Nazi Hunter Fears Suspect Will Flee

The Age

Saturday February 18, 2006

By CHRIS JOHNSTON

LEADING Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff fears Ferntree Gully man Lajos Polgar may vanish as investigations into his alleged war crimes are stepped up.

"It's a concern," Dr Zuroff said. "He might go into hiding."

Mr Polgar, 89, was in the notorious Nazi-linked Arrow Cross party in Hungary during World War II. This week he admitted to The Age that he was a "leader" of the party that helped the Nazis transport 80,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. Arrow Cross was also feared for the torture and mass killings of Jews in Hungary in 1944 and 1945. Mr Polgar concedes Arrow Cross were involved in Holocaust activities but denies any personal involvement.

He also denies that the party's Budapest headquarters, which he was almost certainly in charge of, were the site of a torture chamber and dungeon despite historical proof to the contrary.

Dr Zuroff told a news conference yesterday that new evidence on Mr Polgar would be handed to the Australian Federal Police next week. "They are anxious to take a look at the material," he said. Hungary has already placed Mr Polgar under suspicion of genocide.

Dr Zuroff urged the Australian Government to come down hard. "It's a matter of whether the Government has the necessary political will to proceed. In that respect, Hungary has proven its seriousness."

Dr Zuroff said Australia had a poor track record of pursuing war criminals living here. "But I have spoken to the AFP about methods," he said. "We have the person, we have the address."

At yesterday's news conference at the Holocaust Centre, in Elsternwick, Melbourne woman and Holocaust centre tour guide Susanne Nozick, 82, told of her horrific experiences at the hands of Arrow Cross in Budapest. She had no direct dealings with Mr Polgar - "it was dark, we were being tortured, we didn't look at their faces" - but said she and her mother were among a group of Hungarian Jews beaten and repeatedly raped at the party's headquarters in late 1944.

After three days, those still alive were led to the Danube River, which was partially frozen, and shot. Mrs Nozick miraculously survived, but her mother did not.