America's Last Known Nazi Collaborator Is Deported To Germany
Source: NBC News
2 hrs. ago by Angerer and Matthew Devine and Kurt Chirbas and Associated Press.
MAINZ, Germany -- The last known Nazi collaborator living in the U.S. was deported to Germany overnight.
Jakiw Palij, 95, had lived in New York City for decades. He served as a guard at a Nazi forced labor camp during the Second World War.
In a statement released by the White House after Palij landed in Germany early Tuesday said President Donald Trump commended the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for "removing this war criminal from United States soil."
"Despite a court ordering his deportation in 2004, past administrations were unsuccessful in removing Palij," the statement added. "To protect the promise of freedom for Holocaust survivors and their families, President Trump prioritized the removal of Palij."
Palij lived quietly in the U.S. for years, as a draftsman and then as a retiree, until nearly three decades ago when investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard spilled the secret that he was "living somewhere in America."...More...
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/americas-last-known-nazi-collaborator-is-deported-to-germany/ar-BBMdqae
Palij immigrated to the U.S. in 1949, became a citizen in 1957, and concealed his Nazi service. In 1993, Palij told Justice Department investigators: "I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied."
Palij later admitted to officials that he attended a Nazi SS training camp in Trawniki in German-occupied Poland and then served as an armed guard at its adjacent labor camp. The Trawniki camp was part of "Operation Reinhard," the Nazi operation to murder the approximately two million Jews residing in German-occupied Poland. On November 3, 1943, SS and police units shot to death around 6,000 Jewish inmates at the camp, killing almost all of its prisoners in a single massacre. Palij has said he was forced to be a guard.
Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and other countries refused to take him, so Palji continued living in the Queens, NY home he shared with his wife, Maria, now 86. His presence there outraged the Jewish community, causing frequent protests over the years that featured such chants as "your neighbor is a Nazi!"
= new reply since forum marked as read
They know how to treat the Nazis in Israel! Seriously this guy won't live much longer anyway, he's probably not worth the plane ticket to fly him out.
No country wanted Palij, and why he wasn't put out I don't know- friends in high places? Somebody wanted him out now, after all this time when people with no criminal record are being deported from the US. This lingering case which looks very bad was finally acted on maybe.
~ Oskar Groening "the Bookkeeper of Auschwitz" who's noted at the end of this article I remember well. He was featured in History Channel programs not so long ago, claimed he was just an accountant. Then it was proved that while he was in the SS there, he was responsible for the prisoners' money and currency and witnessed crimes. So in 2014 he was charged as an accessory to murder but died after conviction at age 96 before going to prison. (Below, wiki)
https://www.businessinsider.com/jakiw-palij-white-house-deports-former-nazi-camp-guard-living-in-nyc-2018-8?r=UK&IR=T
Business Insider, 'The US has deported a 95-year-old Nazi concentration camp guard who was living in Queens,' 8.21.18.
>A US judge ordered his deportation in 2004, but the order was enforced only this week.
The US has deported a 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard who had been living in the US for almost 70 years.
Jakiw Palij, who worked as a guard at a labor camp in German-occupied Poland during World War II, was seen exiting a plane in Düsseldorf, Germany, on Tuesday morning. He was then transferred to a stretcher and taken across the city in an ambulance.
The New York Times reported in 2003 that he had had two strokes and was in frail health.
He was deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement early Tuesday morning, the White House said in a press release. He had been living on welfare in Queens, New York, until his deportation, Germany's Bild newspaper reported.
Palij was born in a part of Poland that is now part of Ukraine. He trained at the Nazi SS training camp in Trawniki, in German-occupied Poland, in 1943 and served as an armed guard at Trawniki labor camp, the White House said.
Palij's case will now be part of an investigation at a Nazi crimes investigation unit in Ludwigsburg, Germany, Bild reported.
Germany has jailed former Nazi camp guards, despite their old age, in recent years. Oskar Groening, 96, was sentenced to four years in prison in 2015 but died before he could serve his sentence, at age 96.
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Oskar Groening (1921-2018) Criminal charges and trial:
In September 2014, it was reported that Gröning, then aged 93, had been charged by state prosecutors with having been an accessory to murder for his role at Auschwitz receiving and processing prisoners and their personal belongings. The indictment stated that Gröning economically advanced Nazi Germany and aided the systematic killing of 300,000 of the 425,000 Hungarian Jews who were deported to Auschwitz by 137 railway transports during the summer of 1944.
Gröning's prosecution has been reported to have been a part of Germany's final effort to bring the last Nazi war-crimes suspects to justice. State prosecutors managed to charge the defendant on a legal precedent set in 2011 by the conviction of the former Sobibor extermination camp guard John Demjanjuk by a court in Munich. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Gr%C3%B6ning
