investigation in Estonia.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(H) Alois Brunner, a key operative of Adolf Eichmann, was responsible for the deportation of 47,000 Jews from Austria, 44,000 Jews from Greece, 23,500 Jews from France, and 14,000 Jews from Slovakia to Nazi death camps. He lived in Syria for decades and the Syrian government refused to cooperate with international prosecution efforts. He was convicted in absentia for his crimes by France. He was born in 1912 and last seen in 2001. While is it doubtful that he is still alive, there is no conclusive evidence of his death.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

SEC. 3. SENSE OF THE SENATE.

It is the sense of the Senate that--CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(1) the United States should actively encourage extradition and prosecution of the remaining Nazi war criminals (as described in section 212(a)(3)(E) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182 (a)(3)(E)));CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(2) the Simon Wiesenthal Center should be commended for its historic work in bringing to light the atrocities of the Holocaust and in advancing justice for Nazi war criminals through Operation: Last Chance; andCommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(3) the Office of Special Investigation of the Department of Justice is advancing the declared foreign policy of the United States by bringing wanted World War II criminals to justice and should be commended for its actions.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

SEC. 4. DESIGNATION OF VISA WAIVER PROGRAM COUNTRIES.

(a) Cooperation- After a country is initially designated as a visa waiver program country under section 217(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1187(c)), the Attorney General, in evaluating the effect that such designation would have on the law enforcement and security interests of the United States under paragraph (2)(C) of such section, shall consider the extent to which such country is cooperating in--CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(1) extraditing or prosecuting wanted or indicted Nazi war criminals to the relevant jurisdiction; andCommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(2) admitting into their territory aliens described in section 212(a)(3)(E)(i) and ordered removed from the United States by a United States immigration judge, the Board of Immigration Appeals, or a Federal court.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(b) Presidential Discretion-CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(1) IN GENERAL- If the President determines that it would not be in the national interest of the United States to terminate a country’s designation as a visa waiver program country based on the evaluation under subsection (a), the President may decline to terminate such designation after providing advance written notification to--CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(A) the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate;CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(B) the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate;CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(C) the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives; andCommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(D) the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(2) CONTENTS- In providing notification under paragraph (1), the President shall--CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(A) identify each crime suspect described in subsection (a)(2) whose admission has not been effected; andCommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(B) submit copies of all decisions rendered by United States immigration judges, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and Federal courts that relate to such crime suspects.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

SEC. 5. ANNUAL REPORT.

In each of the fiscal years 2010 through 2014, the President shall submit an annual report to the committees listed in section 4(b)(1), which describes, for each country that has a pending application for entry into or renewal of the visa waiver program, whether such country is--CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(1) cooperating satisfactorily in extraditing or deporting wanted Nazi war crimes suspects to the jurisdiction in which they have been indicted or convicted;CommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(2) prosecuting wanted Nazi war crimes suspects effectively within such country’s jurisdiction; andCommentsClose CommentsPermalink





(3) cooperating satisfactorily in admitting to the territory of such country aliens described in section 212(a)(3)(E)(i) and ordered removed from the United States territory by a United States immigration judge, the Board of Immigration Appeals, or a Federal court.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink