Punishment of Nazi Criminals Question: What steps did the Allies take to punish the Nazis for the treatment of Jews? Andrew Mathis answers: The Allies did little to punish the Nazis for their treatment of the Jews during the war itself. Repeated requests by Jewish and human-rights lobbyists for the Allies to bomb the rail lines leading the death camps were ignored until very late in the war. However, a large portion of the Allied trials of Nazi war criminals that took place in Nuremberg after the war concerned the Nazi treatment of the Jews -- particularly the extermination program. A dozen top Nazi officials were hanged for their complicity in crimes against humanity, though the three most responsible parties -- Hitler, SS leader Heinrich Himmler, and high-ranking SS officer Adolf Eichmann -- escaped punishment at Nuremberg. Hitler and Himmler both committed suicide in the last days of the war. Eichmann escaped to Argentina, but he was abducted by the State of Israel in 1960, tried, and executed for his part in the perpetration of the Holocaust. For further information, you may want to see this link: http://www.holocaust-history.org/questions/nuremberg.shtml back to the list of questions
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