So I was reading the paper yesterday. The usual: hoof and mouth disease, railroad strikes, poor weather forecast. All of a sudden, I spot an obituary. It was for Auke Pattist (the online version is here, but it’s in Dutch).
Now, this surprised me. I’d heard of this guy before, but was under the impression that he passed away decades ago. Not so, apparently. So, what is it that Auke did that pisses me off?
Let me translate the gist of the article here.
"War criminal Auke Pattist dies
At age 80, he passed away last wednesday in the Spanish town of Oviedo.
After WWII, Pattist had already ran off to Spain when he was sentenced to death (in adsence) for torture, treason, and cooperation to razzias, tortures, and executions. Allegedly, he was also a member of the Amsterdam based Politie Bataljon (a local Nazi branch, consisting of Dutch people that ratted on Jews in hiding, and on resistance members. They were considered worse than the Nazis, and rightly so).
…
Pattist was able to hide undetected -whilst running a translation agency- in Spain until 1979, when Simon Wiesenthal tracked him down (Wiesenthal is the most famous Nazi hunter ever. Check out his organisations website). By then, his death sentence had already been converted to a life-long one due to the withdrawal of the death penalty from Dutch law. Spain refused to hand over Pattist to the Dutch authorities - he had succesfully claimed Spanish citizenship in 1968, and Spain defended their “subject” as if he was born there. And as if he had always been a model citizen.
…
Pattist was known as a Nazi pur sang. He fought as a member of the Waffen SS on the German Eastern Front. In 1944, he returned to the Netherlands to continue his activities as a Nazi collaborator.
[sub]© De Volkskrant, 2001[/sub]"
So there you go. This poor excuse for a human being was able to live to the grand age of 80. A shitload older than many of his victims: Jews that ended up in concentration camps, or resistance members that ended up in front of a Nazi firing squad. People in the bloom of their lives, either hiding from a disgusting murder machine, or fighting for the resurrection of their country. He never served a day in prison, whereas he should have been shot (I always make an exception to my “no death penalty” reasoning for war criminals arrested right after WWII - sometimes justice HAS a social function, a function that helps restore a nation) after the war ended.
So fuck you, mr. Pattist. Fuck you for vastly outliving your victims, people who would have actually deserved a longer life. And while we’re at it, fuck the Spanish judicial system that prefers a bureaucratic procedure over a just and fair one - or at least did just that in 1979.
What an utterly disgusting story. I just had to get this off my chest, and the Pit seemed the place to do it. Thanks for listening.