Efraim Zuroff

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Dr. Efraim Zuroff (born 1948 in New York) is an Israeli historian of American origin, who has played an important role in the efforts to bring Nazi war criminals to justice during the past 28 years, thereby earning the title of "the last Nazi hunter." Zuroff is the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center office in Jerusalem, is the coordinator of Nazi war crimes research worldwide for the Wiesenthal Center and the author of its annual (since 2001) "Status Report" on the worldwide investigation and prosecution of Nazi war criminals. He is especially notable for having been involved in the exposure, extradition to Croatia, and conviction in Zagreb of former Jasenovac commandant Dinko Šakić, who was found living in Argentina.

In 2002, together with Aryeh Rubin, the founder of the Targum Shlishi Foundation of Miami, Florida, he launched Operation Last Chance, which offers financial rewards for information which will facilitate the prosecution and punishment of Nazi war criminals. To date, the project has been initiated in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia (all in 2002); Poland, Romania, Austria (2003); Croatia, Hungary (2004) and Germany (2005). To date, it has yielded three arrest warrants, two extradition requests, and numerous criminal investigations. Most recently, Sandor Kepiro, was identified as the world's oldest war criminal in Budapest on September 30, 2006. On January 15, 2008, the prize was increased from $10,000 to $25,000 [1].

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[edit] Biography

Born in New York, Efraim moved to Israel in 1970 after completing his undergraduate degree in history (with honors) at Yeshiva University. He obtained an M.A. degree in Holocaust studies at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry of the Hebrew University, where he also completed his Ph.D., which chronicles the response of Orthodox Jewry in the United States to the Holocaust and focuses on the rescue attempts launched by the Vaad ha-Hatzala rescue committee established by American Orthodox rabbis in 1939. In 2000, Yeshiva University Press and KTAV Publishing House published his study of the history of the Vaad ha-Hatzala, which was awarded an Egit Grant for Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Literature by the Israeli General Federation of Labor (Histadrut) and also received the 1999-2000 Samuel Belkin Literary Award for the best book published by a Yeshiva University alumnus in the field of Jewish studies.

[edit] Earlier positions and Accomplishments

  • In 1978 he was invited to be the first director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, where he played a leading role in establishing the Center’s library and archives and was historical advisor for the Center’s Academy award-winning documentary Genocide.
  • In 1986 his research uncovered the postwar escape of hundreds of Nazi war criminals to Australia, Canada, Great Britain and other countries, and he rejoined the Wiesenthal Center to coordinate its international efforts to bring Holocaust perpetrators to justice. These efforts have influenced the passage of special laws in Canada (1987), Australia (1989) and Great Britain (1991) which enable the prosecution in those countries of Nazi war criminals.
  • In 1991 he exposed the rehabilitation of Nazi war criminals in Lithuania and led the campaign to stop this process. Zuroff was appointed by the then Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to serve on the joint Israeli-Lithuanian commission of inquiry established to deal with this issue, which has succeeded to date in achieving the cancellation by the Lithuanian authorities of forty-seven rehabilitations granted to individuals who had participated in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust. In 2000 he exposed the rehabilitations granted by the government of Latvia to Nazi war criminals and has led the efforts to cancel these pardons.
  • Zuroff played an important role in the exposure, arrest, extradition and prosecution of Dinko Sakic, the former commandant of the Croatian concentration camp Jasenovac. In early October 1999, Sakic who lived for more than fifty years in Argentina, was sentenced in Zagreb to twenty years’ imprisonment for his crimes in the first-ever trial of a Nazi war criminal in a post-Communist country.
  • In his book, Occupation: Nazi-Hunter; The Continuing Search for the Perpetrators of the Holocaust (KTAV; Hoboken, 1994), Zuroff chronicles the belated efforts to prosecute Nazi war criminals in western democracies and explains the rationale for such efforts several decades after the crimes. The book was published in German by Ahriman Verlag. In June 1999, his activities as a Nazi-hunter were the subject of a ZDF television (German Channel 2) documentary entitled “The Nazi-Hunter,” which was subsequently shown in several countries.
  • In 1995 and 1996, Zuroff was invited to Rwanda to assist the local authorities in their efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of the genocide which took place in that country in spring 1994, and he has served as an official advisor to the Rwandan government.
  • In recent years, Zuroff has lectured extensively to audiences all over the world regarding the efforts to bring Nazi war criminals to justice. During the years 1992-1999, he served in the Education Corps of the Israeli Defense Forces (reserves) and lectured to thousands of soldiers about his work as a Nazi-hunter.
  • Over the years Zuroff has published over two hundred articles on various topics relating to the Holocaust, as well as other issues of concern in the Jewish world. His publications have appeared in scholarly journals such as Yad Vashem Studies, Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual, Jewish Political Studies Review, and American Jewish History, as well as in the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Jerusalem Post, Tikkun, Jerusalem Report, Maariv, Haaretz, Yediot Achronot, Eretz Acheret, Jewish Chronicle and other publications

[edit] Family

He currently resides with his wife in Efrat. They have four children and three grandchildren.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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