Daily Telegraph Tracks Down Nazi Criminal
Germany continues to shelter a former SS officer who is wanted for murder and for his alleged role in the deportation of hundreds of Jews to Nazi concentration camps. The Daily Telegraph has tracked down former SS-Obersturmführer Soren Kam to the peaceful suburbs of Kempten im Allgau, a town about 75 miles from Munich.
Dr. Efraim Zuroff, a veteran Israeli Nazi-hunter, will be in Europe next week to mount "Operation Last Chance," to bring men such as Mr. Kam to justice and to expose the role of complacent German judicial authorities in continuing to provide alleged war criminals with safe havens.
"Kam is on my list because in my estimation he is one of the top 10 Nazis that could feasibly be brought to trial" for war crimes, said Dr. Zuroff, who is director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem.
The 86-year-old Dane is number eight on the list of 10 "most wanted Nazi war criminals" drawn up by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. But in Bavaria, Mr. Kam, a man who met Adolf Hitler, lives openly. By his doorbell is a traditional Bavarian clay plaque, made by his grandchildren, and bearing the family name.
Mr. Kam responded to knocks on his front door by opening his front window and hiding behind the curtains. All that could be seen was his hand, but the voice of the SS man remained clear and dismissive. "I know who you are. I don't want to talk to you. Leave me in peace," he said, before slamming the window. Mr. Kam has been indicted by the Danish government for the murder in 1943 of Carl Henrik Clemmensen, the anti-Nazi Danish newspaper editor. Clemmensen's bullet-riddled body was found by a roadside after he was seized from his home by three men, led by Mr. Kam. Denmark's authorities would also like to talk to him regarding the theft in 1943 of a population register, later used to round up and deport 500 Danish Jews to concentration camps. But Munich courts earlier this year threw out attempts, under a European Union arrest warrant, to deport him back to Denmark. A clear case, Dr. Zuroff said, of "misplaced German judicial sympathy."
