I hope it would be not incurious for you to take a look at an article written by certain Harry Mannil - a large businessman well-known in private circles. During the World War second he used to work for the Estonian Political police which was in fact a branch establishment of Gestapo that was functioning throughout the territory “liberated” by Axis. In the article that I mentioned above, a former aider of Nazis Mannil tries to set himself right - at least with the population and official authorities of Costa Rica, which is a country where Mannil’s business is most successful. Mannil had to go this length after he was tracked down by Simon Wiesental Center - a widely known Nazi hunting organization.

Here you can read the original article
(http://www.nacion.com/ln_ee/2007/junio/03/opinion1118307.html)

A translation into English goes below.

I am a respected businessman

Harry Mannil

La Nation has published a number of articles containing hostile, wrongful and unfounded accusations against me. The author of these articles is Mr Efraim Zuroff, director of Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem. Providing the following facts and description of persecutions that I had to suffer during the past 13 years is a justified necessity.

How the injustice started.
      Back into 1994 Dr Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State in the USA administration, quit the Baltic Institute for Strategic and International Studies based in Tallinn, Estonia. It was mainly due to the Zuroff’s message in which he stated that my participation in the activities of the Strategic Management Committee was out of question and he directly blamed me in having collaborated with the Nazi during World War II. So I had to give up this job as well to sort it out in the wake of the incident.
        Zuroff informed Dr Kissinger on number of old and false NKVD (Stalin’s Political Police) staffers’ accusations included into the Swedish report of the Sandler Comimission (extrajudicial political agency) in 1994. According to the report, I was working with the Estonian Political Security Police (September 1941 - January 1942) and during that period of time I was never involved in any criminal activity, persecutions, executions or crimes against humanity or other offences. The result of that Zuroff’s message to Kissinger was that my name was added into the special list of those to keep an eye on so that I couldn’t get into the USA.
        On the 20th of November 1945 The Stockholm Police confirmed that I had never been accused of any crimes or detained and my name had never been linked to any violation of law as well. Naturally, that made possible my decoration with the Swedish Royal Order of Polar Star by the Swedish King, which followed 40 years later.
        My own investigative effort. The false accusations by Zuroff forced me to petition the Estonian Supreme Court to make myself clean of any accusations. On the 11th of April 1994 the Supreme Court found no case relating my alleged guilt and made me absolutely innocent in the eyes of the Estonian Judicial system.
        I also turned to the National Security Council with the request to start their own probe into my activities during the Hitler forces’ occupation of Estonia. On the 22nd of April 1994 the Council concluded that in 1945- 1994 I had never faced any accusation.
        The Council also noted that my name had never been mentioned in any of the 17 Estonian KGB investigations to search for war criminals and bring them before court.

    Some data and recent conclusions.

I addressed the U.S. Department of Justice with the request to explore my case. In the August of 1996 the Department of Justice found no documentary witness against me. My advocate Martin Mendelshon found it out that the decision to take up my visa was optional only due to the fact that when aged 21 I was working with the Political Security Police of Estonia as a clerk. They promised to restore my visa in case I could prove my innocence. How can I, I wonder? I have never been subject to accusation in any unlawful activities. 
In 1998 Estonian prime-minister set an International Commission to investigate crimes against humanity dating from 1940 to 1991. A Finnish diplomat Max Jakobson was designated head of it while all the commission were all those well known citizens of Denmark, the USA and Russia. On the 27th of April 2001 the International Commission failed to find any references or any damning evidence proving my guilt. Once again I managed to defend myself from the false accusations by Zuroff. Just at the same time the Political Security Police of Estonia released its conclusions. They found no proof to add any meat to false accusations.
In the letter dating the 21st of May 2001 Zuroff urged the Estonian prime-minister to start a judicial probe. Well, already at the preliminary stage in the January of 2003 it confirmed my innocence. My prosecutor made an inquiry with the Estonian Judicial system and some PR-agency to start a hunting campaign to search for war criminals but got the refusal. The $ 10,000 sum failed to make them less reluctant to do the job. Cilja Laud, the representative of the Jewish Community, formally warned that Zuroff in no case was acting on behalf of the Estonian Jewish community and saw his imprudence as sign of anti-Semitism.
At the beginning of 2003 Zuroff initiated an incident in Costa-Rica, the country I’ve been really devoted to for number of years. On 4th of February they informed me about the refusal to allow me into the country next time. The decision was made on the basis of Wiesenthal Center’s data posted in the Internet. But on the 6th of November 2003 things made a sharp turn after the evidence doubted during the judicial proceeding, including U.S. Department of Justice subpoena and some new data from the Estonian Police, had been thoroughly examined.
Investigation conducted by the Estonian public prosecutor (dossier â„– 01913000043) on Zuroff’s request came to an end by the 30th of November 2005. There were interrogated about 56 witnesses. And requests for judicial and documental affidavit from the USA. Russia, Sweden, Finland and Germany were made. I myself was questioned three times. The court confirmed that I was innocent and the decision wasn’t appealed by Zuroff.   
A “Chase” in the Media. Perhaps, my chaser has forgotten that still there are certain laws, courts and sovereign states. Everywhere I was found not guilty. My nationality, my good conscious and the credit of my family are in no connection with Mr Zuroff’s increasing social wants and diminishing financial means.

The activities carried on by Mr Zuroff are wrongful, reckless and unfounded. I never committed any crimes against mankind. I was justified by every investigation that had been carried out since 1945. I have never been either a member or an adherer of the Nazi party. I never was among fascist occupants, either. In the time when I was a student leader at the University of Tartu, Security Service of fascist Germany ranged me as a politically unsafe figure. In September 1943, I had a chance to flee to Finland. Mr Zuroff never submitted to public any evidence of my fault, because there can be no evidence against the innocent one.

Mr Zuroff must admit his error on behalf of the organization he represents. As my family and I were forced to suffer irreparable financial and material damage, I hope that Mr Zuroff has enough courage to resign and admit his fault in the courts he went to defame me.

I have got perfect private and business relations with members of the Jewish community. In September 1979, I was invited to Israel in order to promote business relations with Venezuela. In Tel-Aviv, I met General Mota Gut from Entebbe. For many years I had been a supporter and a member of World Jewish Congress.

I am a respected businessman. I live in Venezuela and spend my vacation in Costa Rica. I am a member of the World Forum. I took part in the work of World Economic Forum (Davos) and Stanford Research Institute on the initiative of President Gerald Ford. I was a member of International Council of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I also was head of a number of companies in different countries.

That would be my only account for La Nacion that I do out of respect for residents of the exemplary state of Costa Rica. In case there are any further false accusations in my address and forged information about me is being published on, I’ll be forced to bring it to the court in order to vindicate my honor and reputation.

now, check out what Efraim Zuroff himself (head of that Simon Wiesental Center) would say of Harry Mannil
(http://nacion.com/ln_ee/2007/junio/30/opinion1151211.html)

I also give it in english in case you don’t speak portugese

“Half-truths and distortions of facts”
Efraim Zuroff
Harry Mannil presented the readers of La Nacion with a very rosy picture of his biography, one designed to convince readers that he truly was “an honorable businessman.” Unfortunately, Mannil’s version of his life is full of half-truths and distortions of the facts that he does not want Costa Ricans to know.

Among the important names that Mannil did not mention are: Ida Frank, Kune Frank, Leo Muller, Agnia Ryzhova, Maria Pavlovski, Kira Rubanovich and Vera Rubanovich. These are seven of the individuals interrogated by Mannil when he worked for the Estonian Political Police who were executed or disappeared. Their murder was part of the Nazis’ plan to annihilate all the Jews of Europe, which they implemented in Estonia with the help of the Estonian Political Police and Nazi collaborators like Harry Mannil.

Mannil wants you to believe that the activities of the Estonian Political Police were harmless. So it is particularly important to read the conclusions of the International Commission appointed by Estonian President Lennart Meri to investigate the crimes committed in Estonia during the Nazi and Communist occupations. In the section entitled “Detailed Assessment of Responsibility” (page 19), the report makes the following assessment regarding the Estonian police (including the Political Police):

“Although Estonian police structures were formally subordinated to the German Security and Order Police, evidence shows that Estonians exercised significant independence of action in arresting and interrogating suspects, and determining and carrying out sentences.

“The Commission reviewed the structure and operational competence of the police through their various reorganizations…[and] believes that the police were actively involved in the arrest and killing of Estonian Jews. The police were also actively engaged in actions against Estonians deemed to be opponents of the Germans….”

It is also interesting to note the Commission chose to “particularly single [out]” Mannil’s direct boss Evald Mikson as one of the individuals most responsible for the crimes committed by the Estonian police against innocent civilians, noting that Mikson “signed numerous death warrants.” In 1991, Mikson, who like Mannil left to Sweden during the war, was exposed by the Wiesenthal Center in Iceland, which opened a criminal investigation for murder against him. Unfortunately, he died before he could be prosecuted for his crimes.

In this context, it is important to read the testimony before the Sandler Commission, which investigated the Baltic refugees who entered Sweden during and immediately after World War II, of Uno Richard Andrusson, who served together with Mannil under Mikson in the Estonian Political Police in Tallinn in 1941. According to Andrusson, he and Mannil carried out arrests of civilians under orders received from Mikson and Roland Leppik. Those arrested were brought to Tallinn Central Prison, where they were interrogated and either freed or sentenced to death. The latter were taken to a forest outside the city where they were executed by the “Omakaitse,” an Estonian group of nationalist vigilantes. Both Mannil and Andrusson participated in the interrogation of the prisoners, and the former, after a few months was promoted to be top assistant in his department. Mannil obviously excelled in these tasks.

The evidence was confirmed by three additional Estonians who testified before the Sandler Commission. As a result of this investigation, Mannil was dismissed from his job at a local archives, and was later denied permission to remain in Sweden. During this period, he was also barred from entering Great Britain.

Mannil tries to claim that the charges against him are baseless but the fact remains that he was kicked out of Sweden, denied entry to Great Britain and remains, to this day, barred from entering the United States, all solely because of his role in the Estonian Political Police in Tallinn during the years 1941-1942. Mannil of course never mentioned the first two facts and downplays the third by claiming that “the Justice Department found no legal evidence against me.” But if that were really true, why was the decision never changed? The reason is obvious. Anyone who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II is barred from entering the US and Mannil’s service in the Estonian Political Police certainly fits that description perfectly. This is also the reason why former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger resigned from the International Advisory Board of the Baltic Institute for Strategic and International Relations established by Mannil after the facts about his World War II activities were brought to his attention.

Notwithstanding all the evidence against him, Mannil has not been put on trial. In retrospect, there are three major reasons for this situation: geography, history, and biography. The fact that Mannil acted in Estonia is very important. Due to the very small size of the local prewar Jewish community (4,500) and the relatively low number of victims (about 1,000, which is practically every Jew living in Estonia when it was occupied by the Germans), the crimes of the Nazis and their Estonian collaborators received scant attention outside the country. The fact that Estonia became part of the Soviet Union made it difficult to obtain documents and witnesses, and thus it was only in the early nineties after Estonia regained independence that I discovered the case of Harry Mannil, in the course of my investigation against his superior Evald Mikson.

Estonia, like her Baltic neighbors Lithuania and Latvia, has proven extremely reluctant to take legal action against local Nazi collaborators, none of whom has hereto ever been prosecuted For this reason, Estonia has been given a grade of “F” or total failure by the Wiesenthal Center’s Annual Status Report on the investigation and prosecution of Nazi war crimes for the past two years.

If we add the fact that Mannil is very wealthy and a generous contributor to Estonian cultural institutions, it becomes increasingly clear why he has not been called to account before any court.

And thus, unfortunately, he remains free to travel to different countries. I do not think that such individuals, rich as they might be, deserve the privilege of visiting a great democracy like Costa Rica and I hope that the government will soon take measures to see to it that this will no longer be possible, because while Mannil might be a “ business man” in Venezuela, his role in Estonia was clearly different.

Like Eichman, he should have been hung for his crimes., but so should
thousands (no tens of thousands) of NAZIs or their supporters.

In essence they, have, and are still getting away with murder.

But we Jews are irrelevant unfortunately to most of the world.

I forget, who has been given shelter in Syria? Someone remind me.

Some say, “Forgive and forget”.

I say, let the victims choose the above, not the rest of us.

Millions of Germans, Estonians, Hungarians, Ukranians have blood
on their hands…and are lving their lives as if nothing occurred 60 years ago.

It’s one of the world’s biggest shames..besides the Holocaust itself.

Had there been an Israel, or some place where Jews could have found
refuge, this never would have happened.

The real unfortunate part of history, is that, considering feeble sanctions
(hear the British ambassador to the UN), nothing is being done to Iran to
stop their nuclear ambitions.

Are we to wait to see the mushroom cloud before we act?

History may be repeating itself…which in many people’s mind’s is
paranoia. PARANOIA?

I happen across a website describing the German invastion of
Latvia and the subsequent murder of over 70,000 Jews in 1944.

It seems that Russia, in order to put distance between itself and the
conflict between Germany and the West, invaded Latvia, the strategic
country between itself and Germany.

Moscow put puppet governments into the countries of Latvia, Estonia,
and Lithuania., until they were overthrown by the far superior German armies which invaded Russia in 1941.

The famous treaty between Germany and Russia in 1939, facilitated
Germany’s invasion of Western Poland, while Russia sent it’s forces
into Eastern Poland, as part of the agreement.

So, both Hitler and Stalin were playing checkers with these countries,
without Stalin’s appreciation that Germany was, in fact, playing chess.

Both people’s suffered during the ensuing years, but the defenseless Jews suffered the most. There was no discrimination, every Jew was considered a Jew, whether by birth, grandparents, great grandparents. All Jews, from the non-religious to the most Orthodox, were fair game for the NAZIs and their supporters.

German militias of 500 men or more (SS groups A, B, C, D) typically with local NAZIs to aid, followed the German armies, filling up the void, rounding up local hapless Jews, caught up in the vice.

Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian units were especially brutal, and
are described in the killings of thousands, witnessed by the “Mascot
of the Germans”, a Jewish youngster who pretended to be a gentile, and thus survived, only to be turned over to the SS unit to become their
mascot. He witnessed the murder of his own mother and siblings, while
hiding in a tree. Rather than giving himself up, he survived in the forests
until taken in by a sympathetic Latvian family. Eventually he became
the poster child for Hitler’s SS thugs. After the war, he testified in favor of the SS commander who had befriended him.

It is interesting also to note that Charles Lindbergh, who was head of
the America First Committee (see also Gore Vidal, George Bush 2, Walt
Disney and Lillian Gish), a group of over 800,000 members, was stridently
against our involvement in this European war, wanted us to refrain from
putting economic pressure on Japan, was against our giving aid to England and Russia (lend lease) and thought we ( the Jews) had too much influence
on American foreign policy,  thanks to our ownership of the press, movies, etc.

Doesn’t this all sound familar?

Now we read in a current national magazine that the Islamic fascists
are a piker compared to the Communists. We also read that Rudy Giuliani
is to the right of George Bush, he not wanting the creation of a Palestinian state at present.

I guess, we Jews are the cause of everything wrong in the world.
We wanted the US, France and England to attack Germany prior to
WW2. We want the US to bomb Tehran before it bombs US.

In effect, we want to save humanity from itself.

Can we do nothing right?

To Binyumin:

How are you friend, smells like a rat to me too bro. I just wanted to add, that I was in Tallin, Estonia in 2004, and I was surprized to discover that at a local mall outlet, Nazi uniforms and gear from that War was being sold and silently promoted as if it was fashion. I was shocked, in an open markets, my opinion, all of these things need to be burned, and if the local officials are not aware of it, then they are Nazis at heart.  Mr. Levi made some good points, but once again, words denotes future, past, and present occupation.

Many attrocities have and continual to take place, and the more we feed into these past issues, they take focus away from the invisble power of each in the here and now moment. Yes, many of these nazi so in so’s got away to America, and made deals everywhere,  eventually they will pay the piper, for the body has been awarded on a lease, for it will cease, that’s the Law of Hashem, mortal man, let Hashem fight the battle, we must guard our speech and let go of this demon conversation. The Nazi machine has spread itself today on this forum, in our language. Why after so many years, we continue to talk about what these demons did, yeah, everytime we mention it, we give life to it, like a ressurection.  Yes, many lives were lost, so we fight quietly. Let the institutions that were designed to track these dogs down,  deal with it. Our job is intelligent discussion, about the positive thengs taking place in Israel right now, it is not all negative, maybe if we judge it by money and War, for the true army of Israel, is the prayers and occupation of the Hassidic Zionist, for Zion is Jerusalem!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KINGZOFKINGZS

“In effect, we want to save humanity from itself.”

I want to save myself from people that pretend to know what is better for me.

habeas corpus !

Somebody had to suffer the most, and it was the Jews. Why is this hard to understand? No need to explain either that people will ally themselves with evil at another’s expense to save themselves. Happens all the time.