ABSTRACT
The extraordinary nature of Nazi crimes often required extraordinary domestic legislation enabling the court system of a given country to handle Post-Nuremberg prosecutions—which they usually have done with great reluctance, belatedly, and only after sufficient political pressure has been brought against the respective government. The significant problem that Israel has had to face in its war crimes prosecutions—which is unique to Israel—concerns the fact that Israel acquired its political independence after the crimes in question were committed. Some case history in the United States indicates a thicket of problems associated with any inquiry into the question of who is to be held responsible for Nazi atrocities, even if most of the Nazi leadership had survived and evaded prosecution. In the years since the immediate post-war Nuremberg trials, thousands of Nazi war criminals have been brought to trial in the domestic courts of many countries.
