Newsletter for the Alumni and Friends of
Hicksville High School Hicksville, New York

The Editors:
Buffalo Bob Casale '61	Linda (Piccerelli) Hayden '60
Pat (Koziuk) Driscoll '56	Bob (Gleason) Wesley '61

Contributing Editors: Bob Gillette & Walter Schmidt

Webmaster: Roger Whitaker

To contact the editors, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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The Newsletter

Photo Gallery

Birthdays & Anniversaries

Honoring our Veterans

 The following was republished from the August 2022 article.

Hicksville Vietnam War Era Memorial Dedication Ceremony

Overview By John Tranchina - HHS 1964

Memorial Day 2022 - It was though a burden was lifted from the community after months of isolation from friends, neighbors and family, as a result of Covid restrictions. As dawn emerged the eastern sky was a clear light blue.

Spectators and participants gathered on the lawn of the Middle School to pay tribute to those who fell in combat over past and recent years.  The various monuments at the Memorial Garden represent not only the fallen but past residents of the community who served this country in times of conflict.

Some of the monuments are specific to the Fallen and others are to Compliment the Community members who served either by volunteering or by conscription to serve. The Vietnam War Era Memorial represents both the living and fallen, who lived in Hicksville between 1962 and 1975.

The gathering at the Middle School started with a parade led by Hicksville's American Legion, members of the H.H.S. Marching Band, followed by various community organizations to include the H.F.D.  Fire Fighters, H.F.D. Jr. Fire Fighters and Marching Band, paid for by the H.F.D. for the occasion.

The Vietnam War Era Memorial was presented and dedicated by Tommy Sullivan (Class of 1963) and was received well. I have received positive feedback from members of the community in regard to the overall effort of The Memorial Team, its construction and appearance of the monument and placement in the garden site.

Thanks to all of the people that Tommy Sullivan highlighted in his Memorial Day Presentation for answering my calls and coming up with good solutions and suggestions which made it easier to move forward with the project.

John(Jay) Tranchina

HHS Class of 1964

Dedication Ceremony Speech - Tommy Sullivan - HHS 1963

Dedication Ceremony Captioned Photos

Vietnam War Era Memorial shown on Memorial Day 2022 as part of Hicksville's Memorial Park; 
being Celebrated by The Vietnam Veterans of America Honor Guard.

Close up of Vietnam War Era Memorial on Dedication Ceremony Day

 Joe Platt, HHS Grad & Largest Single Donor to Vietnam Memorial Fund, with Jay Tranchina, 
Committee Member who oversaw Memorial Construction.

Tommy Sullivan, Dedication Ceremony Speaker & MC, with attending HHS graduates

Tommy Sullivan with Jay Tranchina & Mike Melody

Original Dedication Stone for Hicksville's Veterans Memorial Park

View of WW II Memorial on Memorial Day 2022

Other Memorials within Hicksville's Veterans Memorial Park

Additional view of Memorial Gardens during Dedication Ceremony.

Memorial Day Parade Band and attendees during Memorial Day 2022 Ceremonies 

This project began 15 years ago with roughly 150 names for the Memorial and was expanded to over 1,900 names when the Memorial was built.  A Special Thank You goes to Adrienne Dolgin, a Hicksville alumna, who spent countless hours behind the scenes, with the help of the Hicksville Public Library staff, combing old microfilm articles for new names and details.

Also, a Very Special Thank You to our entire Memorial Committee, who contributed names for the Memorial, along with various ideas and other help.  In addition to the above mentioned alumni and this writer, they include; Bob Casale, Joe Ingino, Terry Wallace and two members, who unfortunately did not live to see the Memorial built; Carl Probst and Tony Plonski.
We also could not have accomplished this Project without the dedicated help and support of the HixNews editorial staff, for whom we are especially grateful.

Further information on the disposition of names submitted for the Memorial after its construction, along with plans for the final donation of any remaining funds to worthy Veteran's causes, will be published in future issues of HixNews.
On behalf of the Project Team,
Joe Carfora
HHS 1962

 A heartfelt Thank You to all of our donors to the
Hicksville Vietnam Era Memorial Project!!

Through June, 2022, 223 donors have enabled us to achieve a donation total of $41,503!!

Following is the current list of donors:   Ackerman, Dr. Helen R. Andersen, Chris Anglim, Tim & Barbara Annucci, Dianne C. Arroyo, Ann & Frank Babenzien, Suzon (Cohen) Backman, Stephan Baum, Steve & Diane Bedell, Don & Janice Beltrani, Frank & Frances Bemberis, Ivars & Jeannette Bergholtz, Janet Berlenbach, Jr., John & Betty Bernett Family Best, Theresa & Joseph Birk, Robert Bocchiere, Anthony J., Jr. Boris, Joan & Joseph Brigandi, Arleen Brophy, Donald R. Brophy, Michael (In Memory) Budinich, Patricia & Richard Burke, John & Lois Calandrillo, Anthony Callejas, Ruben & Aramilda Canham, William & Rita Carey, Daniel, Jr. Carfora, Joe & Sharon Ann Carfora, Santo & Jeanne Casale, Robert Castagna, Denise & Anthony Catanzariti, Gregory & Anne Chiappone, Dolores & Robert Cheeseman, Robert & Lorraine Christianson, Donald & Kathryn Cohen, Dr. Howard Colasuonno, Steven Connelly, Linda Convery, Harold Corley, Karen Costello, William & Karren Cowell, Paul Cronin, Christopher & Patricia Cuoco, Gail Cullen, Michael Dantuono, Diana & Cousins, Pete Davis, Angela & Steve Davis, Cheryl (Proffe) & William Degnan, Ryan & Karyn Degnan, Shawn & Robyn Degnan, Walter & Karen Delaney, Robert Dethlefsen, Barbara (Bieniewicz) Dinora, Rose (Schweitzer) Dolan, James & Maryann Dunne, Patrick & Barbara Dyckman, Johanna (LoGerfo) & William Faraone, Ed Feinsilver, Rhona Appelman Fernbach, Stephen & Nancy Fippinger, Gary & Karen Fischer, Frederick & Barbara Fishman, Sheila Florio, Paulette Foster, Pete Fox, John & Joan Frassanito, Elena Marie Fulco, Philip & Valerie Fuchs, Michael Furgiuele, Peter & Martha Galke, Douglas & Mary Gallo, Francis & Frances Gavin, Thomas Germain, Joseph & Diane Germain, Michael & Elizabeth Giaccaglia, Susan Giannelli, Edward & Angela Gill, Thomas & Margaret Gordon, Eve Gowrie, Karen Guiliano, John & Barbara Hansen, Hugh Happel, Neal & Helen Healey, Laura Marie Hearon, Charles & Cathie Hearon, Philip Hellrigel, Thomas & Victoria Hemger, Marguerite & Thomas Henningsen, Charles & Charla Herfel, Paul Jr. & Alcira HFD Hook & Ladder Company 1 HHS Class of 1967 Hicksville Class of 1965 Reunion Hicksville Fire Department Hicksville High Fundraiser, 4/15/16 & 4/19 (cash donations) Hicksville High School Alumni Foundation Hicksville High School Student Government Hicksville Veterans Association/VFW Hicksville Veterans Memorial Committee Hilton, Patricia & William Hoffer, Richard & Patricia Huber, Gene & Jo Ann Imbrie, Carolyn Ingino, Joe Jaworski, Brad Jones, Robert & Marianne Katz, Carol Kaye, Nancy & John Kelly, Kathy Kenefick, Margaret & Ronald Kennedy, Joe & Mary Koziuk, Francis & Kathleen (Day) Krummenacker, Michael LaFeir, Len & Catherine Lake , Robert & Robin Lehmann, Ethel & George L. Lembke, Arthur & Dorothea Levitin, Patricia Levitt, Samuel J. (In Memory of brothers Eugene, WWII & Milton , Korea ) Libert, Elaine M Lichtenstein, Henry. Listort, Dennis Lynn, Sidney Maas, Brian Maas , Brian (In Memory of brother Palmer) Madden, Mark & Barbara Manelski, Stephen (In Memory of brother Thomas) Maniec, John Masciello, Michael Masone, Robert & Marleen McCallion, John & Janet McCormack, Ronald M. (In Memory) McIsaac, Rev. Robert M. & Margaret Melody, Michael & Susan Menghi, Ed & Jo Ann Milich, Ellen & Joseph Moos, Sanford & Marta Morton, Thomas & Francis Neri Mucchiari, Jean Muller, Ray & Maryanne Mullin, Thomas & Wendy Mulvihill, Thomas Neely, Judith Oehler, Robert A. Olivari, Irene & Lawrence Olsen, Glen & Maureen Osborne, Edward A. Osborne, Richard O'Shaughnessy, Ellen H. Ostroski, John & Maureen Otten, Robert & Leslie Peluso, Robert J., Jr. Pfaender, Richard & Lorraine Phon, Tom & Renee Piccirilli , Virginia Pietras, Robert & Victoria Pizzariella, John & Katherine Pizzo , Lorraine Platt, Joe Pohl, Kenneth & Rosemary Polanski, Christopher & Barbara Polit, Robert & Mary Ellen Plonski, Anthony J., Jr. Plonski, Anthony J., Jr. (In Memory of brother, Robert) Probst, Carl Proia, Mildred Przybyszewski, Barbara, in Honor of Cousin Ralph Kowalski Przybyszewski, Ralph & Barbara Pugarelli, Frederick Quinn, Kevin & Kathleen Recine, Vincent & Mary Reid, Maureen & George Rigdon, Alice Rivoire, Edward & Patricia Rizzo, Joyce E. Rocek, Ron Rossi, Denis Roth, Doris & Julie Rothschild, Paula Rowan, Elke & Donald Rozos, John Rozos, Michael & Sharon Rycar, Judith Sacks, Darlene Sandler, Marcia & Howard Salvino, Mary; in Honor of Father, Joseph H. Muldowney, WWII Schiavone, Kathleen & Phillip Schilling, Leona & Cliff Schlosser, Joseph & Jennifer Schrimpe, Donna Schultz, Dale & Dee Schwamb, Fred & Janet Schwartz, Fred Seritage SRC Finance Sheil, Linda Shepski, Stan & Linda Sherburne, William & Marcia Silbert, Linda & Alvin Siracusa, Lou Smith, Stephen & Lenore Starpoli, Joseph & Janet Stevens, Paul & Denise Strafer, Kenneth J. Talent for Troops Thomas, Mark & Karen Thurer, Robert & Shari Tranchina, John & Carol Traub, Richard Uusitalo, Leonard W. Van Buren, Carolyn (Fischer) Vines, Kathryn Volpe-Browne, Dorothea Walden, William Wallace, Terence K. Warshawsky, Peter W. Wassmer, Donald Weber, Walter Weiss, Harvey & Shirley Williams, Robert Wink, George W. Winkel, Fred & Barbara Winkel, Martin Woodcheke, Michael & Denise Woods Realty (Harold Woods) Zabbia, Luke & Grace Zeier, Ronald Zuckerman, Howard F.

Thank you!!

Memory Lane

It is 20 years since 9/11/01. Here is a wonderful TRUE story about that terrible day.

By Jerry Brown, flight attendant Delta Flight 15

On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, we were about 5 hours out of Frankfurt, flying over the North Atlantic. Suddenly, the curtains parted, and I was told to go to the cockpit, immediately, to see the captain. As soon as I got there, I noticed that the crew had that "All Business" look on their faces. The captain handed me a printed message. It was from Delta's main office in Atlanta and simply read, "All airways over the Continental United States are closed to commercial air traffic. Land ASAP at the nearest airport. Advise your destination.

"No one said a word about what this could mean. We knew it was a serious situation and we needed to find some place quickly. The captain determined that the nearest airport was 400 miles behind us in Gander, Newfoundland.

He requested approval for a route change from the Canadian traffic controller and approval was granted immediately -- no questions asked. We found out later, of course, why there was no hesitation in approving our request.

While the flight crew prepared the airplane for landing, another message arrived from Atlanta telling us about some terrorist activity in the New York area. A few minutes later word came in about the hijackings.

We decided to LIE to the passengers while we were still in the air. We told them the plane had a simple instrument problem and that we needed to land at the nearest airport in Gander, Newfoundland, to have it checked out.

We promised to give more information after landing in Gander. There was much grumbling among the passengers, but that's nothing new! 40 minutes later, we landed in Gander. Local time at Gander was 12:30 PM; that's 11:00 AM EST.

There were already about 20 other airplanes there from all over the world that had taken this detour on their way to the U.S. After we parked on the ramp, the captain made the following announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, you must be wondering if all these airplanes around us were having the same instrument problem as we had? The reality is that we are here for another reason." Then he went on to explain the little bit we knew about the situation in the U.S. There were loud gasps and stares of disbelief. The captain informed passengers that Ground Control in Gander told us to stay put.

The Canadian Government oversaw our situation, and no one was allowed to get off the aircraft. No one on the ground was allowed to come near any of the air crafts. Only airport police would come around periodically, look us over and go on to the next airplane.

In the next hour or so more planes landed, and Gander ended up with 53 airplanes from all over the world, 27 of which were U.S. commercial jets.

Meanwhile, bits of news started to come in over the aircraft radio and for the first time we learned that airplanes were flown into the World Trade Center in New York and into the Pentagon in D.C. People were trying to use their cell phones but were unable to connect due to a different cell system in Canada. Some did get through but were only able to get to the Canadian operator who would tell them that the lines to the U.S. were either blocked or jammed.

Sometime in the evening the news filtered to us that the World Trade Center buildings had collapsed and that a fourth hijacking had resulted in a crash. By now the passengers were emotionally and physically exhausted, not to mention frightened, but everyone stayed amazingly calm. We had only to look out the window at the 52 other stranded aircraft to realize that we were not the only ones in this predicament.

We had been told earlier that they would be allowing people off the planes one plane at a time. At 6 P.M., Gander airport told us that our turn to deplane would be 11 am the next morning. Passengers were not happy, but they simply resigned themselves to this news without much noise and started to prepare themselves to spend the night on the airplane.

Gander had promised us medical attention, if needed, water, and lavatory servicing. And they were true to their word. Fortunately, we had no medical situations to worry about. We did have a young lady who was 33 weeks into her pregnancy. We took REALLY good care of her. The night passed without incident despite the uncomfortable sleeping arrangements.

About 10:30 on the morning of the 12th, a convoy of school buses showed up. We got off the plane and were taken to the terminal where we went through Immigration and Customs and then had to register with the Red Cross.

After that, we (the crew) were separated from the passengers and were taken in vans to a small hotel. We had no idea where our passengers were going. We learned from the Red Cross that the town of Gander has a population of 10,400 people and they had about 10,500 passengers to take care of from all the airplanes that were forced into Gander! We were told to just relax at the hotel and we would be contacted when the U.S. airports opened again, but not to expect that call for a while.

We found out the total scope of the terror back home only after getting to our hotel and turning on the TV, 24 hours after it all started.Meanwhile, we had lots of time on our hands and found that the people of Gander were extremely friendly. They started calling us the "plane people." We enjoyed their hospitality, explored the town of Gander and ended up having a pretty good time.

Two days later, we got that call and were taken back to the Gander airport. Back on the plane, we were reunited with the passengers and found out what they had been doing for the past two days. What we found out was incredible.

Gander and all the surrounding communities (within about a 75 Kilometer radius) had closed all high schools, meeting halls, lodges, and any other large gathering places. They converted all these facilities to mass lodging areas for all the stranded travelers. Some had cots set up, some had mats with sleeping bags and pillows set up.

ALL the high school students were required to volunteer their time to take care of the "guests." Our 218 passengers ended up in a town called Lewisporte, about 45 kilometers from Gander where they were put up in a high school. If any women wanted to be in a women-only facility, that was arranged. Families were kept together. All the elderly passengers were taken to private homes.

Remember that young pregnant lady? She was put up in a private home right across the street from a 24-hour Urgent Care facility. There was a dentist on call and both male and female nurses remained with the crowd for the duration.

Phone calls and e-mails to the U.S. and around the world were available to everyone once a day. During the day, passengers were offered Excursion" trips. Some people went on boat cruises of the lakes and harbors. Some went for hikes in the local forests.

Local bakeries stayed open to make fresh bread for the guests. Food was prepared by all the residents and brought to the schools. People were driven to restaurants of their choice and offered wonderful meals. Everyone was given tokens for local laundry mats to wash their clothes, since luggage was still on the aircraft. In other words, every single need was met for those stranded travelers.Passengers were crying while telling us these stories. Finally, when they were told that U.S. airports had reopened, they were delivered to the airport right on time and without a single passenger missing or late. The local Red Cross had all the information about the whereabouts of each and every passenger and knew which plane they needed to be on and when all the planes were leaving. They coordinated everything beautifully.

It was absolutely incredible.

When passengers came on board, it was like they had been on a cruise. Everyone knew each other by name. They were swapping stories of their stay, impressing each other with who had the better time. Our flight back to Atlanta looked like a chartered party flight. The crew just stayed out of their way. It was mind-boggling.

Passengers had totally bonded and were calling each other by their first names, exchanging phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses.And then a very unusual thing happened.

One of our passengers approached me and asked if he could make an announcement over the PA system. We never, ever allow that. But this time was different. I said "of course" and handed him the mike. He picked up the PA and reminded everyone about what they had just gone through in the last few days. He reminded them of the hospitality they had received at the hands of total strangers. He continued by saying that he would like to do something in return for the good folks of Lewisporte.He said he was going to set up a Trust Fund under the name of DELTA 15 (our flight number). The purpose of the trust fund is to provide college scholarships for the high school students of Lewisporte.

He asked for donations of any amount from his fellow travelers. When the paper with donations got back to us with the amounts, names, phone numbers and addresses, the total was for more than $14,000!

A gentleman, a MD from Virginia, promised to match the donations and to start the administrative work on the scholarship. He also said that he would forward this proposal to Delta Corporate and ask them to donate as well.

As I write this account, the trust fund is at more than $1.5 million and has assisted 134 students in their college education.

I just wanted to share this story because we need good stories right now. It gives me a little bit of hope to know that some people in a faraway place were kind to some strangers who literally dropped in on them.It reminds me how much good there is in the world at that time.

In spite of all the rotten things we see going on in today's world, this story confirms that there are still a lot of good people in the world and when things get bad, they will come forward.

This is one of those stories that need to be shared. Please do so...

Casale's Corner

The Nuremberg Trials

Held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949. The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials and high-ranking military officers along with German industrialists, lawyers, and doctors, were indicted on such charges as crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.

Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) committed suicide and was never brought to trial. Although the legal justifications for the trials and their procedural innovations were controversial at the time, the Nuremberg trials are now regarded as a milestone toward the establishment of a permanent international court, and an important precedent for dealing with later instances of genocide and other crimes against humanity.

Shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power as chancellor of Germany in 1933, he and his Nazi government began implementing policies designed to persecute German-Jewish people and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state. Over the next decade, these policies grew increasingly repressive and violent resulting, by the end of World War II (1939-45), in the systematic, state-sponsored murder of some 6 million European Jews (along with an estimated 4 million to 6 million non-Jews).

In December 1942, the Allied leaders of Great Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union "issued the first joint declaration officially noting the mass murder of European Jewry and resolving to prosecute those responsible for violence against civilian populations," according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). Joseph Stalin (1878-1953), the Soviet leader, initially proposed the execution of 50,000 to 100,000 German staff officers. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) discussed the possibility of summary execution (execution without a trial) of high-ranking Nazis, but was persuaded by American leaders that a criminal trial would be more effective. Among other advantages, criminal proceedings would require documentation of the crimes charged against the defendants and prevent later accusations that the defendants had been condemned without evidence.

There were many legal and procedural difficulties to overcome in setting up the Nuremberg trials. First, there was no precedent for an international trial of war criminals. There were earlier instances of prosecution for war crimes, such as the execution of Confederate army officer Henry Wirz (1823-65) for his maltreatment of Union prisoners of war during the American Civil War (1861-65); and the courts-martial held by Turkey in 1919-20 to punish those responsible for the Armenian genocide of 1915-16. However, these were trials conducted according to the laws of a single nation rather than, as in the case of the Nuremberg trials, a group of four powers (France, Britain, the Soviet Union and the U.S.) with different legal traditions and practices.

The Allies eventually established the laws and procedures for the Nuremberg trials with the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT), issued on August 8, 1945. Among other things, the charter defined three categories of crimes: crimes against peace (including planning, preparing, starting or waging wars of aggression or wars in violation of international agreements), war crimes (including violations of customs or laws of war, including improper treatment of civilians and prisoners of war) and crimes against humanity (including murder, enslavement or deportation of civilians or persecution on political, religious or racial grounds). It was determined that civilian officials as well as military officers could be accused of war crimes.

The city of Nuremberg (also known as Nurnberg) in the German state of Bavaria was selected as the location for the trials because its Palace of Justice was relatively undamaged by the war and included a large prison area. Additionally, Nuremberg had been the site of annual Nazi propaganda rallies; holding the postwar trials there marked the symbolic end of Hitler's government, the Third Reich.

The Major War Criminals' Trial: 1945-46

The best-known of the Nuremberg trials was the Trial of Major War Criminals, held from November 20, 1945, to October 1, 1946. The format of the trial was a mix of legal traditions: There were prosecutors and defense attorneys according to British and American law, but the decisions and sentences were imposed by a tribunal (panel of judges) rather than a single judge and a jury. The chief American prosecutor was Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954), an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Each of the four Allied powers supplied two judges-a main judge and an alternate.

Twenty-four individuals were indicted, along with six Nazi organizations determined to be criminal (such as the "Gestapo," or secret state police). One of the indicted men was deemed medically unfit to stand trial, while a second man killed himself before the trial began. Hitler and two of his top associates, Heinrich Himmler (1900-45) and Joseph Goebbels (1897-45), had each committed suicide in the spring of 1945 before they could be brought to trial. The defendants were allowed to choose their own lawyers, and the most common defense strategy was that the crimes defined in the London Charter were examples of ex post facto law; that is, they were laws that criminalized actions committed before the laws were drafted. Another defense was that the trial was a form of victor's justice-the Allies were applying a harsh standard to crimes committed by Germans and leniency to crimes committed by their own soldiers.

As the accused men and judges spoke four different languages, the trial saw the introduction of a technological innovation taken for granted today: instantaneous translation. IBM provided the technology and recruited men and women from international telephone exchanges to provide on-the-spot translations through headphones in English, French, German and Russian.

In the end, the international tribunal found all but three of the defendants guilty. Twelve were sentenced to death, one in absentia, and the rest were given prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life behind bars. Ten of the condemned were executed by hanging on October 16, 1946. Hermann Göring (1893-1946), Hitler's designated successor and head of the "Luftwaffe" (German air force), committed suicide the night before his execution. He was able to do this using a cyanide capsule he had hidden in a jar of skin medication.
Subsequent Trials: 1946-49

Following the Trial of Major War Criminals, there were 12 additional trials held at Nuremberg. These proceedings, lasting from December 1946 to April 1949, are grouped together as the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings. They differed from the first trial in that they were conducted before U.S. military tribunals rather than the international tribunal that decided the fate of the major Nazi leaders. The reason for the change was that growing differences among the four Allied powers had made other joint trials impossible. The subsequent trials were held in the same location at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg.

These proceedings included the Doctors Trial (December 9, 1946-August 20, 1947), in which 23 defendants were accused of crimes against humanity, including medical experiments on prisoners of war. In the Judges Trial (March 5-December 4, 1947), 16 lawyers and judges were charged with furthering the Nazi plan for racial purity by implementing the eugenics laws of the Third Reich. Other subsequent trials dealt with German industrialists accused of using slave labor and plundering occupied countries; high-ranking army officers accused of atrocities against prisoners of war; and SS officers accused of violence against concentration-camp inmates. Of the 185 people indicted in the subsequent Nuremberg trials, 12 defendants received death sentences, 8 others were given life in prison and an additional 77 people received prison terms of varying lengths, according to the USHMM. Authorities later reduced a number of the sentences.

Aftermath

The Nuremberg trials were controversial even among those who wanted the major criminals punished. Harlan Stone (1872-1946), chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court at the time, described the proceedings as a "sanctimonious fraud" and a "high-grade lynching party." William O. Douglas (1898-1980), then an associate U.S. Supreme Court justice, said the Allies "substituted power for principle" at Nuremberg.

Nonetheless, most observers considered the trials a step forward for the establishment of international law. The findings at Nuremberg led directly to the United Nations Genocide Convention (1948) and Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), as well as the Geneva Convention on the Laws and Customs of War (1949). In addition, the International Military Tribunal supplied a useful precedent for the trials of Japanese war criminals in Tokyo (1946-48); the 1961 trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann (1906-62); and the establishment of tribunals for war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia (1993) and in Rwanda (1994).

The 7 Most Notorious Nazis Who Escaped to South America

After Allied forces defeated Germany in World War II, Europe became a difficult place to be associated with Adolph Hitler's Third Reich. Thousands of Nazi officers, high-ranking party members and collaborators, including many notorious war criminals, escaped across the Atlantic, finding refuge in South America, particularly in Argentina, Chile and Brazil.

Argentina, for one, was already home to hundreds of thousands of German immigrants and had maintained close ties to Germany during the war. After 1945, Argentine President Juan Perón, himself drawn to fascist ideologies, enlisted intelligence officers and diplomats to help establish "rat lines," or escape routes via Spanish and Italian ports, for many in the Third Reich. Also giving aid: the Vatican in Rome, which in seeking to help Catholic war refugees also facilitated fleeing Nazis, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not.

As thousands of Nazis and their collaborators poured into the continent, a sympathetic and sophisticated network developed, easing the transition for those who came after. While no definitive evidence exists that Hitler himself escaped his doomsday bunker and crossed the ocean, such a network could have helped make it possible.

Below, a list of some of the most notorious Nazi war criminals who made their way to South America.

1. Adolf Eichmann

Adolf Eichmann, SS official in charge of deporting European Jewry. Germany, 1940WHAT HE'S INFAMOUS FOR: The "world's most wanted Nazi," Eichmann was the architect of Hitler's "Final Solution" to exterminate the Jews from Europe. The notorious SS lieutenant colonel masterminded the Nazi network of death camps that resulted in the murder of approximately 6 million people. Eichmann orchestrated the identification, assembly and transportation of European Jews to Auschwitz, Treblinka and other death camps in German-occupied Poland.

HIS PATH TO SOUTH AMERICA: After World War II ended, Eichmann went into hiding in Austria. With the aid of a Franciscan monk in Genoa, Italy, he obtained an Argentine visa and signed an application for a falsified Red Cross passport. In 1950 he boarded a steamship to Buenos Aires under the alias Ricardo Klement. Eichmann lived with his wife and four children in a middle-class Buenos Aires suburb and worked in a Mercedes-Benz automotive plant.

HOW HE WAS BROUGHT TO JUSTICE: Israeli Mossad agents captured Eichmann in a daring operation on May 11, 1960, then snuck him out of the country by doping and disguising him as an El Al flight crew member. In Israel, Eichmann stood trial as a war criminal responsible for deporting Jews to death and concentration camps. He was found guilty after a four-month trial in Jerusalem and received the only death sentence ever issued by an Israeli court. He was hanged on May 31, 1962.

2. Josef Mengele

Dr. Josef Mengele In Paraguay, 1960. Nicknamed the "angel of death," he is infamous for conducting macabre experiments on pregnant women, twins and others at the Auschwitz death camp. He eluded capture in South America for 30 years. (Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)WHAT HE'S INFAMOUS FOR: Second only to Eichmann as a target of Nazi hunters, the doctor nicknamed the "Angel of Death" conducted macabre experiments among the prisoners at the Auschwitz death camp. An SS officer, Mengele was sent at the start of World War II to the eastern front to repel the Soviets and received an Iron Cross for his bravery and service. After being wounded and declared unfit for active duty, he was assigned to the Auschwitz death camp. There, he used the prisoners, particularly twins, pregnant women and the disabled, as human guinea pigs. Mengele even tortured and killed children with his medical experiments.

HIS PATH TO SOUTH AMERICA: After World War II, Mengele spent three-plus years in hiding in Germany. In 1949, with the help of a Catholic clergy member, the "Angel of Death" fled via Italy to Argentina where he owned a mechanical equipment shop and remarried under his own name in Uruguay in 1958. The doctor lived in various Buenos Aires suburbs, but after hearing of Eichmann's capture, went underground, first in Paraguay, then in Brazil.

HOW HE ELUDED JUSTICE: West Germany had sent an extradition request to Argentina, which dragged its feet, claiming a review was necessary because the doctor's crimes had been "political." Nazi hunters pursued him for decades, but Mengele ultimately drowned off the Brazilian coast in 1979, felled by a stroke. Because he had operated under an assumed name in Brazil, his death wasn't verified until his remains were forensically tested in 1985.

3. Walter Rauff

Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal holding photographs depicting former Gestapo chief Walter Rauff and a mobile gas-chamber van he created to execute Jews. Rauff was protected from prosecution by Chilean president Augusto Pinochet. (Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)WHAT HE'S INFAMOUS FOR: An SS colonel, Rauff was instrumental in the construction and implementation of the mobile gas chambers responsible for killing an estimated 100,000 people during World War II. According to the United Kingdom's MI5 intelligence agency, Rauff oversaw the modifications of trucks that diverted their exhaust fumes into airtight chambers in the back of vehicles capable of carrying as many as 60 people. The trucks were driven to burial sites, and along the way victims would be poisoned and/or asphyxiated from the carbon monoxide. After persecuting Jews in Vichy France-controlled Tunisia during 1942 and 1943, Rauff oversaw Gestapo operations in northwest Italy. There, as in Tunisia, Rauff gained a "reputation for utter ruthlessness," infamous for the indiscriminate execution of both Jews and local partisans.

HIS PATH TO SOUTH AMERICA: Allied troops arrested Rauff at the end of the war. He escaped from an American POW camp and hid in Italian convents. After serving as a military adviser to the president of Syria in 1948, he fled back to Italy and escaped to Ecuador in 1949 before settling in Chile where he lived under his own name.

HOW HE ELUDED JUSTICE: Never captured, Rauff worked as a manager of a king crab cannery and actually spied for West Germany between 1958 and 1962. His whereabouts became known after he sent a letter requesting that his German naval pension be sent to his new address in Chile. He was arrested in 1962 in Chile but freed by the country's supreme court the following year. Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet repeatedly resisted calls from West Germany for Rauff's extradition. The Nazi died in Chile in 1984. German and Chilean mourners at his funeral gave Nazi salutes and chanted "Heil Hitler."

4. Franz Stangl

Franz Stangl, former SS commander of Treblinka extermination camp in German-occupied Poland, hearing his life-in-prison sentence in Dusseldorf. Stangl was found responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of Jews. (Credit: Heinz Ducklau/AP/REX/Shutterstock)

WHAT HE'S INFAMOUS FOR: Nicknamed the "White Death" for his proclivity to wear a white uniform and carry a whip, the Austrian-born Stangl worked on the Aktion T-4 euthanasia program under which the Nazis killed those with mental and physical disabilities. He later served as the commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka death camps in German-occupied Poland. More than 100,000 Jews are believed to have been murdered during his tenure at Sobibor before he moved to Treblinka, where he was directly responsible for the Nazis' second-deadliest camp where 900,000 were killed.

HIS PATH TO SOUTH AMERICA: After the end of the war, Stangl was captured by the Americans but escaped to Italy from an Austrian prison camp in 1947. Assisted by the Nazi-sympathizing Austrian bishop Alois Hudal, Stangl traveled to Syria on a Red Cross passport before sailing to Brazil in 1951.

HOW HE WAS CAPTURED: He was employed by Volkswagen in São Paulo under his own name when he was arrested in 1967 after being tracked down by Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor and well-known Nazi hunter. Extradited to West Germany, Stangl was tried and found guilty of the mass murder of 900,000 people. Sentenced to life imprisonment, he died of heart failure in 1971.

5. Josef Schwammberger

Former Nazi concentration camp commander Josef Schwammberger during his trial in Stuttgart, Germany in 1992. He was convicted for killing hundreds of Jews during his time as commandant at several labor camps in Nazi-occupied Poland between 1942 and 1944. (Credit: AP Photo)6. Erich Priebke

WHAT HE'S INFAMOUS FOR: An Austrian Nazi, Schwammberger was an SS commandant in charge of three labor camps in the Jewish ghettoes of Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. Brandishing a horsewhip and a German Shepherd trained to attack people, he arrived in 1942 at the Rozwadów forced-labor camp, where prisoners died by the hundreds, many shot by Schwammberger himself. In 1943, he organized the mass execution of 500 Jewish prisoners at the Przemyśl camp. He personally executed 35 people at Przemyśl, shooting them in the back of the neck, and dispatched Jews to the Auschwitz death camp. In Mielec in 1944, he cleansed the city of Jews. "His path was littered with corpses," said the Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal.

HOW HE WAS CAPTURED: Sought by West Germany for extradition in 1973, Schwammberger went into hiding but was eventually arrested by Argentine officials in 1987 after an informant responded to the German government's $300,000 reward. He returned to West Germany in 1990 to stand trial. Witnesses at the trial said they had seen Schwammberger throw prisoners onto bonfires, kill Jews kneeling beside mass graves and slam children's heads against walls "because he didn't want to waste a bullet on them." In 1992, he was found guilty of seven counts of murder and 32 cases of accessory to murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Schwammberger died in prison in 2004 at the age of 92.

6. Erich Priebke

Former SS officer Erich Priebke during the trial at Military Court for participating in the 1944 Ardeatine caves massacre in Rome, where 335 civilians, including 75 Jews, were killed in retaliation for an ambush on German soldiers. He operated a Viennese deli in Patagonia until a 1994 street interview by journalist Sam Donaldson brought him to authorities' attention.(Credit: Stefano Montesi/Corbis via Getty Images)WHAT HE'S INFAMOUS FOR: A mid-level SS commander and member of the Gestapo, Priebke participated in the 1944 Ardeatine Caves massacre in Rome in which the Nazis slaughtered 335 people in retaliation for the killing of 33 German SS members by Italian partisans. Priebke admitted killing two of the Italians, but claimed he was only following orders. Priebke also signed off on the transport of 2,000 Roman Jews to Auschwitz and served as the Nazi go-between with the Vatican.

HIS PATH TO SOUTH AMERICA: Priebke escaped from a British prisoner of war camp on New Year's Eve in 1946 by cutting through barbed wire while his guards were drunk. With the help of Bishop Alois Hudal, Priebke fled to Argentina on a falsified Red Cross passport in 1948. He settled in the idyllic mountain town of San Carlos de Bariloche in the Patagonia region, where he operated at a Viennese deli and worked at a German school, living under his own name.

HOW HE WAS CAPTURED: In 1994, Priebke's past was revealed to the world after an ambush interview by ABC newsman Sam Donaldson. As a result of the uproar following the interview, Priebke was extradited to Italy where he was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment, to be served under house arrest. Priebke died in 2013 at the age of 100. His funeral resulted in a clash between fascist and anti-fascist protestors, and he was buried in a secret location after Argentina refused to have him interred on its soil.

7. Gerhard Bohne

Gerhard Bohne (right) arriving at Frankfurt Airport from Buenos Aires, accompanied by two officials of the district criminal board of Wiesbaden. Bohne would be prosecuted for administering the Nazi's euthanasia program aimed at purifying the Aryan race of people with physical infirmities and mental disabilities. (Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)WHAT HE'S INFAMOUS FOR: A lawyer and SS officer, Bohne headed the Third Reich's Work Group of Sanatoriums and Nursing Homes and was responsible for the administrative logistics of Hitler's Aktion T-4 euthanasia program. Claiming to be a "mercy killer," Bohne was instead among the leaders who carried out a systemic extermination in order to purify the Aryan race and avoid state expenditures on those with mental and physical disabilities. All told, the program killed some 200,000 Germans with incurable diseases, mental illnesses and other handicaps. The victims were led to gas chambers in the institutions and then cremated. The program served as a trial run for the mass extermination camps later operated by the SS. Bohne was thrown out of the Nazi Party after submitting a report accusing his agency of fraud and corruption.

HIS PATH TO SOUTH AMERICA: Bohne fled to Argentina in 1949 disguised as a "technician" for the military under the country's president, Juan Perón. He later admitted that Perón's helpers gave him "money and identify papers."

HOW HE WAS CAPTURED: After a coup deposed Perón, Bohne returned to Germany and was indicted by a court in Frankfurt in 1963. Released on bail, Bohne once again fled to Argentina from where he was finally extradited three years later as the first Nazi criminal surrendered by Argentina. Declared unfit to stand trial, Bohne survived another 15 years before his death in 1981.

Did you know? The death sentences imposed in October 1946 were carried out by Master Sergeant John C. Woods (1903-50), who told a reporter from Time magazine that he was proud of his work. "The way I look at this hanging job, somebody has to do it . . . 10 men in 103 minutes. That's fast work."