Accused of Nazi crimes, 95-year-old stirs Austria

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Published: June 22, 2008

Accused of Nazi crimes, 95-year-old stirs Austria

By William J. Kole

Associated Press

VIENNA, Austria – Milivoj Asner caused a stir just by showing up at a soccer game: The frail 95-year-old is ranked No. 4 on a leading list of most-wanted Nazi war crimes suspects.

Now Austria’s most notorious far-right politician, former Freedom Party leader Joerg Haider, has touched off an even bigger scandal by praising Asner as a “treasured” neighbor who should be allowed to live out his days in peace.

“This could only happen in Austria,” Efraim Zuroff, chief Nazi hunter for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Associated Press.

Officials in southern Austria, where Asner lives openly despite being indicted for crimes against humanity in his native Croatia, contend the retired police chief is mentally unfit for questioning, extradition or trial.
But Asner’s recent appearance at a “fan zone” near his home in the southern city of Klagenfurt – where he reportedly looked fit and lucid as he and his wife watched Croatia play in the European Championship – has some questioning whether this alpine country with a tortured World War II past is shielding him from justice.

Asner stands accused of persecuting hundreds of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies and dispatching them to their deaths in WWII-era Croatia, which was ruled by a Nazi puppet regime.

“Austria has the habit of closing its eyes,” renowned Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld told French television Thursday. The Asner case, he said, is fresh proof the country is a safe haven for suspected war criminals.

Haider’s impassioned defense of Asner has only reinforced that impression.
Haider, who brought the Freedom Party into Austria’s coalition government in 2000 on a platform tinged with anti-Semitic and xenophobic undertones, is the governor of the province of Carinthia where Asner lives.

“He’s lived peacefully among us for years, and he should be able to live out the twilight of his life with us,” Haider told the newspaper Der Standard this week.

“This is a nice family. We really treasure this family,” he was quoted as saying.

Such praise is unconscionable, said Zuroff, who has been pressuring the Austrian government to arrest Asner and hand him over for trial as part of “Operation: Last Chance” – an effort to bring aging top suspects to justice before they die.

“This is clearly a reflection of the political atmosphere which exists in Austria and which in certain circles is extremely sympathetic to suspected Nazi war criminals,” Zuroff said in a telephone interview from Israel.
Asner, he added, “has never showed any remorse for actions which affected the fates of hundreds of people.”

Asner’s indictment alleges he actively enforced racist laws while police chief in the eastern Croatian town of Pozega in 1941-42 and sent his victims to a Croat-run death camp. The Wiesenthal Center ranks him No. 4 on a list of 10 top Nazi fugitives.

Asner has maintained his innocence, and in an interview aired Thursday on state-run Croatian television, declared: “My conscience is clear.”
“I am ready to come to face the court in Croatia, but I’m not in the best health,” Asner said, adding that if the judges were honest, “they would have to acquit me.”

He acknowledged he participated in deportations of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies, but insisted the deportees were sent to their homelands and not to camps.

Austria’s Justice Ministry said it is reviewing a request from Zuroff to make a fresh assessment of Asner’s physical and mental state and prove he is suffering from dementia as experts have ruled in the past.
Without a new evaluation declaring him physically and mentally fit, “our hands are tied,” ministry spokesman Thomas Geiblinger said.

Croatia demanded Asner’s extradition in 2005, the year he was formally indicted. But the Austrians demurred, first on the grounds that he was an Austrian citizen. Later, they claimed the statute of limitations for his alleged crimes had expired.

Austria eventually conceded that Asner was not an Austrian citizen, which normally would have opened the way for his extradition. But in 2006, independent experts declared Asner mentally unfit, and they did so again in April.

Among those challenging that assessment is Gerhard Tuschla, a reporter for Austrian public broadcaster ORF. Tuschla said he recently interviewed Asner, who began living under the name George Aschner after fleeing Croatia for Austria in 1945, and found him to be “a jovial, whiskey-drinking old man.”

“We suspected from the very beginning that he might have been faking it – making a specific effort to appear as unfit as possible,” Zuroff said.
The affair comes just as Austria takes over the chairmanship of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research – a 25-nation panel dedicated to maintaining the memory of Nazi atrocities.

[source]

[Strengthandhonour]

I think if the man went into trial and wasn't accused of anything, he should be left alone for the rest of his days. He shouldn't be surprised if he is not appreciated in public eiter.
I also think is kind of stupid of Haider to put himself in the spot like that..

[Musaka]

War crimes never obsolescence...

[Haraxvat]

chief nazi hunter efraim zuroff (what a title??!) says this can only happen in austria... ?!
yes because austria is a true constitutional state, and not bannana republic.

[Susi]

Give this old man a rest, I'd say. He's 95. The record for being alive is what? 115-120? .-. They need to stop obsessing over the past and "hunting" nazis like they're small game, especially when they're all very old.

[Strengthandhonour]

that's a good point.
But I guess it's hard for some of us to picture it since our recent ancestors were not persecuted. I have a Romanian friend and he has an interesting philosophy he told me. He lost his grandparents to Russian agression and he will never let it go.
"Once a wolf, always a wolf."

[Musaka]

Originally Posted by Susi

Give this old man a rest, I'd say. He's 95. The record for being alive is what? 115-120? .-. They need to stop obsessing over the past and "hunting" nazis like they're small game, especially when they're all very old.

And,what do you think,how many boys and girls never made to his age,never made familly,kids,never saw their grandshildren because of him?! I guess,if he is 4th on the list of the most wanted Nazi war criminals,well...I did not lose nobody in WWII( i think i am not,but my grand father was in concetration camp and somehow he stayed alive),but in case i was,i would ask for satisfaction and if there is a guy who was involved in murdering of my ancestor,or ancestors i would not care of age of his murderer..don't just think of his age,think of his victims,it is more important..

[wilpuri]

Originally Posted by Strengthandhonour

that's a good point.
But I guess it's hard for some of us to picture it since our recent ancestors were not persecuted. I have a Romanian friend and he has an interesting philosophy he told me. He lost his grandparents to Russian agression and he will never let it go.
"Once a wolf, always a wolf."

Finns have a saying about Russians: "A Russian is a Russian even if you fry him in butter."

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Originally Posted by wilpuri

Finns have a saying about Russians: "A Russian is a Russian even if you fry him in butter."

Let us not deflect from the theme into bashing of entire nations.

[Musaka]

Originally Posted by Marulus

Let us not deflect from the theme into basking of entire nations.

Thrue,because there were Croats too who were slaughered in Jasenovac..

[wilpuri]

Originally Posted by Marulus

Let us not deflect from the theme into bashing of entire nations.

I was simply proving S&H's point. European nations, or at least most of them, have long ethnic memories. Why shouldn't we expect Jews to have them as well.

[Musaka]

Originally Posted by wilpuri

I was simply proving S&H's point. European nations, or at least most of them, have long ethnic memories. Why shouldn't we expect Jews to have them as well.

Just a note: Jasenovac was in the first place concetration camp for Serbs,there were killed Jews and ROmas too,but the biggest number of victims were Serbs.. Read this and then say that he is too old and he should be lefted alone..

Jasenovac

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

This man's guilt hasn't been proved yet.

[Musaka]

Originally Posted by Marulus

This man's guilt hasn't been proved yet.

Yes,but there are survivers who can't wait for trial to begin which live in Serbia and they are the same age and who said that they wait whole their lives for this..

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Originally Posted by BeliAndjeo

Just a note: Jasenovac was in the first place concetration camp for Serbs,there were killed Jews and ROmas too,but the biggest number of victims were Serbs.. Read this and then say that he is too old and he should be lefted alone..

Jasenovac

The link you provided is one of a site run by some organization of American Jews and is foaming with anti-Croatian hatred. Along with the usual blaming, without any foundations in facts, of the Catholic Church for the atrocities (part of the old-age Masonic hatred), the page in this link contains several inaccuracies, starting with the wildly inflated number of victims (300 000-700 000), then going to slanders about the government of Croatia having vandalized the place in the nineties, which is simply not true, as all the monuments built in the sixties are still standing there and nobody touched them.

Not wanting myself to diminish the horror of Jasenovac, I must say I don't like lies and distortions either. This has become some kind of Black Legend.

Audiatur et altera pars...

Lies of Dr Bulajic, Jasenovac

Realistic accounts about the number of vctims of Jasenovac are between 60 000 - 70 000. Not that it makes the horror such a place any milder.

The demograph Vladimir Žerjavić assessed the number of Serb losses on the territory of NDH to about 322 000. That includes the whole territory, summary executions in villages etc, not just Jasenovac.