"People don't want to know that their grandfathers were bloody murderers"
Western countries, including Argentina, New Zealand, and the United States, deliberately sheltered the Nazis after World War II, allowing many of them to escape trial, Israeli historian Efraim Zuroff, known for his active work on the search for Nazi criminals, said in an interview with Izvestia. Now, it is advantageous for some states, primarily the Baltic states, to live with a rewritten and convenient history, supposedly local residents did not take part in the atrocities of the Nazis. In Latvia, only after serious international pressure, the investigation into Herbert Tsukurs, the "butcher from Riga", who is posthumously accused of genocide of Jews, was recently resumed. About the distortion of the Holocaust and the motives for glorifying collaborators in Eastern Europe — in an interview with Efraim Zuroff to Izvestia.
"Without the help of the local population, the Nazis would not have been able to destroy 6 million people"
— What do you know about Herbert Zukurs' role in the Latvian Holocaust?
— He was a very high-ranking officer in the Latvian punitive detachment, which was headed by Viktor Arais. They killed tens of thousands of Jews in Latvia and Belarus during the Holocaust.
The Salaspils concentration camp, established on the territory of Latvia occupied by Nazi Germany
— If he is a mass murderer and involved in the deaths of so many people, then why wasn't he tried at the time?
— Tsukurs was executed by the Mossad (Israeli foreign intelligence service. The problem was that in West Germany there was a statute of limitations for murder — 20 years. After that, it was impossible to be held accountable for the murder. And even if there was evidence of this, it was still impossible to achieve justice.
Herbert Zukurs is a Latvian collaborator who served as an SS Hauptsturmfuhrer during World War II. In 1945, he fled to Brazil. In 1965, he was killed in Uruguay by Israeli intelligence agents.
In 2006, a criminal case was opened in Latvia into the involvement of Tsukurs in the murder of thousands of Jews, but it was closed "due to the lack of evidence of a crime." This angered the Israeli community, so the case was reopened.
It was closed in 2025, but a couple of months later, in May, the country's Prosecutor General's office announced the resumption of the investigation.
— Latvia started investigating the Tsukurs case again many years later. Can the latest decision of the prosecutor's office restore justice and change the opinion of Latvians about his identity?
- no. Those who consider Tsukurs a hero will not change their minds. In the Baltic States, many who collaborated with the Nazis are considered heroes because they fought against the Soviet Union after the war. The fascists in Latvia want to clean up his reputation. To say that Tsukurs is not a criminal and did not deserve to be punished.
The Baltic states have the highest murder rates of Jews because they wanted to blame them for collaborating with the KGB. Like, "the Jews were communists." But "Judeo-Bolshevism" is the greatest nonsense.
— Speaking generally, how widespread is the support for Nazis and neo-Nazis in Latvian society?
— It is about 20-22%. It is clear that there are people in Latvia who believe that the Latvian Legion are heroes, even though they fought for the victory of the Third Reich. Many were mobilized, but there were also volunteers. Many of them had previously served in the Latvian police and participated in the murders of Jews in the Bikernieki forest and the Rumbuli Forest (they were located on the outskirts of Riga during the Second World War. — Ed.). 25,000 people [from the Riga ghetto] were killed in Rumbula, and several thousand in Bikerniek.
— You say that the countries of Eastern Europe are trying to wash away their past...
Concentration camp prisoners
— This is called a distortion of the Holocaust, as it is more difficult to identify than denial. Denial is madness, almost the whole world understands that it is a lie. Without the help of the local population, the Nazis would not have been able to destroy 6 million people.
In these countries, they hoped that the Nazis would give them independence. The Baltic states, for example, were independent from 1918 to 1940. Then came the "Soviets," then the Nazis. They hated Jews, envied them, wanted their property, and wanted to blame them for the deportations organized by the Soviet government, even though the KGB actually employed more Balts than Jews.
Now they want to have a "comfortable" story and sleep soundly at night. 40 years ago, no one was talking about the Holocaust, but now everyone is talking.
"People want a comfortable story"
— Why did so many Nazis escape trial all over the world?
— Every country has its own history. In New Zealand, for example, they refused to pass laws allowing the Nazis to be tried, unlike Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. New Zealand pretended that they did not have such a problem, although this, of course, is not true.
— What was the role of Western countries in harboring the Nazis?
— The United States accepted 10,000 people who collaborated with the Nazis. These people were divided into three categories. First: 150 people are engineers, technicians and scientists who worked on the V-2 rockets. They had the most advanced missile program in the world, and the Americans were afraid that the USSR would get them and America would be threatened by Soviet ballistic missiles.
The Americans wanted to use several dozen people as agents to send them back to Eastern European countries to spy for the United States. Many of them were caught by the KGB and got what they deserved.
All the others are the third category. The Americans allegedly did not know what they were doing during the war. They lied on the immigration forms. To the question: "Did you fight against the Allies? Was anyone persecuted on religious or ethnic grounds?" they replied: "No way." Although they actually fought and persecuted.
— Did someone actively try to prevent the Nazis from being brought to justice?
— A bill was introduced in the UK on the possibility of trying Nazis who entered the country. It passed the House of Commons, but was rejected by the House of Lords because many lords were the ones who let these people in.
Later, the law was reintroduced to the House of Commons, and it passed again with even more votes. But the lords rejected it again. The third time, it's the same story. But according to British law, the House of Lords cannot reject the bill for the third time — and it was passed. I sent them the first list of Nazis myself.
International trial of former leaders of Nazi Germany
— There was both indifference and a desire to have a "comfortable past." And were there those who deliberately wanted to help the Nazis escape justice?
— Not in the Anglo—Saxon countries. But in South American countries, yes. They were welcomed in Argentina. Firstly, there were many Germans who sympathized with the Nazis. Secondly, at that time, Argentine President Juan Domingo Peron was sympathetic to the Germans. He thought that bringing in Nazis, officers, and scientists would raise the intellectual and scientific level of the country.
But there was also a whole escape network organized by the Austrian Bishop Alois Hudal. He headed a seminary in Rome and offered to flee to Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, Chile, or to the Middle East — to Egypt or Syria.
Former Argentine President Juan Domingo Peron
— How massive was the elimination of the Nazis by special services, as it happened with Herbert Zukurs?
— It's not common at all. Latvia, then part of the USSR, requested Brazil to extradite Tsukurs in order to try him. Brazil replied that it would only extradite to the country where the crimes were committed. But the fact is that such a country no longer existed. Therefore, the case reached an impasse and the Mossad decided to act to send a signal to West Germany: if you stop the persecution, we will begin executions.
— How did the countries that accepted the Nazi collaborators change their attitude towards Jews and the memory of the Holocaust?
"Nothing." Most of them were anti-Semitic. They had no sympathy for the Jewish victims. Only to the poor "refugees" who "had to hide" because they "lost the war."
Liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz
— Why did the Holocaust begin in Germany?
— There are many reasons. The main reason is its defeat in the First World War. They then gave up on themselves and started looking for scapegoats. And Jews are always at the top of the list. What starts with Jews never ends with Jews. The next were the "handicapped" — the mentally retarded, the paralyzed, the disabled, even the Aryans. They were killed too.
— What difficulties did you face trying to bring the Nazis to justice?
— There will never be justice where there is no political will. This is the biggest problem. Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Romania did not seek to judge these people. Those whom I wanted to bring to justice were heroes for many in these countries. As my mentor, Professor Yehuda Bauer, used to say, "People want a comfortable story. They don't want to know that their grandfathers were bloody murderers."
"The only way to justice is the historical truth"
— Earlier, Izvestia asked Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar if Israel wanted to condemn Ukraine for glorifying Bandera and Shukhevych. He said: "I do not know, I need to check." Two months have passed since then, and silence from the Israeli Foreign Ministry. What is the problem?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite during a meeting in Vilnius, 2018
— In 2018, Benjamin Netanyahu visited Lithuania, his family is from there. And he praised Lithuanians for the way they perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust. To me, it's like praising the Ku Klux Klan for improving race relations in the United States.
He had a strategy: to distance himself from Western Europe, which is "obsessed" with the Palestinians, and to get closer to Eastern Europe, which does not care about them. He thought that if we let the Lithuanians continue to lie that they had nothing to do with the Holocaust, they would love us, vote for us, and buy weapons from us.
— What would you like to say to future generations in Latvia and other countries where the Holocaust took place?
— They should understand that many of their compatriots actively participated in the mass murder of the Jewish population. And their governments are trying to say, "We have nothing to do with this, it's all the Germans. They came and killed our Jews. What a tragedy..."
Salaspils Memorial Complex in memory of the victims of fascism, built on the site of the Salaspils concentration camp
— What should I do to ensure that this never happens again?
— The only way to justice is the historical truth. Israel should tell the countries of Eastern Europe: stop lying, accept your responsibility.
People should demand from their governments that they teach the honest history of the Holocaust in the school curriculum, help build museums, and support educational organizations. And leaders need to tell the truth about the Holocaust, especially about the role of their compatriots.
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