In July 1989, Carlos Menem became the first Peronist president of Argentina since the 1976 putsch. His election caused concern among those who wanted to see Nazi criminals prosecuted. For eighteen months, extradition proceedings had been going on against Josef Schwammberger, the former commandant of the ghetto of Przemyśl, but in his campaign Menem had repeatedly invoked Perón, whose role in the flights of Nazi criminals had been widely reported by the international press amidst the efforts to apprehend Rauff and Mengele. If he continued what seemed to be the policies of the man after whom his party was named, what would that mean for how Argentina dealt with Nazi criminals? It was also unclear whether Jewish organizations, which had stridently advocated the extradition of Nazi criminals, would be able to get themselves heard by Menem, who came from a Syrian, Muslim family. In addition, people were also worried about Menem's stance toward the crimes committed by the Argentinian military junta between 1976 and 1983. Although as a member of the opposition he had criticized the amnesty laws of his predecessor Alfonsín, his first speech upon taking office made it clear that he wanted to draw a line under the recent past – a measure intended to win the loyalty of the military.1 But if crimes committed only ten to fifteen years ago were to be laid to rest, what would that mean for extradition proceedings concerning crimes that had been committed more than 40 years ago?

The memory of how numerous Nazi criminals and collaborators had succeeded in entering Argentina under Perón's presidency and the question of where the Peronist party stood vis-à-vis the past would dog Menem his entire time in office. Argentinian discussions about the Peronist past and global interest in the Holocaust, which reached its temporary zenith with the looted gold debate of the mid 1990s, would constantly influence one another. The coming to terms with Argentina's role as a place of refuge for European fugitives was constantly fuelled by new impulses. The Menem government sought to meet the 1990s demands that past injustices be redressed by taking a number of measures that went far beyond just support for the extradition of Nazi criminals.