Safe Haven

Drawing on previously unavailable archival documents, transcripts of interviews with suspects, and disclosures by senior lawyers and policer offers in the War Crimes Units (WCUs), in parallel with the history of bungled investigations in the 1940s, Safe Haven considers for the first time why and how convictions failed to follow investigations. Within the broader context of war crimes investigations in the United States, Germany, and Australia, the authors reassess the legal and investigative processes and decisions that stymied inquiries, from the War Crimes Act itself to the restrictive criteria applied to it. Taken together, the authors argue that these -- including the interpretations of who could and should be prosecuted and decisions about the nature and amount of evidence needed for trial -- meant that many Nazi collaborators escaped justice and never appeared in a criminal court.

The authors situate this history within the legacy of the Holocaust: how, if at all, do the belated attempts to address a failure of justice sit with an ever-growing awareness of the Holocaust, represented by memorialization and education? In so doing, Safe Haven provokes a timely reconsideration of the relationship between law, history, and truth.