Russia hopes that Canada will grant its request for materials in the case of former Nazi death squad member Helmut Oberlander, recently deceased, Alexey Zaytsev, the deputy director of the Russian foreign ministry's information and press department, said on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th September, 2021) Russia hopes that Canada will grant its request for materials in the case of former Nazi death squad member Helmut Oberlander, recently deceased, Alexey Zaytsev, the deputy director of the Russian foreign ministry's information and press department, said on Thursday.
Oberlander died last week at the age of 97 in Ontario before deportation hearings against him were concluded. Commenting on the report, Russian Ambassador to Canada, Oleg Stepanov, said that Moscow would not close the case against him and would await the Canadian justice ministry's response on its request to transfer materials related to war crimes committed by the Nazis in the city of Yeysk during World War II.
"We expect that the Canadian authorities, despite a more than unsatisfactory record in prosecuting Nazi criminals, will transfer the legal materials previously requested by our country in the Oberlander case," Zaytsev told a briefing.
According to the Russian Investigative Committee, Oberlander, a Ukrainian-born ethnic German, was involved in the execution of 27,000 people in the Rostov Region of Russia in 1942. He worked as an interpreter in the SS Einsatzkommando, responsible for the killing of tens of thousands of Jewish and Soviet civilians in the period from 1941-1943.
Oberlander never denied that he worked for the Nazis, but claimed that at the age of 17 he was forced to do it under pain of death and was not involved in the murders.
