| News Briefs |
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| Written by New Voices | |||||
| Thursday, 27 February 2003 | |||||
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Death at Dignidad?, Paradise Lost, Lost Tribe Found!  DEATH AT DIGNIDAD? A sister’s search for the truth The last time Olga Weisfeiler saw her brother Boris, a Penn State mathematician, he was eagerly preparing for a hiking trip to Chile. That was in the winter of 1985. Boris never returned. The Chilean government’s official explanation was that Boris drowned crossing the junction of two rivers south of Santiago. But Weisfeiler never believed it—the water there is only four feet deep and her brother was an experienced hiker. For 15 years, the U.S. State Department claimed to have no relevant information. But in June of 2000 declassified State Department and CIA documents revealed that Chilean security forces had probably abducted Boris, a Jew, and taken him to Colonia Dignidad, a German, anti-Semitic religious settlement founded by former Nazis. During General Augusto Pinochet’s military regime, the settlers cooperated with security forces in the torture and killing of political prisoners. According to declassified papers and Chilean court records, Boris, who left his native Russia for the United States after being branded an "anti-Soviet," was detained at Colonia Dignidad on suspicion of being either a Soviet or "Jewish" spy. The declassified documents show that the U.S. embassy in Santiago was always skeptical of the Chilean government’s version of events. In 1987, an informant approached the embassy, claiming to be part of a military patrol that captured Boris, and a witness to his execution at the hands of Colonia Dignidad members. Embassy officials found the informant credible but were unable to conduct a full investigation because the State Department denied them the necessary funds. This year Weisfeiler traveled to Chile to retrace her brother’s steps. Though the newly revealed evidence has reopened Boris’ case and exposed Colonia Dignidad, she is still frustrated by the U.S. and Chilean governments’ slow response. "Everything I am doing, it is just because I do not have another choice," she told New Voices. "I need to find out what really happened with my brother." More information about Boris Weisfeiler can be found at www.weisfeiler.com/boris PARADISE LOST Costa Rica plans to extradite accused Nazi war criminal to Poland For alleged Nazi war criminal Bohdan Koziy, the vacation is over. After residing in Costa Rica legally for 20 years, arrangements are being made for the 80-year-old former member of the Ukrainian secret police to be extradited to Poland. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Costa Rican officials decided to extradite Koziy two years ago, under pressure from the World Jewish Congress and the Israeli government, but until recently were unable to find a country willing to invoke jurisdiction. Poland’s Institute of National Memory, the Polish Embassy, and the Jerusalem-based Simon Wiesenthal Center are investigating the possibilities of prosecuting Koziy in Poland, and will soon begin action against him. These agencies say their country has jurisdiction because the area where Koziy’s alleged crimes took place was part of Poland before Germany invaded in 1939. Koziy is accused of collaborating with the Nazis and of numerous war crimes, including the murder of a Jewish family and a three-year-old child. After the war, Koziy moved to Florida, where he ran a motel until 1982, when U.S. officials discovered he had lied about his role in the war and stripped him of his American citizenship. Threatened with deportation from the United States in 1984, Koziy fled with his wife to Costa Rica and was able to reside there as her dependent. Koziy denies the allegations against him, telling the JTA that he was a Nazi resistor, not a collaborator. LOST TRIBE FOUND! Rabbis convert Andean villagers to Judaism—and send them straight to the West Bank Last May, 90 indigenous Peruvian villagers—most of whom had never left the Andean countryside—converted to Judaism, boarded a plane to Israel, and became the newest members of several West Bank settlements, all within two weeks. Israel’s chief Ashkenazi rabbi, Israel Meir Lau, authorized a delegation of fellow rabbis to travel to the Andes, where they performed conversions, Jewish weddings, and gave the Peruvians Hebrew names. The rabbis claimed they were responding to the villagers’ repeated requests for formal conversion. According to Rabbi Myron Zuber, one of the rabbis who visited Peru, the villagers adopted Jewish rituals in the mid-1990s, after one of their leaders experienced a religious epiphany. The rabbis converted the Peruvians on the condition that they move straight to Israel. Rabbi David Mamo of the Israeli Conversion Court, the governing body that authorizes conversions, told the Israeli daily Haaretz that it was impossible to keep kosher and observe other Jewish laws in the Andes. Joining the existing Peruvian Jewish community was not an option. According to the Jerusalem Report, the Israeli rabbis had an "understanding" with other Peruvian Jews that once they performed the conversions, the new converts would leave Peru. The cosmopolitan, Lima-based community feared assimilating the villagers would cause "socio-economic problems." Rabbi Eliyahu Birnbaum, an Israeli Conversion Court Judge, says of the issue, "The community in Lima consists of a certain socio-economic class and did not want [the indigenous converts] because they are from a lower level." Now fully settled in the West Bank, the Peruvians-turned-Israelis have embraced their new culture. They are learning Hebrew, and many have become ultra-Orthodox and radically nationalistic. "It will be the most wonderful day in the world when all the Arabs will become Jews and observe the commandments and love the Lord," Batya Mendel, who until recently went by the name Blanca, told Haaretz. "When the messiah comes, there will be no one in the land of our fathers who does not love the Lord and Judaism with all their heart."
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