Canterbury University gave top marks to student Joel Hayward's thesis, which dealt with revisionist topics and facts. A French trial in absentia is shaping up as well. Alois Brunner, long wanted for allegedly deporting hundreds of Jewish children to Auschwitz concentration camp, will be tried in a Paris court on March 2 for crimes against humanity. Brunner served as a top aide to Adolf Eichmann. Optimists believe this trial will be France's last World War II war crimes trial.
Pessimists know otherwise.
Berlin Mayor Eberhard Diepgen tried to block the memorial in central Berlin with the argument that protective security costs would be prohibitively high. The project is said to be dragging its feet. President Clinton added 35 members to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and the National Infrastructure Assurance Council, including Black poet Maya Angelou and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Slovak Jews also ask for a piece of the pie and want compensation from Germany for money that the wartime pro-Nazi Slovak state paid the Third Reich for transport of people to concentration camps. Germany refused to hold compensation talks, and noted the existence of the pro-Nazi Slovak state during the World War Two period.