Old Nazis With No Place to Hide

the "Gate of Death", Reuters

A deported former Nazi death camp guard, Hans Lipschis, was arrested by German authorities on Monday for allegedly being involved in mass murder at Auschwitz [photo]. Lipschis is 93, born in Lithuania, and has a daughter living in the US. Lipschis emmigrated in 1956 and settled in Chicago. He was deported from the US in 1982 for lying about his Nazi past. He acknowledged being assigned to an SS "Tottenkopf" unit, but claimed he only worked as a cook. Lipschis is believed to have served at Auschwitz from the autumn of 1941 until the camp was liberated in 1945. The arrest comes after Germany's central office for Investigation of National Socialist Crimes launched a push to bring the remaining Nazi death camp guards to justice. The unit has a list of 50 former Auschwitz guards still living in Germany provided by the museum at the memorial site.

The successful prosecution of John Demjanjuk in May 2011 set a precedent making it easier to prosecute lower-level Nazis who participated in the Holocaust. Prosecutors need not prove culpability in a specific murder or murders to obtain a conviction. A crucial piece of evidence in Demjanjuk's case was his SS identity card from Sobibor. Critics and Neonazis charge Demjanjuk's conviction amounted to guilt by association. Demjanjuk died awaiting appeal. The move to prosecute still living Nazi guards is in stark contrast to Germany's policy in the 60s and 70s when West German courts acquitted senior SS leaders on the grounds that the Holocaust was primarily the responsibility of national Nazi war criminals. German courts have convicted around 6,650 Nazi war criminals in 36,000 trials since 1947, but most of these occurred before 1950, and most of the sentences handed out were lenient to an embarrassing degree.