The case of former SS guard Anton Baumann is closed, as far as the U.S. Justice Department is concerned.
The department will not order a medical examination for the resident of the Milwaukee suburb to determine if the 82-year-old Baumann is fit for deportation, The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle has learned.
“We have extensive medical records showing that he’s quite ill and there’s no reason to believe that he’s going to get any better,” department spokesman John Russell said in a recent telephone interview.
He said Baumann’s records had been reviewed by “independent doctors.” Baumann underwent coronary bypass surgery and suffers from a host of ailments, according to medical reports.
In July, a U.S. immigration judge ruled here that Baumann deserved to be deported but could remain because of poor health.
The judge said the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, which prosecutes alleged Nazi war criminals living in the United States, could order medical examinations of Baumann beginning Oct. 1.
The Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations would like such an examination.
“Without knowing how extensively the records were examined and by whom, we still think it appropriate to have an independent physician examine him,” said David Feiss, chair of the council’s Task Force on Anti-Semitism, Law and the Holocaust.
Feiss asked why the Justice Department would work to denaturalize Baumann and obtain a deportation order against him if it was not going to pursue the matter.
The task force voted Oct. 25 to draft a letter to OSI inquiring about efforts to have Baumann examined to verify his medical condition.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
