Former Nazi guard living in Wisconsin deported
20 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Nazi concentration camp guard who was living in Wisconsin has been deported to Austria, Justice Department officials said Thursday.
Prosecutors said 83-year-old Josias Kumpf (yoh-SEE'-uhs KOOMF) served as a guard at the Sachsenhausen (ZAHK'-zen-how-zen) concentration camp in Germany and the Trawniki (trafh-NEE'-kee) labor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, and at slave labor sites in occupied France.
U.S. investigators found he participated in a 1943 mass shooting in Poland in which 8,000 Jewish men, women and children were murdered in pits at Trawniki in a single day.
"Josias Kumpf, by his own admission, stood guard with orders to shoot any surviving prisoners who attempted to escape an SS massacre that left thousands of Jews dead," Acting Assistant Attorney General Rita Glavin said in a statement.
Peter Rogers, Kumpf's attorney, didn't immediately return a message Thursday.
Investigators say Kumpf joined the SS Death's Head guard forces in 1942.
Kumpf was born in what is now Serbia, immigrated to the U.S. from Austria in 1956, settled in Racine, Wis., and became a U.S. citizen in 1964.
A federal judge in Milwaukee had previously found Kumpf didn't disclose he had been an SS guard because he feared it would disqualify him when he applied for a visa to the U.S.
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 didn't participate in any atrocities.
At a 2006 hearing Rogers described Kumpf as "a gentleman who was involuntarily inscripted into the army, assigned to the SS and then stationed at places where admittedly terrible things happened. My client never took part in them."
But at a subsequent deportation hearing, Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich said Kumpf participated in an operation that resulted in the murder of thousands of innocent victims.
"His culpability in this atrocity does not diminish with the passage of time," Friedrich said at the time.
Since 1979, the U.S. Justice Department has won cases against 107 people who participated in Nazi crimes.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Related articles
Add News to your iGoogle Homepage
In this Sept. 30, 2003, file photo, Josias Kumpf is seen at his home in Racine, Wis. Kumpf, now 83, a former Nazi concentration camp guard who settled here after World War II and acquired U.S. citizenship, has been deported to Austria because of his participation in Nazi-sponsored acts of persecution during World War II it was announced Thursday March 19, 2009. (AP Photo/Journal Times, Mark Hertzberg)
20 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Nazi concentration camp guard who was living in Wisconsin has been deported to Austria, Justice Department officials said Thursday.
Prosecutors said 83-year-old Josias Kumpf (yoh-SEE'-uhs KOOMF) served as a guard at the Sachsenhausen (ZAHK'-zen-how-zen) concentration camp in Germany and the Trawniki (trafh-NEE'-kee) labor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, and at slave labor sites in occupied France.
U.S. investigators found he participated in a 1943 mass shooting in Poland in which 8,000 Jewish men, women and children were murdered in pits at Trawniki in a single day.
"Josias Kumpf, by his own admission, stood guard with orders to shoot any surviving prisoners who attempted to escape an SS massacre that left thousands of Jews dead," Acting Assistant Attorney General Rita Glavin said in a statement.
Peter Rogers, Kumpf's attorney, didn't immediately return a message Thursday.
Investigators say Kumpf joined the SS Death's Head guard forces in 1942.
Kumpf was born in what is now Serbia, immigrated to the U.S. from Austria in 1956, settled in Racine, Wis., and became a U.S. citizen in 1964.
A federal judge in Milwaukee had previously found Kumpf didn't disclose he had been an SS guard because he feared it would disqualify him when he applied for a visa to the U.S.
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 didn't participate in any atrocities.
At a 2006 hearing Rogers described Kumpf as "a gentleman who was involuntarily inscripted into the army, assigned to the SS and then stationed at places where admittedly terrible things happened. My client never took part in them."
But at a subsequent deportation hearing, Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich said Kumpf participated in an operation that resulted in the murder of thousands of innocent victims.
"His culpability in this atrocity does not diminish with the passage of time," Friedrich said at the time.
Since 1979, the U.S. Justice Department has won cases against 107 people who participated in Nazi crimes.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Related articles
- Wisconsin Nazi Deported to Austria
MSNBC - 15 hours ago - Nazi Guard Deported to Austria
New York Times - 17 hours ago - Former SS Guard deported to Austria
Jewish Telegraphic Agency - 17 hours ago - US deports Nazi death camp massacre guard
Radio Netherlands - 17 hours ago - More coverage (27) »
Add News to your iGoogle Homepage
In this Sept. 30, 2003, file photo, Josias Kumpf is seen at his home in Racine, Wis. Kumpf, now 83, a former Nazi concentration camp guard who settled here after World War II and acquired U.S. citizenship, has been deported to Austria because of his participation in Nazi-sponsored acts of persecution during World War II it was announced Thursday March 19, 2009. (AP Photo/Journal Times, Mark Hertzberg)