Uncategorized
Eli Rosenbaum takes skills honed Nazi-hunting to investigating war crimes in Ukraine
WASHINGTON (JTA) –– During the 35 years Eli Rosenbaum spent hunting Nazis, he always looked up to his forebears in the profession. But it was only recently, as he ventured into Ukraine to track down Russian war criminals, that he felt a personal connection with the investigators who pursued Adolf Hitler’s henchmen in the years following World War II.
For the first time in his career, Rosenbaum was seeking evidence of crimes as soon as, or almost as soon as, they were committed.
“I’m accustomed to working on atrocity crimes when the conflict is over — World War II, Rwanda, Bosnia, Guatemala, et cetera,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency recently. “But in this case, the atrocities are being committed every day.”
Rosenbaum said he has been working “if not 24/7, 20/7” since June, when Merrick Garland, the Jewish U.S. attorney-general, named him to lead the Justice Department’s War Crimes Accountability Team in Ukraine. Rosenbaum had previously spent the bulk of his career in the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, which he directed from 1995 to 2010. The OSI tracked down and deported 70 Nazis hiding in the United States. In 2004, it expanded its purview to track down war criminals from other conflicts who had entered the United States.
Rosenbaum’s current team, he said in congressional testimony in September, “provides Ukrainian authorities with wide-ranging technical assistance, including operational assistance and advice regarding criminal prosecutions, evidence collection, forensics, and relevant legal analysis.”
Rosenbaum rattles off names and events in the evolution of war crimes prosecution in a way that sends a listener scrambling to a search engine. He’s been a war crimes geek since college, when he took a film course and a professor screened Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda film, “Triumph of the Will.”
Rosenbaum told his parents about the movie. His father, Irving, a refugee from Nazi Germany who enlisted in the U.S. Army, had been tapped to interrogate Nazis and their enablers after the war because he spoke German.
“I mentioned to my dad that I was taking this course and we had just seen this film. And my father said, ‘Oh, Leni Riefenstahl. I questioned her after the war.’ I [said], ‘Oh, my God. Really?’”
Rosenbaum recalls his father responding, “Yeah, and I have the report on it. Might your professor want to see it?”
As a student at Harvard Law School, Rosenbaum interned in 1979 for the then-just-established OSI, where he spent the next three decades. Garland, in naming Rosenbaum, said that made him a natural fit for the Ukraine job, noting at the time Rosenbaum’s experience in coordinating among different U.S. government departments.
Describing his work to JTA, Rosenbaum repeatedly circled back to the pioneers of war crimes prosecution, among them, Aron Trainin, the Soviet Jewish scholar, and Robert Jackson, the U.S. Supreme Court justice who established the framework for prosecuting Nazis for the “crime of aggression” at the Nuremberg trials, a concept unknown until then.
The relevance of their theories persists, he said, because Russia is not a signatory to the agreement that established the International Criminal Court, making it difficult to prosecute Russians in that body. Instead, Ukraine wants to set up a special tribunal to try Russians, modeling it on the proceedings at Nuremberg.
“We look to Nuremberg routinely, it is the mother of all trials for international crimes,” Rosenbaum said. “It’s in many ways the origin of international criminal law.”
Rosenbaum feels the “crime of aggression” is particularly relevant in the Ukraine case because Russia’s invasion was unprovoked. He described how the “crime of aggression” became, with President Harry Truman’s blessing, part of the canon in international law enshrined in the principles framing the Nuremberg trial, and then in the United Nations charter.
Rosenbaum is awed by Jackson and his intellectual journey.
“There’s an amazing letter that he wrote to Harry Truman, which I just reread the other day, in the course of my Ukraine work, in which he explains to the president why … there’s no precedent for prosecuting aggression. In the old days, this was how nations behaved. They attacked one another and, under international law, they were considered to have equal standing,” Rosenbaum said. “So [Jackson] said that had to end, and he persuaded President Truman, and now we have that crime in international law.”
Rosenbaum says Ukraine proves Jackson’s prescience. He quoted Jackson’s opening statement at the Nuremberg trials: “What makes this inquest significant is that these prisoners represent sinister influences that will lurk in the world long after their bodies have returned to dust.”
Rosenbaum, like Jackson before him, is appealing to the U.S. government to expand its capacity to prosecute war crimes. In his congressional testimony, Rosenbaum described one area of frustration: Unlike crimes of genocide, war crimes must have a U.S. party (as perpetrator or victim) to be prosecutable in a U.S. court.
Eli Rosenbaum, director of the Human Rights Enforcement Strategy and Policy and counselor for War Crimes Accountability at the US Department of Justice, testifies about the war in Ukraine during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “From Nuremberg to Ukraine: Accountability for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity,” Sept. 28, 2022. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“This means that if a war criminal from the current conflict in Ukraine were, for example, to come to the United States today and were subsequently identified, our war crimes statute would not apply, thus potentially allowing that war criminal and others to walk the streets of our country without fear of prosecution,” Rosenbaum said in his congressional testimony.
Another parallel with World War II that has surprised Rosenbaum is that he is getting reports from survivors of Russian atrocities who are gathering evidence in real time. He mentioned two men he admires: Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, Slovak Jews who fled Auschwitz and were the first to describe, in a detailed report, the mechanics of the Nazi genocide to the outside world.
“I got to meet Rudolf Vrba, who was a witness for [the OSI] in our very first case that was going to trial — eventually it didn’t go to trial, the defendant gave up — but it was an Auschwitz case in Chicago, and Rudolf came out there,” Rosenbaum said. “It’s just amazing that we have his analogs in people who are gathering evidence, people are escaping from Russian captivity.”
Another pair of Nuremberg trials-era researchers that Rosenbaum names as relevant again are Budd and Stuart Schulberg, Jewish brothers who worked for the OSS, the predecessor to the CIA under legendary Hollywood director John Ford. The brothers tracked down films of atrocities that the Nazis themselves had produced, which the Schulbergs then compiled for presentation at the trials. (Budd Schulberg went on to be a celebrated novelist and screenwriter.)
Rosenbaum is a contributing expert to a just-released hour-long documentary on the brothers, titled “Filmmakers for the Prosecution.”
“The Schulberg brothers really pioneered something that’s extremely important in the history of law enforcement and accountability in courts, [which] is something we take for granted here in the 21st century, and that is the presentation of full-motion film [and] video evidence in courts of law,” he said.
Such evidence-gathering is happening today in Ukraine as well, Rosenbaum said.
“The Ukrainian authorities with which we work very closely have a website onto which the public or to which the public can upload their own videos,” he said. “And now that everybody who has a cell phone, has a video camera…so much evidence of the aftermath of atrocities and even the perpetration of atrocities has been captured via moving images.,”
He says he has been rattled at times by researching war crimes as they happen, especially during his visits to Ukraine.
“It was an unforgettably moving experience to meet our colleagues in the middle of a war in Ukraine,” he said. “One of the senior prosecutors was actually in his military fatigues, because he had taken off briefly from his unit for this meeting, and then he went right back.”
—
The post Eli Rosenbaum takes skills honed Nazi-hunting to investigating war crimes in Ukraine appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Musée d’Orsay Opens Permanent Exhibition Space Dedicated to Nazi-Looted Artwork
Inside the Musée d’Orsay. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
The Musée d’Orsay in France opened a new permanent exhibition room on Tuesday dedicated to works of art that were owned by Jews and looted by the Nazis across Europe during World War II before being returned to France after the war.
The new gallery room is titled “To whom do these works belong?” and will feature rotating installations of works of art recovered after World War II also known as Musées Nationaux Récupération (National Museums Recovery) pieces. Provenance investigators and researchers are still working to identify the original owners of these MNR artworks.
“Over time, the room is intended to evolve to present to the public the discoveries resulting from this research, some of which could allow new restitutions,” said the museum. “It thus constitutes a space of memory, transparency and active research, at the heart of contemporary issues related to the history of the collections.”
Now on display in the exhibition is 13 works, including the 1879 painting “Dinner at the Ball” by Edgar Degas, according to The Times. The painting was previously owned by Fernand Ochsé, a Jewish merchant and art collector living in France who was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust along with his wife. The painting was among thousands of artworks stolen by the Nazis or forcibly sold to Nazi occupiers in France. Also on display in the exhibit is Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s portrait “Madame Alphonse Daudet” from 1876.
The new gallery room and research done by provenance investigators is being funded with support from the nonprofit organization American Friends of Musées d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie (AFMO). According to the organization, 60,000 artworks looted by the Nazis during World War II around Europe were returned to France by 1950 and 224 of those recovered artworks are housed at the museum and in need of further provenance research to find their original owners. Fifteen MNRs kept at the Musée d’Orsay have already been returned to its rightful owners.
Over the next few years, AFMO will fund a team of art historians and researchers, led by provenance expert Dr. Ines Rotermund-Reynard, and they will focus on finding the owners of the 224 recovered artworks in the Musée d’Orsay’s collections, but also approximately 200 additional pieces acquired by the museum after 1933.
Uncategorized
California Man Pleads Guilty to Killing Jewish Pro-Israel Protester; Judge Weighs Light Sentence
Chalk drawer Elena Colombo of the Hamakom Synagogue draws a blue star around blood at the exact location on the sidewalk where Paul Kessler was attacked in Thousand Oaks, California, US, Nov. 7, 2023. Photo: Mike Blake via Reuters Connect
Prosecutors in Ventura County, California have obtained a felony conviction against a community college professor who caused the death of an elderly Jewish man he struck in the face with a megaphone during a heated argument which started at the interstice of dueling demonstrations over the Israel-Hamas war.
Loay Alnaji, 54, on Tuesday pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and battery causing serious injury, along with a special allegation and aggravating factor that he personally used a weapon to strike pro-Israel protester, 69, according to the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office.
The killing occurred in November 2023, when pro- and anti-Israel protesters confronted each other in the city of Thousand Oaks, in the early days of the Gaza war. Prosecutors said Alnaji hit Kessler in the head with a megaphone. Kessler fell to the ground, hit his head on the pavement, and died the next day.
However, even though the charges carry a maximum of four years in prison, Alnaji faces a much lighter sentence when he appears in court on June 25 for his sentencing. Ventura County Superior Court Judge Derek Malan, who is presiding over the case, has promised to honor an agreement to limit his sentence to three years of “formal probation” and “up to” one year in jail for a guilty plea.
Following the proceedings, the Ventura County District Attorney’s office said that so light a punishment, reportedly negotiated directly between Alnaji and Malan ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, is contrary to the preferences of the prosecutorial team which fought to hold him fully accountable for the weight of the crime.
“Alnaji should be sentenced to prison for his violent behavior, and our office strongly objects to any lesser sentence,” district attorney Erik Nasarenko said. “While no amount of punishment will ever fully account for the Kessler family loss, a prison commitment underscores the severity of this crime and will deter others from committing similar acts of violence.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Kessler sustained two impacts — the blow to his head and a second from the concrete to which he fell after being knocked down. Given the charged political climate in which the killing occurred, law enforcement officials hesitated for days to pronounce that the matter would lead to criminal charges, citing conflicting witness accounts of the altercation. At one point, Alnaji’s only interaction with the Ventura County Police Department was a traffic stop initiated while officers conducted a search of his home.
Ultimately, 10 days passed before police officers arrested him on the charges to which he pled guilty on Tuesday — and he almost evaded those when Judge Ryan Wright, the first judge presiding over the case, ruled that there was insufficient evidence to hold a trial.
Since being assigned to the Kessler case in March following the death of its former presiding judge, Malan has avoided relating Alnaji’s actions to rising antisemitic hatred in the US, downgrading the deadly encounter to a disagreement between “two old guys.”
Doing so miscarries justice, the leader of a Jewish civil rights organization told The Algemeiner on Wednesday, stressing the importance of the justice system’s responding to antisemitic violence and hate crimes with a meaningful deterrent.
“The outrageously lenient plea deal offered to Loay Alnaji is a devastating failure of justice that minimizes the death of 69-year-old Jewish man Paul Kessler and sends a chilling message about how seriously antisemitic violence,” said Liora Rez, executive director and founder of StopAntisemitism. “By intervening against the district attorney’s recommendation and dismissing this killing as merely ‘two old guys’ having a dispute, Judge Derek Malan ignored both the deadly consequences of Alnaji’s actions and the disturbing reality that someone promoting pro-Hamas propaganda helped fuel the environment that led to Kessler’s death.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
Uncategorized
Israel Prepares for Possible Return to War in Gaza as Ceasefire Talks Stall, Hamas Rejects Disarmament
Israeli soldier on guard in Gaza, February 2026. Photo: Jonathan Sacerdoti / The Algemeiner
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas continues to reject disarmament and further stalls progress on the US-backed Gaza ceasefire deal, Israeli officials are weighing contingency plans for a renewed military campaign should negotiations collapse entirely.
According to multiple media reports, the Israel Defense Forces believes the current negotiations are unlikely to result in either Hamas’s disarmament or the full demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, warning that the terrorist group is exploiting the diplomatic pause to rebuild its capabilities, consolidate control, and further entrench its governance in Gaza.
“Hamas is deliberately dragging its feet. It is exploiting attention on Iran and Lebanon and, in the meantime, is entrenching itself in the Gaza Strip — reasserting control over the territory, establishing governance structures, and rebuilding its military capabilities,” a military source told the Israeli news outlet Walla.
“As things stand, there are two possibilities: a US declaration that the negotiations have reached a deadlock and a return to fighting, or Washington pushing a partial, ‘perforated’ agreement on Israel that would significantly undermine our security interests and erode the operational gains achieved so far,” he continued.
As regional tensions continue to mount, Maj. Gen. Yaniv, commander of the IDF Southern Command, on Wednesday presented Israel’s political leadership with a new operational plan pushing the military to brace for a potential return to combat and initiate a wide-ranging reassessment of its ground maneuver strategy and operational approach.
For months now, the US-led Board of Peace has been conducting parallel negotiations with Israel and Hamas, attempting to tie the large-scale reconstruction of the war-torn enclave to the complete dismantling of the terror group’s weapons arsenal.
However, after continued failed attempts to reach an agreement, the Board of Peace will not hold Israel to the terms of last year’s ceasefire any longer if Hamas again rejects the proposed disarmament framework, according to a document obtained by The Times of Israel.
The board’s High Representative for Gaza Nickolay Mladenov has previously warned that Hamas’s refusal to disarm could trigger a resumption of the war. But now, the official is reportedly signaling that Israel would not be expected to halt military operations or guarantee humanitarian access to Gaza if the ceasefire framework collapses.
Hamas has consistently refused to relinquish its weapons, insisting that Israel must first fully comply with phase one of the ceasefire — including expanded humanitarian aid deliveries, full reopening of the Rafah crossing, and withdrawal of Israeli forces to the agreed Yellow Line — before any disarmament process can proceed.
For its part, Israel has warned that the Islamist group must fully disarm for the second phase of the ceasefire to move forward, pointing to tens of thousands of rifles and an active network of underground tunnels still under the terrorist group’s control.
If Hamas does not give up its weapons, Israeli officials have vowed not to withdraw troops from Gaza any further or approve any rebuilding efforts, effectively stalling the ceasefire agreement.
Under the ceasefire, the Israeli military currently controls over 50 percent of Gaza, while Hamas remains entrenched in the nearly half of Gazan territory it still controls, where the vast majority of the population lives.
In its latest counterproposal, the terrorist group said that any transfer of its weapons would only be possible as part of a wider process leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
As the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement remains stalled, Israeli officials have warned that Hamas is quietly exploiting the pause in fighting to tighten its control over civilian life while simultaneously rebuilding its military capabilities behind the scenes.
Last month, local elections saw the Palestinian Authority (PA) record notable gains, with results appearing strong on the surface. However, experts warn the outcome actually reinforced Hamas’s political theater, projecting an image of shifting authority while the group effectively maintains its control on the ground.
According to a report by Israel’s Channel 14, although newly elected municipal figures are formally affiliated with Fatah, the party of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, the presence of Hamas-linked representatives still signals the group’s continued political penetration at the local level.
Beyond official political appointments, Hamas-linked personnel are widely believed to remain embedded within municipal administrative structures, enabling the group to maintain effective control over day-to-day governance away from public view.
At the same time, through checkpoints, strict regulation of goods, and control over key public institutions, including hospitals, the Palestinian terrorist group has been quietly reestablishing its civilian governance structures across the war-torn enclave, with its authority still visibly enforced on the ground.
Hamas has also been reactivating internal security mechanisms to enforce day-to-day order, while conducting extensive intelligence operations aimed at identifying alleged collaborators with Israel and suppressing any opposition.
In an effort to reassert control and shore up its weakened position, the group has launched a violent internal campaign against armed militias and local gangs, targeting those it labels “lawbreakers and collaborators,” with the crackdown escalating into widespread clashes and violence as Hamas members move to seize weapons and eliminate remaining pockets of resistance.
Even after more than two years of war, the group is also rebuilding its military capabilities, including recruiting new operatives, conducting field and command-level training, restoring intelligence and surveillance networks, and reconstructing underground tunnel systems and weapons stockpiles.