Wisconsin - Student Groups Call For Prosecution Of Nazi

Wisconsin - Student groups at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee calld for the prosecution of a local man who claims to be a former Waffen-SS officer and announced last week that he planned to set up a public shrine in his backyard to commemorate the life of Adolf Hitler.

Ted Junker, 87, a retired farmer from Walworth County, Wisconsin, made headlines last week as reported on VOS IZ NEIAS, when he announced that he was building a memorial to Hitler. Even after protests from county officials caused him to retract his plans, student groups say it is important to protest against Junker and his ideology.

"The fact that this Nazi has the gall to openly flaunt his vile ideology, 61 years after the defeat of fascism, is sickening," said some Jewish student group. "The First Amendment's protection of free speech ensures that Junker can continue his hateful propagandizing, yet it does not protect him from criminal investigation and prosecution relating to potential crimes against humanity committed during his days in the Waffen-SS," added Brostoff.

Brostoff said the goal of the protest was to urge the Office of Special Investigation at the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute Junker, who claims to have volunteered for the Nazi SS in 1940 and served on the Eastern Front in World War II. "The SS played a key role in the Holocaust, rounding up Jews and running the concentration/extermination camps in which millions of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Russians and Roma died," said Brostoff. "The Nuremberg Trials declared the entirety of the SS as a criminal organization, because of its implementation of racial policies of genocide in the Holocaust."