Associated Press Published- According to Simon Wiesenthal Center Serbia is not doing enough to bring war criminals to justice. A Nazi hunter criticized Serbian authorities or failing to seek the extradition of three men with suspected links to atrocities against Jews, Serbs and Gypsies during World War II.

Efraim Zuroff, director of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center's office in Israel, said Serbian authorities have done little to bring to justice Ivo Rojnica and Milivoj Asner, and Sandor Kepiro. "Sadly, we have heard a lot of nice words, but there was no concrete action" by Serb authorities to start the extradition procedure, Zuroff said after attending a commemoration for some 1,400 victims of the Nazi occupation in 1942 in Novi Sad, northern Serbia. Serbian officials refused to comment. In the past, Serbian authorities have said they would seek the extradition of the three men. Crimes were committed in Serbia. Zuroff believes Serbia should request their extradition and bring them to trial because some of their alleged crimes were committed in Serbia. Killings committed in Novi Sad after they entered the region in the wake of the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia.

The Serbs are generally perceived to have behaved better than other nationalities in Yugoslavia toward the Jews during World War II. Assumptions deserve closer scrutiny. When the Germans occupied Belgrade in 1941, a collaborationist Serb administration was set up by the Nazis in the Serbian areas. It was headed by a Serbian commander and former Yugoslav minister of war, Gen. Milan Nedic. t was this collaborationist Serbian regime that issued anti-Jewish laws, deprived Jews of their property and livelihood, herded them into concentration camps and delivered them to their deaths at the hands of the Germans.

Serbia collaborated to such an extent that the Serbs were able to retain significant civilian authority. The Serbian Orthodox Church openly supported Nazi policy and theologically justified persecution of the Jews. These elements, working together, caused the Nazi civil administrator to proclaim Serbia the only country where the “Jewish question” was solved, and Belgrade the first city “judenfrei.” In is noteworthy that, six months prior to the war, Serbian enacted laws prohibiting Jews to participate in the economy and the university.

Serbian government under General Milan Nedic, a close collaborator of the Nazi officials, proclaimed Belgrade to be the first "Judenfrei" city in Europe (see [Cohen] in Helsinki or Cohen's important book for more details). Belgrade was the only European capital that had concentration camps exclusively for Jews (Sajmiste and Banjica), see e.g. [Pecaric]. There are no holocaust memorial tablets in Belgrade, as is the case in the similar camps elsewhere in Europe.