One of the world’s foremost Nazi hunters is returning to his native borough for a talk in Manhattan Beach on Nov. 18.
Efraim Zuroff, who grew up in the Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach area, is one of the top activists and historians prosecuting Holocaust war criminals with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international organization that researches anti-Semitism. He will be at the Manhattan Beach Jewish Center at West End Avenue to discuss the current resurgence of anti-Semitism and fascist ideology.
He will also talk about his eventful life, covering more than three decades of hunting down some of the most egregious perpetrators of Nazi crimes against humanity, and explain how he has successfully pressed governments to deal with their Holocaust legacies, according one of the organizers.
“Efraim Zuroff has been involved in some of the most famous cases involving war criminals, and he has put pressure on so many governments over the years to recognize and come to terms with their responsibility for war crimes and catching war criminals,” said the co-president of the Holocaust Memorial Committee Barry Lituchy.
Zuroff moved to Israel after his undergraduate at Yeshiva University in Manhattan and has helped bring several high-level Nazi war criminals to justice, including the Croatian concentration camp commander Dinko Sakic, under whose command thousands prisoners were murdered, and who dodged prosecution for decades by escaping to Argentina.
But Zuroff put pressure on the Argentine government until they finally turned over Sakic for prosecution in 2006.
He also launched “Operation Last Chance” in 2003, which offers as much as $10,000 to anyone who provides information that enables the prosecution of Nazi war criminals.
Zuroff has been to many Eastern European countries to combat historical distortion, Holocaust denial, and the recent resurgence of fascist ideology, proving instrumental in countering the rise of the far right, according to Lituchy.
“If people like Zuroff don’t do what they’re doing, by bringing to light the history of war crimes and the Holocaust, it just makes it easier for the anti-Semitism and racism to reemerge,” he said.
“Dr. Efraim Zuroff” at Manhattan Beach Jewish Center [60 West End Ave., between Hampton Avenue and Shore Boulevard, (718) 891–8700, www.manha
