InternationalOpinion

Former Nazis, even in old age, should be prosecuted

Now in their late 70’s, Serge and Beate Klarsfeld are Nazi hunters.

The German couple aims to bring prominent WWII war criminals to justice, even 70 years after the fighting has ended. Time has extinguished the possibility of prosecution for many, and “serving justice” to those remaining now likely means only a few years in prison. While it might seem irrelevant to prosecute Nazis after so many years, the Klarsfelds’ efforts show that justice is more than just a fair prison sentence — it’s dignifying human life.

For the Klarsfelds, tracking down Nazis in hiding has meant cooperating with secret intelligence agencies, their own imprisonment, and in 1979 even resulted in a car bombing attack outside their home. Yet the couple’s efforts have led to the prosecution of numerous high-ranking Nazi officials like Klaus Barbie (The Butcher of Lyon), who is thought to be personally responsible for 14,000 deaths.

The passage of time does not and should not acquit any person of responsibility — a person committed a crime yesterday or fifty years ago is irrelevant. For some Nazis, “justice” seems to have been delivered. At the Nuremberg trials (1945-46) 23 prominent members of the Nazi party were sentenced to death or heavy prison time, which were (arguably) appropriate punishments. But for someone like John Demjanjuk, a supposed Nazi guard tried in 2012 as an accessory to the murder of nearly 30,000 Jews, the few years he would have been imprisoned had he survived the trial seem like poor reparation for the crimes of which he was accused. Demjanjuk was appealing the case at the time of his death, leaving him innocent under German law. If “justice” is simply the infliction of a fitting punishment then prosecuting Nazis 70 years after the war doesn’t bring justice. Too much life has already been lived with too little consequence, and a few years in prison is poor recompense for murder.

But punishment and justice aren’t the same. We inflict punishment to keep society in order, because without consequences there would be anarchy. Justice, however, is sought not so that someone might learn their lesson, or even so they might suffer in equal portion to the suffering they’ve caused. Justice preserves the dignity of human life. Should a 90-year-old ex-S.S. soldier stand trial for his crimes? Absolutely. Not because two years in prison will serve him right, but because life is valuable and for the sake of those who’ve been harmed, we cannot do nothing. Prison, the suffering of a criminal, or a death sentence are not in themselves justice, but they are our society’s way of acknowledging the loss of human life. And by affirming wrong and refusing to simply let life carry on because something happened a long time ago, we show that we value the lives of those people who were unjustly murdered. The dead cannot be reconciled, but by continuing to seek out war criminals, society recognizes that those taken lives and tortured bodies were important.

Many war criminals will never be brought to justice, but prosecuting Nazis even 70 years later ensures that the memories of victims are not left to dissolve with each passing decade but are dignified as lives worth fighting for.

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