DEFEATED BY DEATH

By Barbara Sofer

This week Israel Television began broadcasting the acclaimed 10-hour miniseries "Band of Brothers" produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. The program follows the men of the U.S. Army's Easy Company, 506th Regiment, and 101st Airborne, from basic training in Georgia in 1942 to victory in 1945 and salutes the valor of American soldiers who fought for a righteous cause. Indeed, the Allied victory over evil is cause for commemoration. We can only shudder at the thought of a different outcome, for the world in general and for the Jews in particular, realizing how close Hitler came to achieving the Final Solution.

But as we return to the scenes of World War II on the small screen, we dare not ignore a recent defeat in real life. Half a century after the war another righteous battle goes on: the hunt for Nazis and collaborators who perpetrated the most savage crime in history. Just last month, Antanas Gecas-the archetype alleged Nazi collaborator -- died in a clean and comfortable hospital in Scotland. He was 85. May his memory be cursed.

Gecas's residence should have been a dank prison cell. Instead, he ran a guesthouse in pretty Scotland.

Gecas, formerly Gecevicius, admitted being a junior lieutenant in the infamous 12th Lithuanian Security Police battalion, which had actively participated in the murder of Jews in Kaunas, Slutzk, Minsk, Dukara and Koidanov. And yes, he'd "seen Jews killed."

Nazi-hunter. Efraim Zuroff, Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, was personally on Gecas's tail for 15 years. Burly and combative, Gecas always seemed to have a secret that he knew would shield him from conviction.

15 years ago this week, in 1986, a list of 17 names of suspected Nazis and collaborators prepared in Jerusalem was presented to the British government. Scottish Television and the non-sectarian All-Party Parliamentary War Crimes Group bolstered Zuroff's efforts to have a commission of inquiry established. The government refused, supported by most of the British press. The Daily Telegraph breathed a sigh of relief on its editorial pages : the "distasteful" sport of Nazi-hunting wouldn't be allowed in Britain, "almost half a century after the alleged horrors took place." Gecas also succeeded in gaining an interim injunction against the publication in England of Zuroff's important book ,Occupation: Nazi-Hunter, which was only published six years later in the U.S.

Not until 1991 did justice seem to gain on Gecas. That year, a War Crimes Bill was signed by the Queen, allowing the prosecution of the suspects. In 1992, Gecas lost another battle, this time a defamation suit against Scottish TV which claimed he'd slaughtered Jews in his special battalion. But, despite all expectations, the Scottish indictment of Gecas on war crimes charges never was issued.

Innkeeper Gecas had reached robust golden age when new hope for prosecuting him sprang from a surprise source. The government of Lithuania, eager to join NATO, yielded to pressure to prosecute its Nazi war criminals. Last March, Lithuania asked Scotland for Gecas's extradition, the first such prosecution in a country where a record 97 percent of the Jews were slaughtered with the enthusiastic participation of the locals.

Gecas wasn't eager to face a tribunal in his homeland. Facing extradition, the former junior lieutenant Gecas begged to be granted his wish to live out his remaining years peacefully in Scotland because he wouldn't be able to stand the trauma of being tried. Following Scottish government's decision with great interest were hundreds of former Nazis and collaborators who live as free men and women in Western democracies. Many of them were encouraged to establish themselves in countries of refuge after the war. The chances of catching and persecuting fade by the day. Survivors who can testify are scarce; sometimes entire villages have disappeared. Governments have learned that if they stall long enough, they can avoid the messiness of what the Telegraph called "alleged horrors." .

There are those who argue that such efforts are wasteful so many years after the war. Not for those whose parents, siblings and children were slaughtered. Not for us, a people commanded to remember Amalek.

The Scottish Executive deemed Gecas too sickly to stand trial in Lithuania . Thus, the man who was accused of involvement in the deaths of more than 30,000 civilians defeated us in his death. Zuroff takes scant consolation in the knowledge that at least he succeeded in disturbing Gecas's tranquility in his final years. He sees Gecas's escape from justice as a personal and national failure. "When people who took part in the worst crimes in the history of mankind get away with their crimes, that is a corruptive message to the world."

With so much evidence against Gecas, why was an enlightened country like Great Britain so sluggish in its pursuit? According to Zuroff, evidence has emerged indicating that Gecas had served a term for MI5. Just as Western democracies coaxed former Nazi scientists to join their own missile programs, so intelligence agencies were glad to have foreigners who would provide linguistic and insider knowledge for them.

Making pacts with devils is always a dangerous practice. Western governments need to remember today as they form their alliances and coalitions in the current battle for the future of humankind.}