A Voice for the Voiceless

German Newspaper Publishes Heinrich Himmler’s Letters and Photos

by Tony Iozzo
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

BERLIN, Germany –  Excerpts from a collection of photographs and approximately 700 letters and notes penned by Heinrich Himmler were published for the first time on Sunday.

A documentary on the collection will be premiered next month at the Berlin International Film Festival. (Photo courtesy of New York Daily News)

The German newspaper, Welt am Sonntag, published parts of the collection in seven pages of its Sunday edition. The letters and notes are thought to be written by Himmler himself. Some of the pictures depict the Holocaust-era Nazi officer gently: posing with his family, and feeding a baby fawn.

The excerpts, which include Himmler’s love letters to his wife, will be a part of an eight-part series that the newspaper is planning to publish. According to the newspaper, two American soldiers found the collection at the end of the war in May 1945 inside of a safe in Himmler’s Bavarian home. Fast forwarding to the 1980’s, the collection surfaced again in Israel, in the possession of Chaim Rosenthal, a holocaust survivor. Rosenthal sold the collection in 2007 to Israeli film director Vanessa Lapa’s father, who gave them to Lapa.

Lapa then approached the German newspaper three years ago about the collection. The newspaper has since verified the authenticity of the collection by historians. Lapa will unveil a documentary that she directed on the Himmler collection at the Berlin International Film Festival next month.

Himmler’s wife, Marga, shared Himmler’s hatred of Jewish people, as they both regularly referred to Jews in derogatory terms in their letters to each other. In a letter dated June 21, 1928, Himmler wrote to Marga: “Don’t be upset about those Jews, good, good wife, if only I could help you.” Ten years later, Marga wrote in a diary entry dated Nov. 14, 1938, “Those Jews, when will that pack finally leave us so that we can enjoy our lives again.”

The collections document the progression of Himmler’s career from the beginning in the 1920’s, to the Holocaust of the 1940’s. Himmler does not explicitly write about the happenings of World War II. However, small quotes in the collection reveal his involvement, as when he writes to his wife “I’m going to Auschwitz, kisses, yours Heini.” Himmler committed suicide on May 23, 1945, in Lueneburg, Germany, after he was captured by British forces.

For more information, please see:

New York Daily News – German Newspaper Publishes Top Nazi Himmler’s Letters and Photos – 27 January 2014

AP News – German Newspaper Publishes Top Nazi’s Letters – 26 January 2014

Fox News – German Newspaper Publishes Top Nazi’s Letters – 26 January 2014

The Local – Caviar, Auschwitz, Love- Himmler’s Letters to Wife – 26 January 2014

Former President Alberto Fujimori Cleared in Peru Sterilization Case

By Ellis Cortez
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

LIMA, Peru – Peruvian prosecutors have decided not to file criminal charges against former President Alberto Fujimori or any of his ministers over a 1990s sterilization program under which thousands of women say they were forcibly sterilized.

Two Peruvian women in file photo from 2000
Hundreds of mostly poor and indigenous women and men allege they were sterilized against their will. (Photo Courtesy of BBC News)

Prosecutor Marco Guzman said there were no crimes against humanity committed by Fujimori’s government and decided to close the case. Guzman found no evidence to support claims that hundreds of mostly poor and indigenous men and women were sterilized against their will. “The women would come to the clinic, agree to the procedure, and undergo sterilization. That was the regular, normal process,” he concluded.

Human rights groups do not agree with the decision and are saying they will appeal. They allege that sterilization was forced upon more than 2,000 women under Fujimori’s government in an attempt to reduce poverty by lowering the birthrate. The campaign had the backing of international donors including the United Nations Population Fund, Japan and the United States, as well as anti-abortion and feminist organizations.

Activists say that besides being forced, the sterilizations were often carried out in unsanitary conditions.

An independent congressional commission stated that the government of President Fujimori had sterilized 346,219 women and 24,535 men during his terms in office between 1990 and 2000. The Fujimori government has always maintained all operations were consensual.

Hundreds of people, some of them illiterate, said they were forced to undergo operations and not told they could have refused. Some women say they were deceived, threatened with jail, bribed with food parcels, and otherwise pressured into the operations to meet program quotas.

A Peruvian feminist organization, Demus, condemned the decision, saying in a statement: “The program was a public policy that promoted the sterilization of thousands of women in the country, especially in rural areas, who by deception and blackmail were deprived of their reproductive capacities.”

The original investigation into allegations of forced sterilization was archived in 2009, but prosecutors reopened the investigation again in 2011 at the urging of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Fujimori, who led Peru from 1990 to 2000, is now in prison serving four concurrent sentences for corruption, authorizing death squads, and human rights abuses. The longest is 25 years.

For more information please see:

The Boston Globe – Fujimori cleared in Peru sterilization case – 26 January 2014

CNN – Peru will not prosecute former President over sterilization campaign – 25 January 2014

BBC – Peru closes forced sterilisation probe and clears ex-President Alberto Fujimori – 24 January 2014

Fox News –Peru’s Fujimori spared prosecution for 1990s sterilization program – 24 January 2014

Press Release: Magnitsky’s Mother Takes Legal Action Against Interior Ministry to Close Second Posthumous Prosecution of Her Son

Press Release
For Immediate Distribution

27 January 2014 – Sergei Magnitsky’s mother has taken a legal action against the Russian Interior Ministry to terminate the second posthumous case against her son. She has also called for an investigation of those officials who are responsible for the case falsification.

“This criminal case is based on a fictitious event, and therefore must be terminated, and there should be a proper investigation launched into those officials who have falsified the records and organized the second posthumous persecution of my son,” says Ms Magnitskaya in her statement.

Magnitsky’s mother believes that the second posthumous case accusing her son of complicity in the $230 million theft that he had uncovered is an attempt to pressure her into dropping her calls for justice.

“Unlawful acts of officials…cause me unjustified suffering and pain which I consider as a new attempt by investigators to force me to withdraw my calls for justice for my deceased son and for bringing to account those responsible for his unlawful prosecution and murder,” says Ms Magnitskaya.

The complaint by Ms Magnitskaya states that Interior Ministry Investigator Urzhumtsev who was the officer who launched the second posthumous Magnitsky case had a material conflict of interest, as he was a friend of Andrei Pavlov, the lawyer who took part in the collusive lawsuits in various courts which were then used to justify the fraudulent $230 million refund uncovered by Mr Magnitsky.

Ms Magnitskaya’s complaint says that Investigator Urzhumtsev was aware of Magnitsky’s testimonies which exposed those involved in the fraud against Hermitage and the $230 million theft, including Andrei Pavlov.

“The inclusion of false data in the criminal case records is an abuse of office, in this case wilful…A significant part in this falsification was performed by Investigator Urzhumtsev, an acquaintance of A.Pavlov… Investigator Urzhumtsev was aware from the materials of the criminal case …that my son during the stated period confronted the criminal group which perpetrated fraud against his client – the three Russian companies of the Hermitage Fund. He knew of my son’s testimonies from 5 June 2008 and 7 October 2008 in which he exposed the perpetrators and the co-conspirators of the theft,” says the statement.

The new criminal case was opened in secrect and kept from Magnitsky’s family.

“Serious violations of constitutional rights of my son who is deprived of anopportunity to defend himself due to his death in detention centre, his incrimination, in secrecy from his relatives, in committing a serious offence, doing so without issuing him a charge,  and without a valid court verdict in relation to him, is a clear ground to terminate the criminal case No 678540 which is based on a fictitious crime event,” said Ms Magnitskaya in her statement.

For further information, please see:

Law and Order in Russia