Last update - 00:00 29/01/2008
Austria investigates woman, 85, in concentration camp murders
By Reuters
Austrian authorities are investigating an 85-year-old woman suspected of murder in a Nazi concentration camp during World War Two.
New evidence from Poland suggested the woman may have committed murder in the Majdanek camp near the Polish city of Lublin, state prosecutors in Vienna said on Tuesday.
"We're trying to establish whether the witness statements(from Poland) are sufficient to identify this woman," said Gerhard Jarosch, a spokesman for state prosecutors in Vienna. "It's obviously difficult more than 60 years later."
According to media reports, the woman, whom Austrian papers identified as Erna Wallisch, was a camp warden in Ravensbrueck concentration camp, north of Berlin, and Majdanek in 1942-1944.
Jarosch said a previous investigation of the woman in 1973 was dropped due to a lack of evidence linking her directly to Nazi genocide.
Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, said he had discovered that a camp warden was still alive in Austria and contacted the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), which investigates Nazi crimes in Poland.
The institute tracked down five female witnesses who said Wallisch had abused inmates in Majdanek, he said.
"I am very happy and very pleased that this is being re-investigated," Zuroff said. "This is a test for Austria; this is the last chance for Austria to do the right thing. This would be correcting an historic injustice."
"Every effort has to be made that she does not elude justice for whatever reasons, whether it is health or age."
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