Nazi War Crimes Discussed With West German Consulate

A three-member delegation, including a representative from the Harvard Jewish Law Students Association (HJLSA), met yesterday with the West German deputy consul in Boston to discuss renewing the statute of limitations applicable to Nazi war crimes.

The statute will expire at the end of this year unless the West German parliament acts to extend or repeal it. If the parliament does not act, participants in Nazi atrocities who have not been tried will have immunity from prosecution.

Eli Rosenbaum of the HJLSA and two members of One Generation After, a Boston organization made up largely of children of Holocaust survivors, argued during their meeting with the deputy consul for repeal of the statute.

"We personally have been affected by (the Holocaust)," Ruth Bork, president of One Generation After, said yesterday. "Our parents in many cases have been negatively physically affected by their experiences in the war years," she added.

Gunter Fuhrmann, West German deputy consul, responded to the group's arguments by presenting opposing views, but he declined to take a clear stand on the issue of repeal, according to the HJLSA.

Bork said Fuhrmann mentioned the increased difficulty in obtaining witnesses to war crimes so long after the war and the large number of people who have already been tried as reasons for allowing the statute to run out.

However, Bork said many people have not yet been tried. "People should be brought to trial to show that a person doesn't undertake that kind of effort (participation in war crimes) without facing consequences," she added.

The meeting coincided with the International Holocaust Public Education and Social Action Day, held to recognize the 16th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's election as chancellor of Germany and the liberation by Allied troops of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The delegation presented the deputy consul with a memorandum written by Rosenbaum on the statute. The memo said the Allies hold many unpublicized documents that have not been used in war crimes investigations. "It would be an unsufferably bitter irony if those war criminals flushed out by access to hitherto underutilized data could take refuge behind a lapsed statute of limitations," the memorandum said.