Israeli reporters aid in finding accused war criminals in Canada

TORONTO, Nov. 24 (JTA) – A private investigator from New York, working with two reporters, has uncovered the whereabouts of about 150 suspected war criminals living in Canada. The disclosure came in a two-part series published in the Jerusalem Post that describes Canada as a “near-blissful refuge” for Nazis. Posing as academics from a non-existent university in the Central American country of Belize, Steve Rambam and the two reporters made house calls on about 60 of the alleged war criminals. The names of those they visited were furnished by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. In some cases, they had to examine property records and driver registrations in order to find the people. But in others, they did no more than look up the names in the phone book. Many of the people they found readily admitted their involvement with groups that committed wartime atrocities. At least one, a British Columbia resident whom the Canadian government intends to deport, admitted his direct involvement in the murder of Jewish men, women and children. Although the Canadian branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Center long ago provided the government with a list of hundreds of suspected war criminals, Canada’s Justice Department has so far initiated denaturalization or deportation proceedings against only eight and expects to launch another four cases before March. Said Irving Abella, chairman of the war crimes committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress: “It’s incredible that one person working with meager resources had little trouble tracking down and getting confessions from alleged Nazi war criminals in Canada, while the Canadian government has done very little for 50 years.” “I hope it embarrasses the country,” Abella said of the disclosures in the Jerusalem Post, which published the two-part story last Friday and Sunday. “I hope it embarrasses the government. I hope it embarrasses the judiciary.”