A Der Spiegel investigation published Thursday has uncovered an alleged criminal network that helped people, mainly from China, pose as the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Jews persecuted by the Nazis in order to obtain German citizenship and passports.
According to the report, some of the applicants were Chinese nationals seeking to escape law enforcement in their own country and were able to do so with the help of German authorities that accepted fraudulent family histories linking them to Jewish victims of Nazi persecution.
The adoption of Jewish identities by Germans and others is not new and has sometimes been explained by a desire to distance oneself from the legacy of the nation that committed the Nazi crimes, or to claim moral authority and authenticity when criticizing Israel.
Hellbound and Down 