Another look at prosecution failures

 

The Winnipeg Free Press recently published an opinion piece by Royal Military College of Canada professor Lubomyr Luciuk about the proposed release of a list prepared by the 1985 Canadian Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals naming individuals living in Canada suspected of being Nazi war criminals who fled Europe and settled hidden in our country after the Second World War.

At first glance, the author seems to lament the lack of historical success in Canada’s prosecutions of Nazi war criminals and fairly raises concerns about the possibility of falsely identifying people who, though suspected of crimes against humanity, were not successfully prosecuted in a court of law.

While the author is certainly correct about our country’s abhorrent record of prosecuting Nazis who evaded justice, the actual intent of his opinion piece quickly becomes apparent when he dismisses the commission’s director of historical research, who indicated that Canada’s investigations of Nazi war criminals have been historically impeded by poor research.

In contrast — based on his misrepresentation of the evidence and the actual conclusions of the commission — Mr. Luciuk misleadingly concludes that the majority of accusations regarding Nazi war criminals in Canada have been false.

His unfounded assertion is in direct contrast to the findings of a multitude of historians who contend that Canada’s prosecution failures are actually due to a number of regrettable factors including a lack of political will, the disappearance of evidence due to the genocidal murders of key witnesses during the Holocaust, the deliberate destruction of evidence, a failure to consider proof gathered by other jurisdictions in Europe, a refusal to consider enthusiastic wartime Nazi collaborators as war criminals and the ravages of time (including the inevitable demise of surviving witnesses), all of which are sadly convenient for individuals such as the author, who aim to minimize the realities of the Holocaust and its near-annihilation of European Jews.  (more...)

Another look at prosecution failures