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[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1439 Introduced in House (IH)]

111th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1439

   To hold the surviving Nazi war criminals accountable for the war 
  crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity they committed during 
 World War II, by encouraging foreign governments to more efficiently 
               prosecute and extradite wanted criminals.

_______________________________________________________________________

                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 11, 2009

  Mr. Israel introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Foreign 
Affairs, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in 
   each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the 
                jurisdiction of the committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL

 
   To hold the surviving Nazi war criminals accountable for the war 
  crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity they committed during 
 World War II, by encouraging foreign governments to more efficiently 
               prosecute and extradite wanted criminals.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``World War II War Crimes 
Accountability Act of 2009''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Surviving Nazi war criminals are becoming increasingly 
        rare.
            (2) The identities of many of the remaining criminals were 
        made known only after the end of the Cold War and the collapse 
        of Communist governments throughout eastern Europe.
            (3) In most of these formerly Communist countries, the 
        volume of available information is enormous, and the available 
        resources to study it and identify war crimes suspects is 
        comparatively small.
            (4) In the United States, the Office of Special 
        Investigations (OSI) of the Department of Justice is 
        responsible for detecting, investigating, and taking legal 
        action to denaturalize or deport persons who took part in Nazi-
        sponsored acts of persecution committed abroad between 1933 and 
        1945.
            (5) As of April 2008, OSI had successfully prosecuted more 
        than 100 people involved in Nazi war crimes who were residing 
        in the United States.
            (6) As a Government office with limited resources, OSI is 
        under enormous strain to identify and prosecute those criminals 
        identified by newly released records before it is too late.
            (7) Some foreign governments hinder the efforts of OSI, 
        Congress, and the United States Government to extradite or 
        deport convicted Nazi war criminals from the United States to 
        their country of origin or other relevant jurisdiction.
            (8) Certain nongovernmental organizations have been 
        instrumental in the search for wanted Nazi war crimes suspects 
        for over 60 years.
            (9) In 2002, the Simon Wiesenthal Center launched 
        Operation: Last Chance to maximize the identification and help 
        facilitate the prosecution of the remaining unprosecuted Nazi 
        war criminals, helping to achieve justice for the victims of 
        the Holocaust.
            (10) Simon Wiesenthal, a survivor of the Nazi death camps 
        whose work stands as a reminder and a warning for future 
        generations, dedicated his life to--
                    (A) documenting the crimes of the Holocaust; and
                    (B) hunting down the perpetrators still at large.
            (11) As founder and head of the Jewish Documentation Center 
        in Vienna, Simon Wiesenthal successfully brought to justice 
        wanted Nazi war criminals, including--
                    (A) Franz Stangl, the commandant of the Treblinka 
                death camp;
                    (B) Franz Murer, ``The Butcher of Wilno''; and
                    (C) Erich Rajakowitsch, who was in charge of the 
                ``death transports'' in Holland.
            (12) Mr. Wiesenthal's work, which contributed enormously to 
        the modern understanding of justice, war crimes, and crimes 
        against humanity, should be continued.
            (13) Of the most guilty Nazis and Nazi collaborators still 
        at large, Operation: Last Chance has identified the following 
        suspects:
                    (A) Dr. Aribert Heim, who served as a medical 
                doctor at the Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, and Mauthausen 
                concentration camps, is the most wanted ex-Nazi still 
                at large. His most terrible crimes were committed at 
                Mauthausen, where he murdered hundreds of inmates by 
                administering lethal injections of phenol to their 
                hearts or by other torturous killing methods during the 
                fall of 1941. His whereabouts are unknown.
                    (B) Dr. Sandor Kepiro, who served as an officer in 
                the Hungarian gendarmerie, was one of several Hungarian 
                officers convicted in 1944 for the mass murder of 
                several thousand civilians (mostly Jews) in the city of 
                Novi Sad on January 23, 1942. In the wake of the 
                occupation of Hungary in March 1944, he was pardoned, 
                promoted, and returned to active service. He escaped to 
                Austria in 1945, fled to Argentina in 1948, and 
                returned to Hungary in 1996.
                    (C) Milivoj Asner, who served as the police chief 
                of the city of Slavonska Pozega. During 1941 and 1942, 
                Mr. Asner orchestrated the robbery, persecution, and 
                destruction of the local Serb, Jewish, and Gypsy 
                communities, which culminated in the deportation of 
                hundreds of civilians to Ustasha concentration camps, 
                where most of the deportees were murdered. After his 
                exposure in Operation: Last Chance, the former police 
                chief later escaped once again to Klagenfurt, Austria, 
                where he currently resides.
                    (D) Charles Zentai is accused of murdering 18-year-
                old Peter Balazs, a Jewish boy he caught riding a 
                Budapest tram without the requisite yellow star on 
                November 8, 1944. After Hungarian requests for his 
                extradition went unanswered, Zentai was able to 
                immigrate to Australia in February 1950, where he 
                currently lives.

SEC. 3. SENSE OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

    It is the sense of the House of Representatives that--
            (1) the United States should actively encourage extradition 
        and prosecution of the remaining Nazi war criminals (as 
        described by 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3)(e));
            (2) the Simon Wiesenthal Center should be commended for its 
        historic work in bringing to light the atrocities of the 
        Holocaust and in advancing justice for Nazi war criminals 
        through Operation: Last Chance; and
            (3) the Office of Special Investigation of the Department 
        of Justice is advancing the declared foreign policy of the 
        United States by bringing wanted World War II criminals to 
        justice and should be commended for its actions.

SEC. 4. DESIGNATION OF VISA WAIVER PROGRAM COUNTRIES.

    (a) Cooperation.--After a country is initially designated as a visa 
waiver program country under section 217(c) of the Immigration and 
Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1187(c)), the Attorney General, in evaluating 
the effect that such designation would have on the law enforcement and 
security interests of the United States under paragraph (2)(C) of such 
section, shall consider the extent to which such country is cooperating 
in--
            (1) extraditing or prosecuting wanted or indicted Nazi war 
        criminals to the relevant jurisdiction; and
            (2) admitting into their territory aliens described in 
        section 212(a)(3)(E)(i) and ordered removed from the United 
        States by a United States immigration judge, the Board of 
        Immigration Appeals, or a Federal court.
    (b) Presidential Discretion.--
            (1) In general.--If the President determines that it would 
        not be in the national interest of the United States to 
        terminate a country's designation as a visa waiver program 
        country based on the evaluation under subsection (a), the 
        President may decline to terminate such designation after 
        providing advance written notification to--
                    (A) the Committee on Foreign Relations of the 
                Senate;
                    (B) the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate;
                    (C) the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House 
                of Representatives; and
                    (D) the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of 
                Representatives.
            (2) Contents.--In providing notification under paragraph 
        (1), the President shall--
                    (A) identify each crime suspect described in 
                subsection (a)(2) whose admission has not been 
                effected; and
                    (B) submit copies of all decisions rendered by 
                United States immigration judges, the Board of 
                Immigration Appeals, and Federal courts that relate to 
                such crime suspects.

SEC. 5. ANNUAL REPORT.

    In each of the fiscal years 2010 through 2014, the President shall 
submit an annual report to the committees listed in section 4(b)(1), 
which describes, for each country that has a pending application for 
entry into or renewal of the visa waiver program, whether such country 
is--
            (1) cooperating satisfactorily in extraditing or deporting 
        wanted Nazi war crimes suspects to the jurisdiction in which 
        they have been indicted or convicted;
            (2) prosecuting wanted Nazi war crimes suspects effectively 
        within such country's jurisdiction; and
            (3) cooperating satisfactorily in admitting to the 
        territory of such country aliens described in section 
        212(a)(3)(E)(i) and ordered removed from the United States 
        territory by a United States immigration judge, the Board of 
        Immigration Appeals, or a Federal court.
                                 <all>
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