This past week, progressive human rights lawyers filed a criminal complaint in Argentina’s federal courts seeking the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he set foot in the country, amid reports of a possible visit in September. The criminal complaint filed in Argentina federal courts calls for Netanyahu’s arrest in the country and an investigation into the Israeli political and military authorities for an incident in the Gaza Strip on March 23 in which a number of terrorists were killed. According to unverified sources, among those killed were noncombatants. Upon reading this report, many were reminded that Argentina is home to one of the deadliest terror attacks on Jews outside the State of Israel. Around 31 years ago, on July 18, 1994, a bomb-laden van exploded inside a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. It was the worst such attack in Argentina's history, killing 85 — and injuring 300.
The destruction of the Argentine-Israelite Mutual Association, known by its Spanish initials AMIA, came two years after a 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina, which killed 29 people. Israeli officials say seven of the victims have never been identified. Argentine prosecutors blamed Iranian officials for plotting the AMIA attack and said Hezbollah operatives carried it out, but even after 31 years, no one has been convicted. Iran has refused to turn over the former officials and ex-diplomats who face charges.
Also this past week, an Argentinian real estate agency published photos of a property for sale in Mar del Plata, Argentina, including their living room displaying the "Portrait of a Lady," a portrait by an Italian master artist from the 17th-century, that was stolen from the 1,000-piece collection of Jacques Goudstikker a leading Jewish Dutch art collector, who fled the Netherlands in mid-May 1940 to escape the invading Nazis but suspiciously died on the vessel carrying him to safety. According to historical allegations, the ship that carried Jewish refugees may have included Nazi officials traveling clandestinely. Jacques Goudstikker died from “falling” into the hold of the ship. Journalists seeing the ad of the property for sale identified the stolen painting, but when police raided the house, they found no trace of the painting. More than 80 years after it was looted by the Nazis from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam, we are reminded of Argentina’s sordid involvement in helping Nazi’s escape post war Europe. The Dutch newspaper AD said it had traced the work, which features in a database of lost art and is listed by the Dutch culture ministry as “unreturned” after the Second World War. Some works were recovered in Germany and displayed as part of the Dutch national collection in the Rijksmuseum, “Portrait of a Lady” was not among them. AD said it had uncovered wartime documents suggesting the painting was one of two in the possession of Friedrich Kadgien, a Nazi official, SS officer and senior aide to Hermann Göring.
The progressive human rights lawyers that petitioned for Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest should he set foot in Argentina, have brought to light Argentina’s anti-Semitic past and its love affair with Nazi’s fleeing Germany after the war. Argentina was a known safe haven for Nazi’s and their families. To get a feeling of how prevalent this was just consider the high share of German surnames in Argentina today.
Argentina, before the Second World War, had closer ties to the Axis nations (Germany, Italy and also Spain) than to the Allied countries of the free world. During the Second World War, Argentina was clearly Pro-Axis. The Juan Peron government in no way was Pro-Jewish. Peron’s Minister of Immigration was a notorious anti-Semite who even wrote books about the danger that Jews allegedly posed to Argentina. The Peron government did not only offer the Nazis’ asylum, they actively imported them from Europe. Nazis were welcome Guests. Some high-tier Nazis even meet with Peron. Peron a populist / “third-positionism” politician- ideology similar to fascism. His politics and style of government were inspired by the regimes of Mussolini and Hitler, hence his government's friendliness towards fascists and Nazi’s fleeing Europe.
Argentina was the chosen home of many notorious Nazi’s after the Second World War. Mengele, "notorious" for his inhumane experiments on Jewish prisoners, arrived in 1949 and lived under various pseudo names. Having felt secure and safe in his adopted home in Argentina, Mengele even filed a request to travel from Argentina to West Germany in 1959, using his real name. Then there is Adolf Eichmann, another SS officer and one of the principal architects of the "Final Solution". He arrived in Argentina in 1950 under an alias. In January 1942, at a lakefront villa in the Wannsee district of Berlin, a conference of Nazi high officials was convened to organize the logistics of what the Nazis called the “final solution to the Jewish question.” Eichmann was to coordinate the details; thus, although it was not yet generally known that the “final solution” was mass execution, Eichmann had in effect been named chief executioner. Thereupon he organized the identification, assembly, and transportation of Jews from all over occupied Europe to their final destinations at Auschwitz and other extermination camps in German-occupied Poland. He was arrested by Israeli secret service agents near Buenos Aires, Argentina, on May 11, 1960; nine days later they smuggled him out of the country and took him to Israel. After settling the controversy that arose over the Israeli violation of Argentine law, the Israeli government arranged his trial before a special three-judge court in Jerusalem. Eichmann was found guilty by the special court in Jerusalem and was hanged by the State of Israel for his part in the Holocaust, and direct responsibility for the Nazi extermination of Jews during World War II.
Argentina has yet to recognize her historical role and responsibility in assisting Nazi’s and their families in evading justice. Argentina has yet to identify and bring to justice those nations and terror organizations that executed the bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Argentina was the home of Mengele and Adolf Eichmann among the greater German community residing in Argentina. So if all this is not enough, this past week the Supreme Court in Buenos Aires discovered Nazi material among its archives. An anonymous judicial authority had exposed that the court had come across boxes of photos, postcards and propaganda "intended to consolidate and propagate Adolf Hitler's ideology" in Argentina during the Second World War.