The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith welcomed today the revocation of citizenship Tuesday of a Queens woman who had failed to indicate on her application that she had been a member of the Nazi SS elite guard. Benjamin R. Epstein, national director of ADL, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “The files of the ADL confirm the record of Hermine Braunsteiner. We think the government acted quite properly in revoking her dishonestly obtained citizenship.”
The government’s brief said the former Nazi, who has been living here since 1959 as the wife of a construction worker, Russell Ryan, was “a cruel, brutal and sadistic woman who unnecessarily beat and tortured defenseless prisoners” at the Ravens-bruck and Maidanek concentration camps. An investigation into Mrs. Ryan’s past was begun seven years ago on the evidence of information disclosed by Simon Wiesenthal, head of the Vienna Documentation Center. Mrs. Ryan received her citizenship in January, 1963. She agreed Tuesday to its revocation without commenting on the veracity of the charges against her. She now faces possible deportation.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
