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20Mar09
Nazi Guard Deported to Austria.
An 83-year-old man who admitted that as a Nazi concentration camp guard he took part in a two-day killing spree in which 42,000 people were killed was deported to Austria Thursday from his home in Wisconsin, immigration officials said.
The former guard, Josias Kumpf, admitted that he participated in a murderous November 1943 Nazi operation that went by the code name "Aktion Erntefest" - Operation Harvest Festival - in which roughly 42,000 Jewish men, women and children were murdered at three Nazi camps in eastern Poland in two days.
Mr. Kumpf acknowledged his role was as a guard and an assassin at the Trawniki Labor Camp, where 8,000 men, women and children were shot dead in a single day, Nov. 3, 1943, Justice Department officials said.
He was removed earlier this week from his home in Racine, Wis., by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Mr. Kumpf immigrated to the United States from Austria in 1956, and became a citizen in 1964. A spokesman for the Justice Department said officials began their efforts to deport him in 2003, when a federal lawsuit was filed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin to strip him of his citizenship because of his participation in war crimes. His citizenship was revoked in 2005.
"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 M. Glavin, said in a written statement Thursday. "His court-ordered removal from the United States to Austria is another milestone in the government's long-running effort to ensure that individuals who participated in crimes against humanity do not find sanctuary in this country."
[Source: Karen Ann Cullota, NY Times, 20Mar09]
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