NEW YORK – The World Jewish Congress, United States has renewed its calls on the US government to deport a 94-year-old accused Nazi war criminal living in New York City, and is urging the German Interior Ministry to accept the extradition. Jakiw Palij is alleged to have guarded the Trawinki death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943 and is the last accused Nazi concentration camp guard still known to be living in the United States.
“It is beyond disparaging that a convicted Nazi war criminal, who stood guard as more than 6,000 Jews were brutally murdered, should be allowed to live his final years in peace and freedom in the United States,” said Rabbi Joel Meyers, Chairman of World Jewish Congress, United States. “We urge both the US government and Germany to treat this issue with the priority deserved, and take all necessary steps to extradite this criminal and allow justice to be served."
US federal courts have concluded that Palij entered the United States illegally in 1949 after failing to disclose that he had worked at the Trawniki training camps for secret service troops who would carry out the extermination of Polish Jews. His deportation was ordered in 2004 but none of the three European countries to which he could be sent - Germany, Poland, and Ukraine - agreed to take him.