February 25, 1999
Massmurderer:
Antanas Gecas (formerly Gecevicius)
The Simon Wiesenthal Center today asked the
Lithuanian government to extradite or try in absentia a former Lithuanian
police battalion officer currently residing in Edinburgh. Dr. Efraim Zuroff,
the Center’s Israeli director today submitted a file on Antanas Gecas
(formerly Gecevicius) who commanded a police unit which actively
participated in the persecution and murder of thousands of Jews in Lithuania
and Belarus, to the Lithuanian Embassy in Tel-Aviv and urged the Lithuanian
authorities to take immediate action in this case.
Dr. Zuroff noted that this step was predicated by
the failure of the Scottish authorities to prosecute Gecas despite
unequivocal evidence of his participation in the implementation of the
Final Solution. "At least in this manner, he can be tried, even if it is
only in absentia, in Lithuania, where there are numerous men who served
in this unit and can testify as to his involvement in the crimes of the
Holocaust," said Zuroff, who has spearheaded the Wiesenthal Center’s
efforts to uncover and bring to trial Lithuanian Nazi war criminals. He
was accompanied by Member of Knesset Prof. Alex Lubotzky, whose father
is a survivor of the Vilnius (Lithuania) Ghetto and Adv. Yosef Melamed,
chairman of the Association of Lithuanian Jews, the worldwide umbrella
organization for Jews of Lithuanian origin.
Background
The name of Antanas Gecas
appeared on the first list of 17 suspected Nazi war criminals which
the Wiesenthal Center submitted to the British authorities. An
investigation by the Scottish War Crimes Unit confirmed his service
in a police battalion which participated in the mass murder of Jews
but failed to submit an indictment. Gecas sued Scottish Television
for calling him a Nazi war criminal in a television documentary, but
he lost the case and was branded a murderer by Judge Lord
Milligan.
Abb.: The Murder of Jewish Women in the
Baltic
Yigal Lossin: Amud haEsch (p.317)
Es stellt sich uns beim Anblick dieser Bilder
die Frage: 'Ist die Veröffentlichung dieser Photographien überhaupt
zulässig? Ist es mit der Würde des Menschen vereinbar in dieser
Weise und in diesem Moment gesehen zu werden?'
Es stellt sich uns ausserdem die Frage: 'Wie
ist es möglich, dass obwohl diese Bilder und das Wissen um diese
Taten seit Jahrzehnten öffentlich zugänglich sind, dennoch die Täter
- obwohl bekannt - obwohl unter uns lebend - so selten zur
Rechenschaft gezogen wurden?''
In diesem Zusammenhang erinnern wir auch an
SS Anton Malloth, der seinen Lebensabend hier in
München ungestört und unbehelligt verbringt - er ist nur einer von
vielen!
Appell des
Wiesenthal-Centers Jerusalem
Boz schel Dam - Schlamm von Blut:
Ein Zeuge des
Massenmords erzählt |
 |
haGalil onLine -
Freitag 26-02-99 |
