The Israeli Simon Wiesenthal Center embarked on a last ditch effort to hunt down surviving Nazis in South America. "The passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the perpetrators," the center's director, Efraim Zuroff, said. The group put out a $460,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of Dr. Aribert Heim, who the group alleges injected phenol into Jewish and other prisoners at three concentration camps.
The South American effort is part of "Operation: LAST CHANCE" first launched in 2002 to target Nazis in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Wiesenthal Center's 2007 annual report claims there are 1,018 war crimes investigations in 14 countries involving former Nazi officers. Italian officials handed down 21 convictions in 2006-07, which Zuroff says is "considerably higher than in past years."
Erich Priebke, a former Nazi captain, was extradited from Argentina to Rome in 1995 and is currently serving a life term for a 1944 incident involving the deaths of 334 Italian civilians. SS Col. Adolf Eichmann, a key player in Hitler's "final solution" to the answer to the so-called Jewish question, was captured in Buenos Aires in 1960. Eichman was hanged in Israel in 1962.
