Nazis: l'Allemagne relance des enquêtes!

Près de soixante-dix ans après les évènements!

"Special Nazi war-crimes investigators reopened the files after the conviction of former U.S. autoworker John Demjanjuk, whose case set a new legal precedent in Germany, said Kurt Schrimm, the prosecutor who heads the unit.

Given the advanced age of all of the suspects, investigators are not waiting until the Demjanjuk appeals process is over, he said.

"We don't want to wait too long, so we've already begun our investigations," Schrimm said.

Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, welcomed the news that the files were being re-examined and urged prosecutors to act quickly.

"As our numbers - those of the victims - have also rapidly dwindled, this represents the final opportunity to witness justice carried out in our lifetimes," he said. "Time is the enemy here."

Meanwhile, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's top Nazi-hunter, Efraim Zuroff, told the AP he would launch a new campaign in the next two months to track down the remaining Nazi war criminals. He said the Demjanjuk conviction has opened the door to prosecutions that he had never thought possible in the past.

"It could be a very interesting final chapter," he said by telephone from Jerusalem. "This has tremendous implications even at this late date."

Demjanjuk, now 91, was deported from the U.S. to Germany in 2009 to stand trial. He was convicted in May of 28,060 counts of accessory to murder for serving as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

It was the first time prosecutors were able to convict someone in a Nazi-era case without direct evidence that the suspect participated in a specific killing."

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