Former Nazi guard deported to Germany from US News
©Wikimedia (German official photographer)
Former Nazi guard deported to Germany from US

Former Nazi guard Jakiw Palij was deported from the US to Germany on Tuesday, fulfilling a 2004 federal court order, according to a statement [Twitter] from the White House [official website].

Palij was a guard at the Trawniki Labor Camp in 1943 and allegedly served to further “Operation Reinhard,” which was code for the Third Reich’s plan to murder all Jewish people in Poland. Trawniki is known for its November 3, 1943, killings, in which 6,000 men, women and children were shot dead. The day marked one of the largest massacres of the Holocaust.

Palij concealed his service to Hitler when he immigrated to the US in 1949. Palij became a US citizen only eight years after he immigrated, but did not reveal his Nazi service until 2001. A federal judge then revoked his citizenship in 2004 and ordered him deported to Germany. Palij was not immediately deported because no European country would accept him.

President Donald Trump, through Immigration and Customs Enforcement, secured Palij from his Queens, New York, home and deported him back to Germany. According to the statement from the White House, these actions send a message that, “the US will not tolerate those who facilitated Nazi crimes and other human rights violations, and they will not find a safe haven on American soil.”