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Photo: Wiesenthal Center
Efraim Zuroff. Successful Nazi hunter
Photo: Wiesenthal Center

Hungary: Suspected Nazi tracked down

Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center traces suspected Nazi war criminal Sando Kepiro to Budapest; Kepiro is accused of participating in a massacre of 4,000 unarmed civilians (including 1,250 Jews) in Novisad as a gendarme with a Hungary Army unit allied with Nazi Germany. ‘The manner in which we tracked him down is quite remarkable,’ Zuroff says

Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center has traced suspected Nazi war criminal Sando Kepiro in Hungary.

 

Kepiro, 92, was sentenced in absentia to 14 years in prison by a Communist people's court in 1946 for war crimes, charges that he denies.

 

Kepiro is accused of participating in a massacre of 4,000 unarmed civilians (including 1,250 Jews) in Novisad as a gendarme with a Hungary Army unit allied with Nazi Germany. In addition, he is thought to have cooperated in the deportation of Jews to Nazi concentration camps from the Serbian town of Wojwodina.

 

“The manner in which we tracked him down is quite remarkable,” Zuroff told Ynet in a phone conversation from Budapest. “We launched ‘Operation Last Chance’ some time ago, and in this framework we invited people to send us information on fugitive Nazi war criminals for money. A few months ago we received an e-mail from a man in Scotland who told us of a Hungarian who had bragged to him on how he expelled Jews during the Holocaust.

 

“We ran a check on him and then sent someone to speak with him under false pretenses to expose him,” Zuroff continued. “During the conversation the man spoke proudly of his connections with senior figures in the Hungary Army Unit; one of the senior figures turned out to be Kepiro. We were amazed to learn that he was still alive.”

 

Zuroff said the Wiesenthal Center proceeded to send information on the man to the Hungarian authorities, but they failed to act.

 

“The authorities claimed that they could not find the ruling against Kepiro from his 1946 trials,” according to Zuroff. “I found the ruling for them in an archive in Serbia and I presented them with original copies in Hungarian, but they still refused to arrest him.”

 

Zuroff said he was then forced to act on his own; he held a press conference outside Kepiro’s house and revealed Kepiro’s past to local reporters. Kepiro vehemently denied the accusations. He did admit to being in Novisad but denied taking part in the massacre that took place there, saying it was Hungarian soldiers and not members of the police unit he was a member of that shot civilians.

 

Zuroff is currently waiting for the Hungarian authorities to take action and arrest Kepiro.

 


פרסום ראשון: 09.28.06, 23:24
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