Judge Denounced for Permitting Ex-nazi to Keep U.S. Citizenship

The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith has urged the Justice Department to appeal the ruling of July 26 by Federal District Judge Norman C. Roettger in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla, permitting a former Nazi to keep his U.S. citizenship. At the same time, Jewish Defense League board member Irwin Block, and the JDL’s counsel, Sam Polur, a New York attorney residing in Miami Beach and a member of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, denounced the verdict as a “travesty of truth, of justice, of decency.” Block and Polur said that “the heart of the ruling is the announced statement that Feodor Fedorenko ‘was a victim of Nazi aggression.'”

Roettger ruled that there was insufficient evidence to warrant the revocation of citizenship and deportation of Fedorenko, 71, a former guard at the Treblinka death camp accused of the torture and murder of Jewish inmates.

Ending a 15-day trial at which Jewish survivors of Treblinka now living in Miami Beach and witnesses from Israel testified that they saw Fedorenko shoot Jewish prisoners and beat and torture them, the judge said that the prosecution had failed to prove its case. He characterized Fedorenko himself as a “victim of Nazi aggression” who most certainly would have suffered execution had he refused to carry out Nazi orders. He also questioned the credibility of the witnesses and suggested that some of them may have been coached.

LIED ABOUT WARTIME ACTIVITIES

The government sought to deport Fedorenko, a native of the Ukraine, on grounds that he had lied about his birthplace and his wartime activities when he entered the U.S. and applied for citizenship in 1949. Fedorenko admitted that he had passed himself off as Polish when he entered the U.S. but claimed he did so to avoid possible repatriation to the Ukraine. He denied committing atrocities at Treblinka.

Roettger said, “If the court were convinced that the allegations charging him with atrocities at Treblinka were true, there is no doubt he would not be entitled to citizenship. However, this court must decide this case on the record before it and the strict burden of proof has not been met.”

Justin Finger, the ADL’s assistant director of civil rights, said: “We are at a loss to understand the court’s ruling in as much as Fedorenko admitted lying on his 1949 application for American citizenship by concealing his role as a guard at Treblinka, the Nazi death camp. The fact is that if Fedorenko had truthfully completed his application in 1949, he would have been refused American citizenship.”

Commenting on the U.S. attorneys who tried the case, Block said the JDL commended them. “They worked diligently,” he said. “They were hamstrung throughout. But they surely proved their case. By an overwhelming factual, legal and moral suasion of guilt of lying beyond any doubt at all. They forced Fedorenko to admit he lied. That was the only issue before the Judge. He chose to ignore that, apparently.”