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Operation Last Chance was launched July 2002 by the Simon Wiesenthal Center with its mission statement being to track down ex-Nazis still in hiding. Most of them would be nearing the end of their lifetimes, hence the operation's name. Efraim Zuroff is director of the Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem who serves as the Israeli liaison as well as overseer of this project, the focus of which is investigation, prosecution, and conviction of the last remaining Nazi war criminals and collaborators. Many have obtained citizenship in Canada and the United States under false pretences; usually by misrepresentation, omission, or falsification of their criminal past, specifically war crimes which rose to the level of crimes against humanity.

Convictions Obtained

Operation Last Chance assisted in the prosecution and conviction of John Demjanjuk for his role in the torture and murder of Jews in various concentration camps, among other atrocities. Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian collaborator (sometimes referred to by camp inmates as Askaris) who became an American citizen in the 1950s, was found guilty of being a guard at the Sobibór death camp, where about 250,000 Jews were put to death.

After Demjanjuk was convicted in a Munich criminal court May, 2011, the Operation Last Chance team of investigators, attorneys, and German prosecutors began to focus on another Ukrainian national, a Nazi collaborator who had also illegally sought and obtained refuge in the United States, John Kalymon. In 2007, Kalymon had been stripped of his United States citizenship for falsifying his background on his immigration documents and naturalization papers.

The findings of the immigration judge were affirmed on appeal after the court agreed that Kalymon had been a member of the Ukrainian auxiliary police and also acted as a Lemberg ghetto guard assisting the Nazis in the liquidation of the Jewish population of Lemberg (Lwów, today Lviv, Ukraine), a city which once had the third largest Jewish community in Poland. The appeals court also affirmed the lower court's finding of fact that during the course of his collaboration with the Germans, Kalymon had caused and/or assisted in the murders of numerous innocent Jewish civilians while acting as a guard at the Lemberg Ghetto. It was on this basis that his deportation was ordered.

Like Demjanjuk, once the appellate process is exhausted, Kalymon "may be deported to Germany, Ukraine, Poland or any other country that will accept him..." based on the ruling of U.S. Immigration Court Judge Elizabeth Hacker. But even before that, Kalymon might sooner be facing extradition on war crimes charges as the investigation by Operation Last Chance continues and additional witnesses are being interviewed and charges are filed.

"Operation Last Chance 2"

Formally Launched December, 2011 by Efraim Zuroff, director of the Wiesenthal Centre in Israel, the project will be offering rewards for clues to persons who worked in either the extermination camps or in the so-called "Aktion Squads." The Aktion Squads, or Einsatzgruppen, were responsible for the shooting deaths of some 1.5 million Polish, Russian, and Baltic (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) Jews as concentration camps like Treblinka, Auschwitz and the Operation Reinhardt Camps were being built and even at the same time they were utilized in the western areas of Nazi-occupied Poland and eastern General Government (GG) Galicia regions, respectively.

On-Going Investigations & Prosecutions/Other Last Chance Case Files

Interestingly, Kalymon's deportation order came only days after another accused Nazi war criminal, a Serbian collaborator, Peter Egner had died in Washington state before he could face a February 22 trial aimed at stripping him of his U.S. citizenship. He was accused by U.S. prosecutors of helping commit genocide by serving as a transport guard for mobile gas chambers and trains bound for the Auschwitz death camp. Previously Egner had admitted he belonged to a Nazi-run security unit but denied participation in war crimes.

Since its inception, the U.S. Justice Department's Nazi War Crimes Unit (Office of Special Investigations) has won cases against 107 people in the United States who were identified as participating in Nazi persecutions during World War Two. Excluding Kalymon, there are eight similar cases still pending all of which are within the purview, scope and mission of Operation Last Chance.

References

1. ^ Allan Hall (2011-12-14). "Nazi-hunters mount 'Operation Last Chance' to round up surviving war criminals before they all die". Dailymail.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-03-21.
2. "Former Ukrainian Nazi, 90, loses deportation appeal in Michigan - CNN". Articles.cnn.com. 2011-09-20. Retrieved 2012-03-21.
3. ^ Pelofsky, Jeremy. "U.S. judge orders Ukrainian deported for Nazi ties". Reuters. Retrieved 2012-03-21.
4. Jakob Weiss, The Lemberg Mosaic (New York, Alderbrook Press 2011) p. 374
5. It should be noted that on January 15, 2008, the reward offered by the Wiesenthal Center for information leading to the arrest and conviction of former Nazis and Nazi collaborators was increased from $10,000 to $25,000. See http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,528540,00.html |title=Nazi Hunters More Than Double Reward to $25,000 |work=Spiegel Online International |date=14 January 2008 |accessdate=26 May 2011 |author=David Crossland}}
6. Anderson, Rick (2010-03-22). "Peter Egner, Bellevue Man Accused of Nazi Death Camp Crimes, Asks Court to Limit 'Embarrassment, Oppression' - Seattle News - The Daily Weekly". Blogs.seattleweekly.com. Retrieved 2012-03-21.

External links

• Operation Last Chance Website

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