World War II Database

Austrian Nazi Alois Brunner oversaw the deportation of 47,000 Austrian Jews, 44,000 Greek Jews, 23,500 French Jews, and 14,000 Slovakian Jews to Auschwitz Concentration Camp; a great many of them would perish at this extermination camp in occupied Poland. At the end of the war, he was able to hide before the Allies identified him as a key player in the Holocaust. He was found to be in Syria, but, unlike his former commanding officer Adolf Eichmann, Israeli authorities were not able to assassinate nor capture him. In 2010, a source considered to be reliable by the Simon Wiesenthal Center informed the center that Brunner died of natural causes in 2010. Efraim Zuroff, director of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, removed Brunner from the wanted list in 2010 despite the inability to confirm the intelligence, since Brunner would have been of advanced age regardless. Zuroff expressed regret that Brunner, who continued to persecute Jews as an advisor to the Syrian government, escaped justice.

For more information:
BBC: Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner 'died in Syria'
NY Times: A Long-Sought Fugitive Died Four Years Ago in Syria, Nazi Hunter Says
WW2DB: Alois Brunner

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