Former OSI chief reacts to discussion over his role in Canada (02/08/98)

Former OSI chief reacts to discussion over his role in Canada

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - "It is not good for the Jewish and Ukrainian communities to clash," Neal Sher, recently appointed as an advisor to the Canadian government, told an audience of about 75 people at the Shaarei Shomayem Synagogue's auditorium here on January 28.

The notes of conciliation were balanced by tones of defiance. "I have been attacked by various communities in Ottawa and Toronto," he added, "and they're not doing any service to their communities by circling the wagons to protect some in their community who are guilty."

Mr. Sher recalled the most difficult moment of his career when he pursued a Jewish man, living in New York City's Brighton Beach area, accused of brutality and collaboration with the Nazis during the war. He did not elaborate.

He dismissed questions of the "numbers of Nazis in Canada" as a matter "of no real relevance," stressing that the pursuit of war criminals is an action against individuals.

Mr. Sher, a former director of the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, was hired as consultant to the war crimes unit at Canada's Justice Department on December 12, 1997. He spoke at the invitation of the Canadian Society for Yaad Vashem, the Israeli-based Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Authority, delivering an address titled "Nazis in Our Midst."

Mr. Sher said the pursuit of war criminals is particularly important in North America because Canada and the U.S. have traditionally been seen as havens for immigrants, but they should not be havens for those who committed crimes outside these countries. "This cheapens everyone's citizenship," Mr. Sher said.

The former special prosecutor said he'd been attacked in the past for "going after small fry," voicing strong disagreement with those who contend that "it isn't worth it." He said the Holocaust was not only a massive Nazi operation, but also a disaster made up of many small incidents.

"Take the case of Bohdan Koziy," Mr. Sher said. "He picked up a girl who was 4 years old, physically picked her up, pulled out his revolver and shot her, and then went on to shoot the rest of the family.

"There were hundreds of thousands of Bohdan Koziys who made the Holocaust work," Mr. Sher continued, "If you hear the 'small fry' argument, just keep the Koziy case in mind."

The former OSI director did not mention that the principal witness against Mr. Koziy, a former immigrant to the U.S. now living in Costa Rica, has since recanted her testimony identifying Mr. Koziy as the perpetrator of the incident described.

In the summer of 1994, the only surviving witness to that incident, 65-year-old Hanna Snegur, a Polish Catholic pensioner, admitted that she was forced to testify during an interrogation by the KGB that in 1943 she saw Mr. Koziy, then a militiaman in German-occupied Lysets, Ukraine, carrying off the little Jewish girl.

Mr. Sher said he joined the Canadian effort to prosecute suspected war criminals because "we're dealing with the final chapter of the Holocaust period. We have to be more aggressive than ever in order not to denigrate the memory of the Holocaust."

Mr. Sher suggested he believes the Canadian government's effort to pursue war criminals is "serious" in part because they hired him. "I'm not window-dressing," the former OSI official said, "If I thought or even suspected I was, I wouldn't have become associated with the effort at all."

He added, in response to a question, that volunteers have no place in such an effort, because its seriousness demands that only professionals be used.

He also said the CBS "60 Minutes" program "Canada's Dark Secret," aired on February 2, 1997, was a factor in intensifying the Canadian government's effort to pursue war criminals.

The U.S.-born advisor dismissed concerns, expressed in the Toronto-based Globe and Mail editorial of January 14, about the importation of a "made in U.S.A." solution to the issue as "nonsense."

However, he did not offer any details about what he was specifically hired for, nor about his present duties as an advisor at the Canadian Justice Ministry.

Asked to comment on Toronto resident Olya Odynsky's personal appeal protesting the absence of due process in her father's case, published in the January 5 edition of the Globe and Mail, Mr. Sher said: "Over the years, I've read many comments and letters from family members [of accused individuals]. I chose not to answer them then, and it's going to remain that way now."

This report was compiled with the assistance of Mykhailo Wawryshyn.

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