Nazi war crimes are the coldest murder cases, and time is working against Susan L. Siegal, who works to bring the killers to justice.
Siegal pursues the aging murder suspects for surviving Holocaust victims. She says bringing war criminals to justice sends the message that genocide will never go unpunished.
“It’s for the victims,” Siegal said Tuesday in Denver. “We owe them our persistent rage. Those perpetrators must listen for the knock on the door until their dying day, until they draw their last breath.”
Siegal, deputy director for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Special Investigations, spoke at the Colorado Convention Center. The lecture was part of the governor’s 24th annual Holocaust Remembrance Program.
Since 1979, Siegal’s office has filed 110 cases against Nazi war criminals. Though they cannot be prosecuted in the United States for roles in the deaths of 6 million Jews in Europe, Siegal has their U.S. citizenship revoked and urges their home countries to prosecute them.
As recently as Monday, a former Nazi SS officer was excluded from entering the U.S. – at JFK Airport in New York City, Siegal said.
Eight years ago, Siegal had the U.S. citizenship of accused war criminal Aleksandras Lileikis taken away. He fled from Massachusetts to Lithuania after documents were obtained showing he helped exterminate Jews, most notably a 6-year-old girl and her mother.
The U.S. government persuaded Lithuania to charge him with genocide, Siegal said. Lileikis’ prosecution was never completed because of his failing health.
After Siegal’s lecture, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said people must respect each other’s faiths and celebrate diversity, otherwise another holocaust could occur.
Gov. Bill Owens recalled a trip to Munich two years ago when he visited the Dachau concentration camp.
“It makes no sense to the normal mind, but gives a glimpse of what the warped minds of men do,” Owens said.
Staff writer Felisa Cardona can be reached at 303-820-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com.
