Advertisement

US to expel alleged Nazi death camp guard

AFP
AFP - [email protected]
US to expel alleged Nazi death camp guard
Photo: DPA

The United States has begun moves to expel an 84-year-old man alleged to have been a top guard in several Nazi concentration camps in Germany, the US Justice Department said Friday.

Advertisement

The case comes as another Nazi death camp guard, John Demjanjuk, nicknamed "Ivan the Terrible" in the camps, is appealing to avoid extradition to Germany.

Anton Geiser, who arrived in the US from Austria in 1956 and became a citizen in 1962, is accused of working at the infamous Sachsenhausen camp near Berlin in 1943.

"Geiser served as an armed SS Death's Head guard at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp near Berlin, Germany," the department said in a statement.

It added that his "duties included escorting prisoners to slave labour sites and standing guard from the camp's watch towers; and that he was under orders to shoot any prisoner attempting escape."

He also allegedly worked at Buchenwald concentration camp. "Through his service as a Nazi concentration camp guard, Anton Geiser helped subject thousands of innocent civilians to inhumane and frequently lethal treatment", said Acting Assistant Attorney General Rita M. Glavin of the Criminal Division. "The United States will not provide a safe haven for such individuals." Geiser's citizenship was revoked by a Pittsburgh judge in 2006.

The court concluded Geiser "clearly assisted in the persecution of people because of race, religion and national origin," and he was therefore legally barred from receiving a visa to come to the United States.

Meanwhile John Demjanjuk, who faces charges of assisting in the murder of at least 29,000 Jews, turns 89 on Friday, was due to be flown Sunday to Germany from the US city of Cleveland, where he lives.

But his attorney in Washington said he filed a last-minute emergency motion for a stay of expulsion with a US immigration court Thursday, a day after filing a petition for an administrative stay with the Department of Homeland Security.

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also