20 Facts About Efraim Zuroff

Efraim Zuroff is an American-born Israeli historian and Nazi hunter who has played a key role in bringing indicted Nazi and fascist war criminals to trial.

Efraim Zuroff returned to Israel in 1980, where he served as a researcher for the US Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations.

Efraim Zuroff's efforts assisted in the preparation of cases against numerous Nazi war criminals living in the United States.

Efraim Zuroff rejoined the Wiesenthal Center in 1986 and uncovered the postwar escape of hundreds of Nazi war criminals to Australia, Canada, Great Britain and other countries.

Efraim Zuroff continued to coordinate the center's international efforts to bring perpetrators of the Holocaust to justice.

Efraim Zuroff played an important role in the exposure, arrest, extradition and prosecution of Dinko Sakic, the former commandant of the Ustasha concentration camp Jasenovac.

In 2002, together with Aryeh Rubin, the founder of the Targum Shlishi Foundation of Miami, Florida, Efraim Zuroff launched Operation Last Chance, which offers financial rewards for information which will facilitate the prosecution and punishment of Nazi war criminals.

Efraim Zuroff, continued the hunt for the Nazi war criminal Aribert Heim after Simon Wiesenthal died in 2005.

On July 6,2008, Efraim Zuroff headed to South America as part of a public campaign to capture Heim.

Efraim Zuroff elaborated on July 15,2008 that he was sure Heim was alive and the groundwork had been laid to capture him within weeks.

Efraim Zuroff was lukewarm in his reaction to the reported death of Heim in Cairo in 1992.

Efraim Zuroff concedes that Heim had undoubtedly lived in hiding in Egypt.

Efraim Zuroff's publications have appeared in scholarly journals such as Yad Vashem Studies, Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual, Jewish Political Studies Review, and American Jewish History, as well as in the Los Angeles Times, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, die Tageszeitung, Profil, The Boston Globe, The Jerusalem Post, Tikkun, Jerusalem Report, Maariv, Haaretz, Yediot Achronot, The Jewish Chronicle, Eretz Acheret, and other publications.

Efraim Zuroff has lectured extensively to audiences all over the world regarding the efforts to bring Nazi war criminals to justice.

In 1995 and 1996, Efraim Zuroff was invited to Rwanda to assist the local authorities in their efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of the genocide which took place in that country in spring 1994, and he has served as an official advisor to the Rwandan government.

On March 4,2020, Efraim Zuroff was invited to the Tennessee Holocaust Conference at The First Baptist Church in Greeneville, Tennessee, giving a lecture to approximately one-thousand children, educating them about the horrors of the Holocaust and how he helped arrest Nazis that fled from their punishment after the war.

In recognition of his efforts as a Nazi-hunter and Holocaust scholar, Efraim Zuroff was nominated by Serbian President Boris Tadic and the members of parliament of the Democratic Party of Serbia as a candidate for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize.

On January 15,2010, Efraim Zuroff was decorated with the Order of Duke Trpimir by Croatian President Stjepan Mesic for special contributions against historical revisionism and for the reaffirming of antifascist foundations of the modern Republic of Croatia.

Efraim Zuroff has repeatedly refused to characterize the Srebrenica massacre as genocide, although those mass killings were ruled as a genocide by the International Court of Justice as well as by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Efraim Zuroff is married and has four children and 14 grandchildren.