Juno News - Attempts to deport former Nazi pit bureaucracy against justice

00:00:00.560 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:00:07.320 Something as serious as being involved with the Nazis, 0.94

00:00:11.360 being involved with a Nazi killing unit,

00:00:14.040 you'd think would warrant swift action from a government.

00:00:17.300 But in Canada, it has been anything but.

00:00:19.780 The Canadian legal system has been working for about 25 years now

00:00:23.560 to deport Helmut Oberlander, now 96,

00:00:26.720 who in his younger years, in the time of the Holocaust and World War II,

00:00:31.760 was a translator in a Nazi killing squad.

00:00:34.460 He made a life for himself in Canada as a developer in the Waterloo area.

00:00:38.760 He did not disclose his involvement with the Nazis when he came here,

00:00:42.620 which is really the crux of the government's thrust to try to get him out of Canada.

00:00:47.900 But this has become mired in multiple layers of bureaucracy.

00:00:51.680 And as I said, 25 years after the process was initiated, he's still here.

00:00:55.720 This week, yet another delay as the can was kicked a bit further down the road

00:01:00.620 for a hearing that was supposed to happen.

00:01:03.460 But really underscoring this beyond all the legal arguments

00:01:06.340 is a fundamental question about whether there is a statute of limitations

00:01:10.480 on the forms of crimes in which the Nazis were complicit

00:01:14.520 and those involved with them.

00:01:16.180 Joining me on the line is Shimon Koffler-Fogel,

00:01:18.440 who's the president and CEO of the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

00:01:22.520 Shimon, thank you so much for your time today.

00:01:24.220 Andrew, it's great to be with you again.

00:01:27.460 One of the biggest defenses we've seen of Helmut Oberlander from people is that,

00:01:32.560 well, you know, so much time has passed and he wasn't personally involved

00:01:36.120 and he's made a life for himself.

00:01:38.260 And as he gets older and older, he just starts to look like this frail man

00:01:42.320 and people don't want to throw the book at him, so to speak.

00:01:45.320 Why is it so important, in your view, to continue to prosecute

00:01:48.820 and advocate for justice on these matters?

00:01:51.560 Well, Andrew, as you pointed out, this didn't begin in 2021.

00:01:56.880 This began 26 years ago when he was less frail and less old.

00:02:01.700 And I think the real core is based in your introduction about the question of statute of limitations.

00:02:12.120 Is there a time after which accountability and responsibility for crimes of the proportion

00:02:20.020 that the Nazis committed expire?

00:02:23.760 And our view would be, for multiple reasons, no.

00:02:28.200 Number one, there's a need for justice.

00:02:31.400 There's a need for accountability.

00:02:33.380 And Oberlander, however he might want to portray his involvement with the Nazis,

00:02:38.580 was actively involved in units that actually went from location to location,

00:02:46.420 rounding up Jews, Roma, and other undesirables, and brutally massacred all of them.

00:02:53.460 So there has to be accountability for that.

00:02:55.860 But it goes beyond that, because Oberlander also represents a challenge

00:03:00.820 to our whole refugee and immigration policy.

00:03:04.480 We have a set of criteria and laws that govern how people come into Canada,

00:03:11.640 which, after all, is a refugee intake country.

00:03:14.840 If those are going to be breached, it undermines the credibility of the whole system.

00:03:20.020 And it's under enough strain that we should be able to say with some confidence

00:03:24.260 that the laws are applied evenly, consistently, and across the board.

00:03:29.680 But I would suggest, Andrew, that there's a more compelling reason

00:03:33.860 than either of the ones that I've presented so far.

00:03:37.100 We now live in a time when populism and nationalism

00:03:42.340 has regained a certain entrenchment within society,

00:03:48.120 well beyond Canada, but it certainly includes Canada.

00:03:50.860 And we have a compelling responsibility to remind citizens,

00:03:58.460 especially those who grew up and were born long after the Holocaust,

00:04:03.700 of what potential there is for evil

00:04:07.160 and for the kind of destruction that's associated with the Nazi regime.

00:04:12.180 And if we give a pass to people like Oberlander,

00:04:16.100 we're essentially diminishing and whitewashing the seriousness of what took place,

00:04:23.220 and we can't then apply the lesson of never again.

00:04:27.040 We are so desperate to build a better society, a more inclusive society.

00:04:31.860 But if we allow in that inclusion those who really were the poster children

00:04:38.920 for the exact opposite, then we're really undermining our own efforts.

00:04:43.360 When you say poster children, I feel there's an important dialogue here

00:04:47.420 because, again, one of the defenses that I would appreciate your analysis of

00:04:51.920 or your response to is when people use those terms, just a translator.

00:04:56.360 Well, he wasn't personally the one killing.

00:04:59.280 That distinction, in your view, is relatively irrelevant

00:05:02.840 given the scope of evil the Nazis committed, correct? 0.52

00:05:06.720 Absolutely, Andrew.

00:05:07.680 I think that everybody has the opportunity to do what's right

00:05:12.860 or to acquiesce to what's wrong.

00:05:16.160 A 17-year-old conscript is an adult,

00:05:21.260 is somebody who's able to distinguish between what's morally acceptable

00:05:25.680 and what is reprehensible.

00:05:28.060 If we had had people willing to stand up

00:05:31.340 and push back against the dictate of the Nazis,

00:05:34.300 then we would have had a very different outcome to World War II.

00:05:38.220 So I think that you can't skirt accountability and responsibility

00:05:42.140 for the personal decisions that you make.

00:05:45.300 And it's not as if he was a translator for a weekend

00:05:48.180 when they were in a particular venue.

00:05:51.480 He was with the group.

00:05:52.980 He was attached to it.

00:05:54.060 He continued to operate with them and for them

00:05:57.940 and, in essence, was an enabler of the kind of murder and atrocity

00:06:02.780 that those groups associated.

00:06:05.420 Yeah, and one of the things I should probably point out,

00:06:09.560 I had the great privilege of accompanying a delegation from your organization,

00:06:13.440 the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs to Israel,

00:06:16.260 back in 2015,

00:06:17.980 and visit Yad Vashem, which is the Holocaust Museum,

00:06:20.980 and speak with a number of the people

00:06:22.480 who have devoted their lives to studying

00:06:24.600 and preserving this horrific chapter in history.

00:06:28.040 And one of the things that came up,

00:06:30.420 and I've seen, especially in talking to younger Jewish people,

00:06:33.960 is how the more time that passes between the Holocaust and now,

00:06:38.940 the more abstract it becomes.

00:06:40.920 And the fewer living survivors of it,

00:06:43.900 people who have survived the Holocaust but have succumbed to old age,

00:06:47.460 the harder it is to have that living memory.

00:06:49.900 And in a lot of cases, Holocaust indifference is a big problem.

00:06:53.300 And you raised an important point there when you said about never again.

00:06:56.820 People need to remember that, yes,

00:06:58.280 this is not something that just has fizzled out to history.

00:07:02.780 I think you're so right, Andrew.

00:07:05.580 Look, when we try to undertake Holocaust education,

00:07:09.980 for example, in the public school system here in Canada,

00:07:12.820 we struggle to find ways to make it relatable to kids today

00:07:18.380 who have no terms of reference,

00:07:20.460 who don't really have any clue as to what the Holocaust was,

00:07:26.720 how it came about, and how it could have been prevented.

00:07:30.620 And as we struggle as a society,

00:07:32.940 and we've had a pretty intense year,

00:07:35.040 in addition to COVID,

00:07:36.480 there was so much attention,

00:07:39.260 and rightly so,

00:07:40.520 to issues of racism and discrimination.

00:07:42.920 Some of it really built into the very fabric of our society.

00:07:48.000 We have no possibility of addressing those in a constructive way

00:07:52.300 if we don't have an appreciation for what things could have been

00:07:56.480 and what things were.

00:07:58.120 So when we look at the Uyghur in China, 1.00

00:08:00.760 or we look at what's happening in Burma,

00:08:02.760 or we look even to places like Eastern Europe and the Ukraine,

00:08:07.060 we have to connect the dots between what was and what could be.

00:08:13.740 And if we are dismissive of the past,

00:08:16.360 if we simply whitewash people like Oberlander,

00:08:19.840 then really we're condemning ourselves to repeating those terrible events

00:08:24.700 and experiences of the past.

00:08:26.540 One thing that I would point out here,

00:08:30.460 to go back to the Oberlander case,

00:08:32.200 is that the government has tried,

00:08:35.140 and I don't know if there are other tools

00:08:37.140 that the government could have employed

00:08:38.460 that would have expedited this.

00:08:39.680 A lot of the issues have been in the courts

00:08:41.860 and in some of the legal mechanisms there,

00:08:43.980 and this has spanned liberal and conservative governments

00:08:46.560 because of how long it's gone on.

00:08:48.920 You know, if this country is not ultimately successful

00:08:52.780 in deporting Helmut Oberlander,

00:08:55.280 it really does show, I think,

00:08:58.280 a profound lack of commitment in some way.

00:09:02.200 I don't know the right word,

00:09:03.480 but a lack of ability to see this through

00:09:05.480 and understand the severity of it.

00:09:06.960 I mean, if this had happened, for example,

00:09:08.900 with someone whose role were less ambiguous

00:09:12.320 or perceived as less ambiguous,

00:09:14.880 I can't imagine that they would have allowed this to go on for 26 years.

00:09:19.160 So it does strike me as very odd

00:09:21.600 that this has not been successful,

00:09:23.120 and this may well be.

00:09:24.480 And in fact, it probably will be the last such case ever in Canada

00:09:28.080 and one of the last in the world.

00:09:30.200 It's important to get it right.

00:09:32.280 So I think that's absolutely spot on, Andrew.

00:09:35.900 I think one of the questions that has been triggered

00:09:39.120 or prompted by this experience over 26 years,

00:09:42.200 and you're quite right,

00:09:43.400 successive Canadian governments have endeavoured.

00:09:46.700 I think there were four definitive decisions taken

00:09:50.200 to strip him of his Canadian citizenship

00:09:52.880 and deport him to Germany where he would stand trial.

00:09:55.920 It prompts the question,

00:10:00.200 how is our independent judiciary managing things

00:10:04.740 in a way that simply makes sense?

00:10:07.380 If the judiciary can be abused

00:10:10.240 in the way that Oberlander's legal team has done it for 26 years,

00:10:15.300 it begs the question,

00:10:16.920 are we doing something wrong

00:10:18.380 in terms of how we're organising the legal process?

00:10:23.180 Ensuring justice for the target of a particular prosecution

00:10:28.460 has to be balanced by ensuring justice

00:10:31.240 for the victims of the alleged crime.

00:10:35.920 And I think that in this case,

00:10:37.740 it is clear that the 15,000 or 20,000 survivors

00:10:44.040 living here in Canada now,

00:10:46.400 observing what's happening with Oberlander,

00:10:48.400 are certainly bitterly asking themselves,

00:10:51.740 where is the justice for me and the family that I lost?

00:10:56.560 Yeah, and one point I would raise here

00:10:59.200 is that it seems like for the Oberlander legal team,

00:11:02.560 the delay is the win.

00:11:04.280 I mean, the guy's 96, let's be real.

00:11:06.340 The delay is the win.

00:11:07.720 They don't need a court to declare them the victors.

00:11:10.140 They just need to drag it out until such a point

00:11:12.500 that he's reached his natural end.

00:11:14.840 I think that's exactly right.

00:11:20.320 They're not looking for vindication.

00:11:23.440 They're looking just to allow him to remain in place

00:11:26.900 and be comfortable for the rest of his days

00:11:29.700 and thereby to dodge having to be accountable

00:11:34.700 for what he's done.

00:11:36.280 We have to remember the Canadian peace

00:11:39.180 is only a portion of this process.

00:11:41.660 It's not as if he would be deported

00:11:44.060 simply because he misled immigration officials

00:11:48.220 when he applied for Canadian citizenship.

00:11:51.180 There's a court waiting to try him for war crimes.

00:11:55.260 And for him not to be deported from Canada

00:11:59.300 would mean that he never has to account

00:12:01.880 for his decisions, for his actions,

00:12:05.200 and his participation in the Nazi killing mission.

00:12:10.020 That's actually a tremendously valuable point.

00:12:13.320 In a lot of cases, we view this as a deportation case,

00:12:15.860 which is how it is legally,

00:12:17.040 but it has a lot of the hallmarks

00:12:18.940 of an extradition case as well,

00:12:20.580 which I think that change in words

00:12:22.380 has a very significant change in the perception of it.

00:12:25.940 Shimon Koffler-Fogel,

00:12:27.000 President and CEO of the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs,

00:12:29.980 thank you for your commitment

00:12:31.140 to justice and accountability on this, Shimon.

00:12:33.940 Andrew, it's always great to be with you.

00:12:35.580 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:12:37.680 Support the program by donating to True North

00:12:40.000 at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - February 10, 2021

Attempts to deport former Nazi pit bureaucracy against justice

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