November 27: Operation Last Chance

The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s “Operation: Last Chance” was formally launched in Buenos Aires, Argentina on this date in 2007 with the hope of bringing to justice some of the thousands of Nazis who may still be alive in South America. The program offers sums up to $25,000 for information. First launched in Europe in 2002, Operation Last Chance has outed nearly 500 suspected Nazi war criminals but has resulted in only three arrest warrants, two extradition requests and dozens of ongoing investigations. “The problem is not finding these people, but getting them into a courtroom,” says Efraim Zuroff, who heads the Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem. “[T]here is less willingness [than in the past] to give shelter to exposed Nazi war criminals . . . [but] most [governments] have not been willing to undertake comprehensive investigations to find Nazis.” Zuroff helped expedite the exposure, arrest, extradition and prosecution of Dinko Sakic, the former commandant of the Ustasha concentration camp Jasenovac, who lived for more than half a century in Argentina before being sentenced in Zagreb to 20 years for his crimes.

“What connects two thousand years of genocide? Too much power in too few hands.” —Simon Wiesenthal