The head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division told a Jewish organization that the newly established Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section will be an “unprecedented expansion of the Criminal Division’s commitment of resources to the pursuit of justice in human rights violator cases.”
Criminal Division chief Lanny Breuer (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice)
Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, spoke at a Holocaust Remembrance Program held by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington in Bethesda on Sunday evening.
Breuer has a deep personal interest in bringing Nazi war criminals to justice — his parents escaped from Germany and Austria in 1939, and his mother’s parents were among the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust.
As a college student, Breuer interned for former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman (D-N.Y.), who championed the Office of Special Investigations, the section created in 1979 to bring Nazi war criminals to justice.
Breuer said that under the leadership of Eli Rosenbaum, the office has pushed forward with its work, winning three legal victories in Nazi cases and commencing legal proceedings against two other alleged Nazi criminals in the last year. Rosenbaum was recently profiled in Parade magazine.
Breuer also touted the recently formed Human Rights and Special Prosecution Section, which now includes the special investigations staff. He said the Human Rights section will allow human rights cases to “be handled by one group of dedicated and highly talented professionals in a dynamic new law enforcement unit.”
April 11 marked the start of the week-long Holocaust Days of Remembrance. Attorney General Eric Holder is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s National Tribute Dinner on Wednesday.
Breuer’s prepared remarks are embedded below.
AAG Breuer Holocaust Rememberance
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[...] Criminal Division Chief, Lanny Breuer, boasting of the formation of the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section at DOJ, while speaking at a [...]
[...] Lanny Breuer, chief of the U.S. Justice Department’s Criminal Division, speaking last week at a Holocaust Remembrance Program held by the Jewish Community Relations Council of [...]