http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/16384866.htm

Thu, Jan. 04, 2007

Immigration judge orders Wis man deported for role as Nazi guard

Associated Press

CHICAGO - An immigration judge on Thursday ordered the deportation of an 81-year-old Wisconsin man who admittedly served as an elite SS Death's Head guard during World War II Nazi operations.

Under the order by Immigration Judge Jennie Giambastiani in Chicago, Josias Kumpf of Racine, Wis., could be removed to either Serbia, Austria or Germany. Attorneys said Kumpf chose Germany, though it was unclear Thursday when he would be deported.

In July, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security asked Giambastiani to deport Kumpf, who was stripped of his U.S. citizenship in 2005 after a federal judge in Milwaukee concluded he had "personally assisted" in the persecution of prisoners.

Researchers said the Serbian-born Kumpf served as a guard at the Trawniki Training Camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp near Berlin, as well as at construction sites in German-occupied France where laborers were forced to build launching platforms for Germany's V-1 and V-2 missile attacks on Great Britain.

"This case reflects the Justice Department's commitment to the principle that those who helped the Nazi regime carry out its infamous genocidal designs are unfit to live in the United States," said Assistant U.S. Attorney General Alice S. Fisher in a statement issued in Washington.

In a 2003 interview, Kumpf said he was taken from his home in Yugoslavia as a 17-year-old and forced to serve as a guard, but he did not participate in any atrocities.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, who stripped Kumpf of his citizenship, said Kumpf arrived at Trawniki no more than a day after 8,000 Jewish prisoners were killed at an adjoining labor camp in 1943.

Kumpf "stood guard near the pits where the massacre occurred with instructions to shoot prisoners who attempted to escape, including those who in his words were 'still halfway alive,'" Adelman wrote.

Adelman also found that when Kumpf applied for an immigrant visa to the United States in 1956, he did not disclose he had been an SS guard because he feared it would disqualify him.

Kumpf received an immigrant visa and was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1964. During his court deposition, he said he told his wife not to mention his service as an SS guard because he feared it would have prevented him from becoming a citizen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Previous post:
http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=50419