Action Against War Criminals

Rep. Joshua Eilberg (D. Pa.) disclosed that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has started legal action against four alleged Nazi war criminals who have been living in the U.S. since the end of World War II. Eilberg said that for the first time, the three deportation hearings and one denaturalization hearing will include Israeli eyewitnesses to war crimes. The witnesses have been brought to the United States especially for the hearings.

Eilberg, who chairs the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship and International Law, said that not one alien has ever been deported From the U.S. by the INS on grounds of being a war criminal or having engaged in political persecution. “I am deeply disturbed that the inactivity may have been deliberate and calculated, and that persons in government may have sought to block a thorough investigation of the charges brought to the attention of the INS,” he said.

The trial of Boleslavs Maikovskis, which began yesterday in an INS hearing room in Manhattan (New York), was marked by charges by witnesses that they saw him whipping Jewish children and choosing non-workers for execution in the Dwinsk and Riga ghettos in 1941 and 1942. Maikovskis, who was unexpectedly called to the witness stand, refused to answer all questions, claiming the right to refuse to incriminate himself, leading to cancellation of the hearing until today. INS attorneys said they planned to apply for a federal court order to compel the defendant to testify or face a contempt citation.

The other actions against the alleged war criminals are: Villia Arveds Hazners, in U.S. District Court in Albany, N.Y., began yesterday; Karlis Detlavs, in Baltimore, on Oct. 31; and Frank Wallus, nee Wallace, in U.S. District Court in Chicago, on Nov. 3.