Man with a Mission: The Tireless Nazi Hunter Efraim Zuroff

By Paul Alster 

Halfway through my interview with Efraim Zuroff, famed Nazi hunter and head of the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), we took a 10-minute break. He left to participate in afternoon prayers at a synagogue across the road. When he returned, we resumed our conversation and I asked what he plans to do when he retires.

“Oh, I’m going to move to Tahiti, sit under a coconut tree, and drink Piña Coladas,” he smiled, easing back in his chair.

“But you wouldn’t find a minyan there for prayers, would you?” I ventured to suggest.

“OK,” he says with a hearty laugh. “Now that’s a problem. Listen, I’m 67, and I consider myself very lucky as I’m one of those people who enjoy what they are doing and feel they are doing something important.”

He has no intention of being sent out to pasture just yet.

Few would argue with the statement that the task of attempting to bring Nazis to justice has been tremendously important, but enjoyable? Is it a vocation one can enjoy? Surely, you have to be somewhat obsessive to dig and dig, ferreting out mass murderers.

“I may be a lot of things,” he tells The Jerusalem Report, “but obsessive is not one of them. I realized from the get-go that this is the kind of subject that can destroy a person. If you let this subject take over your life, you are in big trouble. I’ve managed to avoid that ‒ until last summer.”

In summer 2015, Zuroff co-authored a groundbreaking book “Our Own,” together with popular Lithuanian writer Rūta Vanagaitė. The book, dealing with Lithuanian complicity in the mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust, was published on January 26. It caused a sensation in Lithuania and the original 2,500 copies sold out within 48 hours of its release. A much bigger reprint has been ordered and the signs are it could prove an unexpected best seller in a country that at last may be ready to look at itself in the mirror.

Zuroff has worn his heart on his sleeve for almost 40 years, ruffling feathers in the highest places, determinedly taking on governments and figures of authority, many of whom wanted nothing more than to sweep the crimes of their society under the carpet and get on with creating a new order.

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Source: The Jerusalem Post