Vienna, Austria – Officials have offered $69,000 rewards for information leading to the arrest of two fugitive Nazi criminals, including a key figure in the planning and execution of the murder of Jews during World War II.
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The Justice Ministry posted features photos and physical descriptions of Aribert Heim, a concentration camp doctor, and Alois Brunner, the right-hand man of Adolf Eichmann, the Gestapo officer who organized the extermination of the Jews.
The notice states that individuals — not authorities who would have a duty to prosecute criminal acts — will be paid $69,000 for information enabling Austrian authorities to capture either of the men, both now in their 90s.
Heim is "strongly suspected of murdering numerous prisoners" in the Mauthausen concentration camp by injecting them directly in the heart with a deadly poison.
Brunner is "strongly suspected of being significantly involved in the deportation of Jewish persons with the aim of murdering them," the notice reads. It also states that Brunner is presumed to have mutilated hands and just one remaining eye.
Heim practiced medicine in Germany after the war and fled after the government charged him in 1962 with killing hundreds of concentration inmates in Germany and Austria with lethal injections. Brunner is believed to have found refuge in Syria.[International Herald Tribune]