The trial of a Nazi-hunter accused of defaming a former Hungarian soldier over
his role in the massacre of Jews during World War II opened in Hungary on
Friday.
Dr. Sandor Kepiro is suing the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel
director Efraim Zuroff for accusing him of actively participating in the killing
of thousands of Jews, Serbs and Roma (gypsies) when he was an officer in the
Hungarian army in a notorious raid on Novi Sad in 1942.
Kepiro was
convicted by a Hungarian court for his role in the killings in 1944 and 1946.
However, he escaped justice by fleeing to Germany and later to South
America.
Kepiro returned to his native country after the fall of
communism. In 2007, he was discovered by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which
demanded that charges be brought against him.
“He tried to say that the
killings were all of partisans,” Zuroff said during the defamation trial’s first
hearing.
“However, that’s a blatant lie, because they indiscriminately
killed women and children.”