Would the United States government deport a confirmed Nazi murderer to Austria, only to see him live out his life in a luxury apartment with 24-hour a day care? Those of you who answered yes win the prize.
Hot on the heels of the case of John Demjanjuk, a former Nazi collaborator and naturalized American from Cleveland now standing trial as an accomplice to 27,900 murders, comes the case of Josias Kumpf.
Kumpf, a former Nazi concentration camp guard, emigrated to the United States in 1956 and became a naturalized American in 1964. Deported to Austria by the Justice Department in March, today he can, according to German Green Party official Johannes Rauch, ‘move about the country unobserved and with complete freedom.’
For Germany’s Neues Deutschland newspaper, reporter Rene Heilig writes in part:
“The regional director for domestic security in the province of Vorarlberg noted that neither ‘penal nor administrative grounds’ exist to ‘warrant police action.’ According to Marent, under Austrian law, the fact that he is a presumed mass murderer is barred under the statute of limitations. Moreover, Kumpf was still a minor at the time, initially 17 or 18 years old. The Serbian-born Kumpf – like Demjanjuk – is reported to have stood in the ranks of the SS as a so-called Trawniki-man [The Polish city of Trawniki is where guards were trained for Operation Reinhard – the annihilation of Poland’s Jews]. For example, at the concentration camp in Sachsenhausen. He’s accused of crimes in Poland and France, as well as Trawniki itself. He’s reported to have been involved in the executions of 8,000 men, women, and children. When questioned by U.S. interrogators, he confessed that he, ‘kept watch to make sure that those who weren’t completely dead or were still twitching didn’t climb out of the pit.'”
By René Heilig
Translated By Jonathan Lobsien
July 17, 2009
Germany – Neues Deutschland – Original Article (German)
Over the past three decades, U.S. authorities have deported 107 former Nazi war criminals. The latest is Ivan [John] Demjanjuk. The Nazi collaborator has been charged with being an accomplice in 27,900 cases of murder. Too bad for him that he landed in Munich rather than Vienna …
The scandal began on April 3 with a phone call to the office of social assistance in the Austrian province of Vorarlberg. Someone inquired about welfare for a man by the name of Josias Kumpf who had just returned home from the United States. The officials did some research and hastily informed the regional director for domestic security, Elmar Marent.
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