The great-granddaughter of a Jewish victim of the Babyn Yar massacre has called for an investigation into a former SS death squad member to be reopened.
Starting on 29 September 1941, 33,771 innocent Jewish children, women and men were slaughtered in just 48 hours by the Einsatzgruppe C, a mobile SS execution unit, in a ravine near Kiev.
But in 2020, the public prosecution office in Kassel closed its investigation of a former member of the death squad, Herbert Wahler, claiming it had insufficient evidence.
Military records show he served in the Einsatzgruppe C. He has admitted to being a member of the group stationed in the Ukraine.
Last year, the JC tracked him down to his home in the historic German town of Melsungen. He recently celebrated his 100th birthday as protesters outside his house called for him to be tried.
In a written statement to the JC, Dr Andreas Poppse, deputy press officer at the public prosecution office in Kassel, said: “I can confirm that the Public Prosecutor’s Office has received a letter from a legal representative of the great-granddaughter of an alleged victim of the crime.”
The request is described as a “complaint” and a “request for reopening”.
When contacted by the JC, Duisburg-based lawyer Heinz Sehr said: “My law firm represents the great-granddaughter of a Jew murdered in Babyn Yar by the Einsatzgruppe. The client has decided not to make any statements due to the legal situation.”
Dr Efraim Zuroff, chief Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, has been pursuing the case for more than a decade.
Changes to German prosecution policy back then meant that instead of providing proof of a specific crime against a specific victim, it was suddenly possible to convict people based on their service alone in Nazi death camps.
Dr Zuroff met with Ludwigsburg-based Central Office for the Clarification of Nazi Crimes to discuss if it would then be possible to convict members of the Nazi executions, the Einsatzgruppen based on their service alone.
He says the office “confirmed that indeed they had adopted that policy”. However, no action was taken for three years, at which point Dr Zuroff then sent a list of people who had served in the Einsatzgruppen to the same office in Ludwigsburg.
Three more years later, the office began pre-investigation work, before handing it over to the Kassel public prosecutors. In March 2020, the prosecution closed the investigation into Wahler.
Dr Zuroff told the JC he is delighted an application has been made to reopen the case: “I was the person who brought this case to the knowledge of the Zentrale Stelle in Ludwigsburg.
“As the situation stands at the moment, any step taken to reopen the case is very positive. The question is whether it will be handled again by the same people who previously closed it in the first place.”
