Transitional Justice as Closure to the Past Through Lustrations

Vigilante justice may identify the attempts of Holocaust victims to avenge themselves by punishing or executing the oppressors, and victor’s justice may identify rescuers’ advantageous exercise of power against perpetrators. At the time of liberation, while perpetrators were within easy reach of the hands of their victims, they were subjected to violent reprisals and executions without trial. The ability of surviving victims to corner and detain their enemies was short-lived. Perpetrators sought to distance themselves from their victims by taking flight or by disappearing into the mass of bystanders. Some officers who had the forethought to anticipate the Allies’ victory placed a change of civilian clothes at hand to make a quick escape. By evading prosecution these perpetrators extended the injustice. When the moment of liberation passed, society would have to determine how to deal justly with the perpetrators they were able to detain. This chapter looks at traditional ways that have been used to conduct lustrations.