America's Last Known Nazi Collaborator Is Deported To Germany [View all]

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Source: NBC News

2 hrs. ago by Angerer and Matthew Devine and Kurt Chirbas and Associated Press.

MAINZ, Germany -- The last known Nazi collaborator living in the U.S. was deported to Germany overnight.

Jakiw Palij, 95, had lived in New York City for decades. He served as a guard at a Nazi forced labor camp during the Second World War.

In a statement released by the White House after Palij landed in Germany early Tuesday said President Donald Trump commended the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for "removing this war criminal from United States soil."

"Despite a court ordering his deportation in 2004, past administrations were unsuccessful in removing Palij," the statement added. "To protect the promise of freedom for Holocaust survivors and their families, President Trump prioritized the removal of Palij."

Palij lived quietly in the U.S. for years, as a draftsman and then as a retiree, until nearly three decades ago when investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard spilled the secret that he was "living somewhere in America."...More...

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/americas-last-known-nazi-collaborator-is-deported-to-germany/ar-BBMdqae

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Palij immigrated to the U.S. in 1949, became a citizen in 1957, and concealed his Nazi service. In 1993, Palij told Justice Department investigators: "I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied."

Palij later admitted to officials that he attended a Nazi SS training camp in Trawniki in German-occupied Poland and then served as an armed guard at its adjacent labor camp. The Trawniki camp was part of "Operation Reinhard," the Nazi operation to murder the approximately two million Jews residing in German-occupied Poland. On November 3, 1943, SS and police units shot to death around 6,000 Jewish inmates at the camp, killing almost all of its prisoners in a single massacre. Palij has said he was forced to be a guard.

Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and other countries refused to take him, so Palji continued living in the Queens, NY home he shared with his wife, Maria, now 86. His presence there outraged the Jewish community, causing frequent protests over the years that featured such chants as "your neighbor is a Nazi!"