Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel director Efraim Zuroff on trial
Dr. Sandor Kepiro is suing the Israel director Efraim Zuroff for accusing him of actively participating in the killing of thousands of Jews, Serbs and Roma (gypsies) when he was an officer in the Hungarian army in a notorious raid on Novi Sad in 1942.
Kepiro was convicted by a Hungarian court for his role in the killings in 1944 and 1946. However, he escaped justice by fleeing to and later to South America.
Kepiro returned to his native country after the fall of communism. In 2007, he was discovered by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which demanded that charges be brought against him.
“He tried to say that the killings were all of partisans,” Zuroff said during the defamation trial’s first hearing.
“However, that’s a blatant lie, because they indiscriminately killed women and children.”
Over 70 years after Kristallnacht - Convicted Hungarian Nazi War Criminal Sues SWC Nazi Hunter
pogrom that took place on November 9, 1938 and marked the beginning of the destruction of European Jewry.
Today in Hungary, which lost half a million Jews, most of its Jewish population in Auschwitz and other concentration camps, anti-Semitism is on the rise along with a resurgent far-right movement that won 17% of the votes in recent elections.
Against this backdrop, Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel Director Dr. Efraim Zuroff finds himself on trial in Budapest in a lawsuit filed by an Hungarian Nazi war criminal responsible for the murder of hundreds of Jews.
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That is why we at the Simon Wiesenthal Center never let down our guard. We are on the frontlines every day confronting those who want to distort history and memory.
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
The trial of a Nazi-hunter accused of defaming a former Hungarian soldier over his role in the massacre of Jews during World War II opened in on Friday.
"Simon Wiesenthal Center" <enewsletter@wiesenthal.com
THE ULTIMATE IRONY:
Today, people around the world commemorate Kristallnacht, Nazi Germany’s
In a first-person report for Wiesenthal.com, Dr. Zuroff explains that, “For the past 30 years, I have been actively involved in trying to facilitate the prosecution of Nazi war criminals, so it was quite upsetting to find myself in the dock 10 days ago in Budapest as the accused in a libel/defamation suit filed by one of the more important Holocaust perpetrators whom I have exposed and sought to bring to justice.”
Dr. Zuroff continues… "The person in question, Dr. Sandor Kepiro,(pictured) was among a group of Hungarian army and gendarmerie officers who organized a mass murder of at least 1,250 innocent civilians (mostly Jews, the others Serbs and Roma) in the Serbian city of Novi Sad on January 23, 1942.
King Solomon had it right when he said, "There is nothing new under the sun". There is nothing more galling than a tyrant's chutzpah. Just like today's terrorists portray themselves as the defenders of mankind, yesterday's perpetrators who slaughtered millions seek to portray themselves as the victims.
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