U.S. congressman urges war crimes prosecutions

Jan 13, 2000
By Brooke Donald

"In the Baltic states it is so important to prosecute crimes against
humanity,"the California Democrat said at a press conference at the
American Embassy here. "It is not about whether an old man is now
going to be convicted. The issue is the national honor of the
countries."

Lantos, himself a Holocaust survivor, began his four-day Baltic tour
in Lithuania where he met with prosecutors and government officials.
Later, in Latvia, he said that he was disappointed with the lack of
commitment and determination by the two countries' governments to
convict Nazi war criminals.

So far, Nazi war criminals have escaped trial in both Latvia and
Lithuania. In the southern-most Baltic state, however, two cases did
make it to court but were stopped, because the defendants were too
ill to stand trial.

Lantos called on the Latvian government to request the extradition of
war crimes suspect Konrad Kalejs, who recently left Britain for
Australia, where the Latvian native holds citizenship. During the
1941-1944 Nazi occupation, about 75,000 Jews in Latvia and 250,000 in
Lithuania were killed. In Estonia, most of the Jewish population,
which at around 6,000 was significantly smaller than in the other
Baltics, was evacuated to the Soviet Union. Nearly 1,000 Estonian
Jews perished here during the Holocaust.

Lantos, a 10-time member of the U.S. House of Representatives, was
born in Budapest, Hungary in 1928. He survived the Holocaust through
the help of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. He came to the United
States on an academic scholarship to study at the University of
Washington in Seattle in 1947.

His visit to Estonia with his wife, Annette, on Jan. 6 and Jan. 7,
included meetings with President Lennart Meri, who he describes as an
"old and very dear friend,"Foreign Minister Toomas Ilves, U.S.
Ambassador Melissa Wells and members of the parliamentary group for
cooperation with the United States.

Lantos, Meri and Ilves discussed Estonia's accession to NATO, and the
U.S. congressman said he "hoped that not too far in the
future"Estonia would be a member of the security alliance.

The Foreign Ministry also hosted a screening of the Academy Award
winning documentary, "The Last Days,"which traces the experiences of
five Hungarian Jews, including Lantos, who survived the Holocaust,
which reached Hungary in the last year of World War II.

"I am proud of the progress Estonia has made, not just in the
economy, but in civic society - the difficult task of creating a free
and independent, multi-ethnic and cultural society,"Lantos said.

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