тхеодоре кацзынски
Well-Known Member
Given that its Holocaust memorial day and all... Is it a worthy endeavour or too little, too late?
71 years on from the end of WW2 the hunt for Nazis goes on, with Hubert Zafke the latest to be arrested and charged. As outlined in the article linked below, until a change in the law in 2009, a defendant had to be proved to have "committed a specific crime against a specific victim", this perhaps allowing many to escape conviction. The updated law* allows that "you don’t have to prove a determined act that directly leads to a killing”, instead the presence of an individual in a camp is taken as a sign of guilt, this by the individuals presence being seen to perpetuate the running of the camps. Zafke worked in Auschwitz as a medical orderly for a month in 1944, during which time 3,681 people died and, lacking any evidence that he was directly involved in these deaths, he's being tried as a functionary.
While I'm all for trying people who may have participated in what is possibly the most reprehensible act in human history, I'm not so sure that locking them up, if found guilty, serves any real purpose. These people are all at an advanced age and, as in the case of Zafke, likely to be suffering from physical and mental ailments. Further, given the brutality of the Nazi regime, anybody refusing to obey orders would likely be executed themselves and their position filled by the next available person**
Anyway, the hunt continues... Here Are the 5 Most Wanted Nazi War Criminals
Hubert Zafke
Another View
*The propriety of that change in law is also possibly debatable.
**Although the Superior Orders defence is generally rejected, this has only become true since the Nuremberg trials.
71 years on from the end of WW2 the hunt for Nazis goes on, with Hubert Zafke the latest to be arrested and charged. As outlined in the article linked below, until a change in the law in 2009, a defendant had to be proved to have "committed a specific crime against a specific victim", this perhaps allowing many to escape conviction. The updated law* allows that "you don’t have to prove a determined act that directly leads to a killing”, instead the presence of an individual in a camp is taken as a sign of guilt, this by the individuals presence being seen to perpetuate the running of the camps. Zafke worked in Auschwitz as a medical orderly for a month in 1944, during which time 3,681 people died and, lacking any evidence that he was directly involved in these deaths, he's being tried as a functionary.
While I'm all for trying people who may have participated in what is possibly the most reprehensible act in human history, I'm not so sure that locking them up, if found guilty, serves any real purpose. These people are all at an advanced age and, as in the case of Zafke, likely to be suffering from physical and mental ailments. Further, given the brutality of the Nazi regime, anybody refusing to obey orders would likely be executed themselves and their position filled by the next available person**
Anyway, the hunt continues... Here Are the 5 Most Wanted Nazi War Criminals
Hubert Zafke
Another View
*The propriety of that change in law is also possibly debatable.
**Although the Superior Orders defence is generally rejected, this has only become true since the Nuremberg trials.