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An 83-year-old former Nazi SS guard accused of murdering Jews in a mass execution of more than 40,000 people will be removed from the United States.The Board of Immigration Appeals, or BIA, upheld an order of deportation for Josias Kumpf due to his involvement in Nazi persecutions during World War II, the Department of Justice announced.Kump, born in Serbia and currently a resident of Racine, Wis., admitted to serving as a former armed SS guard at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Germany and another labor camp in Poland. Chicago immigration judge Jennie Giambastiani ordered that Kumpf be returned to Germany, Austria or Serbia after the elderly man disclosed his personal history as an SS Death's Head guard in Germany,France and Poland. "Josias Kumpf participated in a 1943 Nazi operation that resulted in the murder of thousands of innocent victims. His culpability in this atrocity does not diminish with the passage of time," acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich said. "The BIA's ruling bolsters the Department's continuing efforts to ensure that those who took part in the crimes of the Nazi Holocaust are not allowed to enjoy the privileges and freedom the United States offers its citizens."The Death's Head battalions of the SS were considered to be Adolf Hitler's elite units, committing what have been described as some of the most diabolic crimes in history. The men were deployed when acts of extreme brutality were ordered at Nazi extermination camps. They were subservient to Hitler and were his personal agents for carrying out acts of genocide. The battalions were named Death's Head after the skull patch on the right collars of their uniforms.Kumpf joined the Nazi camp in Germany in October 1942 and remained there until he became stationed at the Trawniki Labor Camp in Poland. He confessed to contributing to the 1943 "Aktion Erntefest," or "Operation Harvest Festival," a two-day operation in which 42,000 Jewish men, women and children were exterminated at three Poland concentration camps.The man admitted to having stood guard while 8,000 prisoners, 400 of whom were children, were exterminated in Trawniki pits. Kumpf told officials he was tasked with locating sufferers who were "halfway alive" or "convulsing" and shooting victims who attempted to flee.Kumpf left Austria and came to the U.S. in 1956, becoming a citizen in 1964. The Criminal Division's Office of Special Investigations, or OSI, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin began filing paperwork to denaturalize Kumpf in 2003 and revoked his citizenship in 2005. OSI then coordinated a removal action with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.The OSI has been tasked with identifying, investigating and removing Nazi criminals who currently live in the United States. It began its "Watch List" program in 1979, coordinated in conjunction with efforts by the Department of Homeland Security, and has effectively prosecuted 107 perpetrators and prevented 180 war criminals from entering the country.OSI Director Eli M. Rosenbaum issued a public statement about the decision to remove the former Nazi guard from the U.S.:The BIA's decision to uphold the removal order ensures that Josias Kumpf, who participated in the perpetration of one of the most infamous crimes of the Holocaust, will not be allowed to continue enjoying the privilege of residence in the United States – a nation in which so many victims who somehow survived the horrors of Nazi inhumanity found refuge.
As in the days of Noah....
