source: The Vancouver Sun
Vatican, Red Cross aided Nazis' flight, book charges
Author says Canada was one of many haven countries where war criminals took refuge after conflict
A new book claims thousands of potential Nazi war criminals and collaborators escaped justice in the years after the Second World War with help from the Vatican and Red Cross, using false documents and altered identities to emigrate undetected to a host of haven countries -including Canada.
Gerald Steinacher, author of Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's Henchmen Escaped Justice, probes newly opened files from the International Committee of the Red Cross and other war-era archives to reconstruct the strategies of evasion and routes to freedom used by potential war-crimes suspects, including SS officers, National Socialist Party officials and other possible perpetrators of Holocaust-era atrocities. As many as 8,000 ex-Nazis, whose wartime activities should have been probed by Allied authorities, reached Canada or Britain by questionable means...