Death of Harry Mannil, Unprosecuted Estonian Nazi Collaborator, Is A Sad Day for Holocaust Justice

published 12/01/2010 at 21:49


Jerusalem - The Simon Wiesenthal Center today expressed a sense of outrage and deep frustration in the wake of the death yesterday in Costa Rica of Harry Mannil, who served with the infamous Estonian Political Police in Tallinn during the initial year of the Nazi occupation and actively participated in the arrest and interrogation of Jews and Communists who were subsequently murdered by local Nazi collaborators, but was never prosecuted for his Holocaust crimes.

In a statement issued in Jerusalem by its chief Nazi-hunter Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center emphasized the failure of the Estonian authorities to prosecute Mannil (who was listed as Number 10 on its “Most Wanted List” of Nazi war criminals and as a result of the Center’s efforts was barred from entering the United States) despite the findings of their own investigators regarding his activities in the framework of the dreaded Estonian Political Police, who were responsible for the arrest and murder of numerous Jews and Communists.

According to Zuroff : “The failure of the Estonian authorities to bring Harry Mannil to trial is a reflection of the lack of political will in Tallinn to deal with the collaboration of Estonians in Holocaust crimes and a sad commentary on how an individual who was an embarrassment to his country bought immunity and respectability with financial payments.”