ABSTRACT
The innocence of families is on its face uncontested; but family members are at least as much victims of deliberate deception as they are of the prosecution process. In the case of Nazi-related prosecutions, virtually all so far have been successful in demonstrating on the basis of sufficient evidence the identities of defendants. The "extenuating circumstances" argument has a cluster of related themes, which appear either to diminish the severity of both criminal and moral wrongdoing or to excuse the wrongdoers from prosecution altogether and thence from punishment. In showing the weakness of the 'contrition' argument, the intention is not to suggest that if only former Nazi war criminals were genuinely contrite or could be rehabilitated to feel contrite, then the argument against prosecution would hold. The reason for setting aside justice with respect to the accused concerns solely a matter of greater injustice to Holocaust victims that would inevitably ensue from prosecution.
