Israelis Protect Concentration Camp Boss

Source: The Independent (UK), December 29, 1998 http://news.independent.co.uk

By Adam LeBor

An extradition request by Polish authorities for an alleged former commander of a Stalinist-era detention camp now living in Tel Aviv has been rejected by Israel. Solomon Morel (Photo Above) is wanted by the prosecutor's office in the southern Polish city of Katowice. He is charged with crimes against humanity while he was commander of the Swietochlowice camp where more than 3,000 prisoners, mainly Germans, but also including several citizens of allied and neutral nations, were held during 1945. More about Solomon Morel

A reply sent to the Polish Justice Ministry from Israeli authorities said that Israel would not extradite Mr Morel. Officials said the crimes with which he is charged are not perceived in Israel as genocide, and so are subject to the statute of limitations, the Polish news agency PAP reported.

The demand by Polish authorities for Mr Morel's extradition is the second attempt this month to bring back former Communist officials. The Polish military prosecutor in Warsaw recently issued an arrest warrant for Helena Brus, formerly Wolinska, now married to an Oxford don.

During the 1950s Ms Wolinska worked as a military prosecutor in Warsaw, issuing arrest warrants. Many of those detained under her orders were later hanged. Both Mr Morel and Mrs Brus are Jewish.

Swietochlowice was set up by the Soviet NKVD - forerunner of the KGB - after the Red Army's liberation of southern Poland. The camp was later handed over to the Polish secret service, the notorious UB.

Stalin's policy was to put Jews in charge of camps. Their experiences during the Nazi Holocaust would mean that Germans and Poles held there could expect little mercy. More than half of the 3,000 prisoners at Swietochlowice were murdered or died there, according to PAP.

Dorota Boriczek, a camp survivor, remembers Salomon Morel as a barbaric and cruel man who, with his colleagues, was responsible for many killings of inmates. "I knew Morel in the camp. He was a very brutal man. He was young then. He would come in at night. We could hear the cries of the men then. They would beat them and throw the bodies out of the window," Mrs Boriczek, now 68 andliving in Ludswigberg, Germany, told The Independent.

"I was taken there when I was 14, with my mother. I still don't know why we were there and I still want to know. They told us when we arrived, 'You are here, and you are here to die, although nobody will shoot you, because ammunition is too expensive'."

Conditions in the camp were horrific, said Mrs Boriczek, who has begun a legal process in Katowice to try to find out why she was sent to the camp.

"There was nothing to eat, a hunger that you cannot imagine. We were lucky to have a piece of bread once a day, nothing else, and water. Both my mother and I had typhus. We were separated and I didn't know she was alive. I had a high fever and when I opened my eyes, I was sleeping next to a lady from Switzerland. I slept with her under one blanket. I was happy that she was dead, because that meant I could have her blanket."

Mr Morel, born in 1919, lost much of his family in the Holocaust before joining the partisans, in his case a Jewish military unit, according to John Sack, the American author of An Eye for An Eye: The Untold Story of Jewish Revenge Against Germans in 1945.

In 1995, 50 years after her imprisonment at Swietochlowice, Mrs Boriczek saw Mr Morel in the Katowice prosecutor's office. She said she felt more pity than hatred.

"I hated him all my life and then when I saw him I saw an old, fat man. I could see he was ill. I would even have given him my hand. I asked him why he did these crimes. He told me I was lying and everybody loved him."

Mr. Morel refused to speak to The Independent. A man in Tel Aviv who identified himself as Mr Morel's son said his father did not talk to journalists.

Source: The Associated Press,
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19981207/V000657-120798-idx.html

Israel Won't Extradite Polish Jew

Monday, December 7, 1998; 5:26 p.m. EST

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Israel has refused to extradite to Poland a Jewish man accused of atrocities against German prisoners after World War II, the Justice Ministry said Monday.

Solomon Morel, who commanded a camp for German prisoners in southern Poland, allegedly tortured inmates and was considered responsible for at least 1,538 deaths, according to the ministry.

Poland requested Morel's extradition in April on charges of beating and torturing prisoners and creating inhuman conditions at the Swietochlowice camp, which he commanded from February to November 1945.

Israel refused the request last month, saying the statute of limitations had run out on the case.

A spokeswoman for the Polish Justice Ministry, Barbara Makosa-Stepkowska, said the charges against Morel failed to meet the definition of genocide under Israeli law.

She said Israel's decision ends the case in Poland, which lacks the power to appeal. Morel could only be arrested if he left Israel, Makosa-Stepkowska said.

The investigation into Morel, begun in 1992, was the only one in Poland against a Jew accused of retaliating against the Germans after their defeat.

Polish investigators said ``extremely bad conditions'' at the camp, including hunger, overcrowding and epidemic diseases, led to an unspecified number of deaths.

Morel, who lost his parents and two brothers during the war, moved to Israel in 1994.

(c) Copyright 1998 The Associated Press

Source: Copyright © 1998-2000 Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association
For More Information Please Contact: Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association
tel: (519) 323-9349, e-mail: uccla@infoukes.com
website: www.infoukes.com/uccla/

Israel Refuses to Extradite Alleged War Criminal

Says statute of limitation has run out

by The Ukrainian News

Israel, on Dec. 7, refused to extradite an accused war criminal to face trial in Poland, stating that the statute of limitations had run out on the case and Canada's Ukrainian community has reacted with fury.

A Dec. 7 Associated Press story carried by several Canadian newspapers, among them The Toronto Star and The Calgary Herald reported that Israel's Justice Ministry had refused to extradite Solomon Morel, who commanded a camp for German prisoners in southern Poland, allegedly tortured inmates and was considered responsible for at least 1,538 deaths.

Poland requested Morel's extradition in April on charges of beating and torturing prisoners and creating inhuman conditions at the Swietochlowice camp, which he commanded from February to November 1945, stated AP.

Israel refused the request last month, saying the statute of limitations had run out on the case.

A spokeswoman for the Polish Justice Ministry, Barbara Makosa-Stepkowska, said the charges against Morel failed to meet the definition of genocide under Israeli law, according to the AP story.

She said Israel's decision ends the case in Poland, which lacks the power to appeal. Morel could only be arrested if he left Israel, Makosa-Stepkowska said.

The investigation into Morel, begun in 1992, was the only one in Poland against a Jew accused of retaliating against the Germans after their defeat.

Polish investigators said "extremely bad conditions" at the camp, including hunger, overcrowding and epidemic diseases, led to an unspecified number of deaths.

Morel, who lost his parents and two brothers during the war, moved to Israel in 1994, according to AP.

"The Canadian government can denaturalize and deport people without even proving that these individuals committed any crime. But Israel has a statute of limitations for war crimes. Shame on Canada and shame on Israel," wrote Mary Radewych of Etobicoke, whose father Vasyl Odynsky faces deportation even though the government has not brought any charges of war crimes against him, in a letter to The Toronto Star.

"How shocking that Israel would not allow for the extradition of a communist mass murderer but insists on the rest of the world bringing alleged Nazi war criminals to justice," echoed Dr. Jerry Grod, whose wife Olya is another daughter of Odynsky's, in another letter to The Star.

"What a surprise to read about the double standard in Israel with respect to the extradition of alleged war criminals," wrote Stefan Lemieszewski of Coquitlam, BC in yet another letter.

"Israel demands the extradition of Mr. John Demjanjuk from U.S.A. and proceeds with a show trial in a theatre court in Israel. But when it comes to alleged war criminals living in Israel, like Solomon Morel, Israeli statute of limitations result in harbouring alleged war criminals. And the Canadian government is pressured into spending millions on commissions and deportation and denaturalization policies because of alleged Nazi war criminals living in Canada. It just doesn't make sense!" he said.

"To fend off accusations of hypocrisy and double standards, the Jewish state can simply do what Canada did in 1987, under heavy pressure from various Jewish lobbies, moreover: Draft a special retroactive, extraterritorial law whereby Solomon Morel could be extradited to Poland to face his accusers," offered Orest Slepokura of, Strathmore, AB.

"That Israel would refuse to extradite Mr Morel to Poland, there to finally stand trial for his murderous deeds, allowing him to instead hide behind the expiration of a statute of limitations, is indefensible. How can organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center, or B'Nai Brith, or the World Jewish Congress, who have together orchestrated such a concerted demand for bringing alleged Nazi war criminals to justice, now allow such offensive hypocrisy in Tel Aviv go unchallenged?" wrote Calgarian Borys Sydoruk in a letter to The Herald.

Source: Ha'aretz, 02/10/2000,
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=14&datee=02/10/00&id=68236

Israel Refuses to Extradite Genocide Suspect

By Yossi Melman

Israel has rejected a demand by the Lithuanian government that it extradite Nahman Dushanski, who is accused of "genocide" by Lithuanian authorities. Irit Kahan, director of the department for international cases at the Justice Ministry, sent Israel's response to the Lithuanian government through diplomatic channels.

The Lithuanian authorities allege in their extradition request that Dushanski, a former officer in the Soviet security agency NKVD, the precursor of the KGB, took part in the murder of Lithuanian prisoners during the Soviet occupation in 1941. In her response, Kahan stresses that not only does Dushanski deny the allegations against him but historians and other witnesses support his claim that he was not involved in the massacre.

The Israeli response also notes that 20 senior officers of the former Soviet security agency involved in similar incidents currently reside in Lithuania and the authorities there have made no efforts to bring them to justice. According to the response, the Lithuanian position is surprising and raises suspicions of prejudice.

Dushanski emigrated to Israel in the 1970s and worked for the Ministry of Defense, from which he retired.

Israel's refusal is based on the Law of Legal Assistance, which allows the Justice Minister to refuse extraditions. According to Israel's legal system, the law supersedes all international agreements to which Israel may be a signatory. This is the first time that the Justice Ministry is making use of the law.

The Lithuanian extradition request angered many Holocaust historians and Jewish organizations who saw the demand as a "despicable action," especially since the authorities there are methodically and for years delaying legal proceedings against Lithuanians accused of involvement in expulsions, abuse, torture and murder of Jews during the Holocaust.

Lithuania has also made an extradition request for Simion Borkov, who was allegedly involved in killing Lithuanians during the 1944-1947 period.