Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day)

The Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of 10 most wanted Nazis, as of April 1, 2008. It was released Wednesday:


1. Dr. Aribert Heim, whereabouts unknown: Indicted in Germany on charges he murdered hundreds of inmates at Mauthausen concentration camp, where he was camp doctor. Disappeared in 1962, before planned prosecution.

2. John Demjanjuk, in United States: Ukrainian immigrant alleged by U.S. authorities to have been guard at Nazi camps. He denies that. Extradited to Israel in 1986, where he was sentenced to death for allegedly being Treblinka camp guard "Ivan the Terrible." Verdict overturned in 1993 and Demjanjuk returned to America. U.S. citizenship restored in 1998, then removed in 2002. Seeking to appeal court's January rejection of challenge to immigration judge's order that would send him to Germany, Poland or Ukraine.

3. Sandor Kepiro, in Hungary: Former Hungarian gendarmerie officer accused of involvement in wartime killings of more than 1,000 civilians in Serbia. Convicted twice in Hungarian courts, in 1944 and 1946, but never punished. Kepiro, who moved back to Hungary in 1996 after decades in Argentina, denies accusations. Hungary reinvestigating.

4. Milivoj Asner, in Austria: Police chief in Croatia's wartime Nazi puppet regime, he is suspected of active role in persecution and deportation to death of hundreds of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. In 2005, Croatia requested his extradition from Austria, which refused, saying he is unfit to stand trial or be questioned.

5. Soeren Kam, in Germany: Former member of SS wanted by Denmark in assassination of journalist in 1943. Extradition from Germany was blocked in 2007 by Bavarian court that found insufficient evidence for murder charges.

6. Heinrich Boere, in Germany: Admitted hit man for Waffen-SS accused of killing three Dutch civilians. Sentenced to death in absentia in 1949 in Netherlands, later commuted to life in prison. German courts refused to extradite him, then declared conviction invalid. Prosecutors in Dortmund, Germany, brought new murder charges against him this month.

7. Charles Zentai, in Australia: Former Hungarian soldier has been under investigation by Hungary's Foreign Ministry since December 2004 on suspicion of killing Peter Balazs in Budapest in 1944 for failing to wear a yellow star identifying him as Jew. Zentai denies charge and fighting extradition.

8. Mikhail Gorshkow, in Estonia: U.S. officials and Jewish groups accuse Gorshkow of helping kill Jews while serving as interpreter and interrogator for German Gestapo in Belarus. He returned to native Estonia in 2002 just before federal court stripped him of U.S. citizenship for lying about his war record. Prosecutors in Estonia investigating case.

9. Algimantas Dailide, in Germany: Convicted in 2006 in Lithuania of helping round up Jews for Nazis as officer in Vilnius security police. Sentenced to five years in jail, but judge ruled he was too frail to serve sentence. He had been deported from U.S. to Germany in 2003 for lying on immigration application. Lives in Germany, but went voluntarily to Lithuania for trial.

10. Harry Mannil, in Venezuela: Former officer in Estonia's political police and German security forces during Nazi occupation of Estonia. U.S. authorities investigating Mannil's 1990s visa application concluded he took part in murder of hundreds of Jews, barring him entry. Was cleared in 2005 by Estonian investigation into allegations of crimes against humanity.









Sirens wail as Israel remembers 6 million victims of the Holocaust

Canadian Press - May 1, 2008

JERUSALEM - Sirens pierced the air in a mournful two-minute wail throughout Israel on Thursday in a tribute to the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis.

In an annual Holocaust remembrance day ritual, Israeli drivers switched off their engines and people put aside their daily activities to stand at attention as the sirens sounded. Theatres and other places of entertainment shut down Wednesday night, when the observances officially began.

Radio and television programming focused exclusively on the Holocaust, and melancholy music poured over the airwaves.

In a speech Wednesday evening marking remembrance day, Israel's president took a veiled swipe at Iran and its disputed nuclear program.

Shimon Peres said the world woke up too late to prevent Adolf Hitler from starting a war that killed 60 million people and warned that it world must not let that happen again.

"In history, it is forbidden to be late," he said at the ceremony at Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial.

Although Peres did not refer specifically to either Iran or its president, his aides said later that he was alluding to them when he talked about Hitler and the Nazi regime in Germany.

Despite Iranian insistence its nuclear program is peaceful, Israel, the U.S. and others say they believe Iran is trying to build atomic weapons. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called repeatedly for the Jewish state's destruction.

About 270,000 Holocaust survivors live in Israel, of whom about 80,000 survived Nazi death camps, according to Zeev Factor, chairman of a commission working on benefits for them.
?? The Canadian Press, 2008