The Simon Wiesenthal Center has sent the German government a list of 80 people it believes murdered Jews while serving in Nazi death squads in World War Two and who may be still alive, the head of the Israel office of the organization said.

The push for an investigation into members of Einsatzgruppen, or death squads, was triggered by a landmark conviction in 2011 of John Demjanjuk, a guard at the Sobibor death camp, said the Wiesenthal Center’s Efraim Zuroff.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Demjanjuk was the first Nazi war criminal to be convicted in Germany for being a guard at a death camp without evidence of a specific crime or victim. He died in March 2012, aged 91.

The verdict unleashed a wave of new investigations even though nearly 70 years after the end of the Holocaust, most suspects have died or are unfit for trial.

The hunt was no longer for high-level perpetrators of the Holocaust, in which some 6 million Jews died, but for thousands of people who helped in the machine of death.

“We want investigations into these people,” Zuroff told Reuters.

If a court could convict anyone who served in a death camp, membership of a Nazi body whose main aim was murder could also be grounds for a conviction, he said.

The Einsatzgruppen committed mass killings especially in occupied Poland and the Soviet Union. Including some members of the SS, many historians say the death squads killed more than a million Jews.

The bulk of the crimes would have taken place in 1941-1943, said Zuroff, who has been prevented by Germany’s tight privacy laws from finding out whether the 80 individuals on the list, who include four women, are alive or dead. He has picked out members of death squads born after 1920, he said.

“Anyone we find is a victory. The last thing on earth to feel for these people is sympathy,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the German justice ministry said the list had been passed to the special prosecutors office in Ludwigsburg that investigates Nazi crimes.

After World War Two a handful of leading death squad members were charged with war crimes.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount