Alleged Nazi War Criminal Living in Canada After Fleeing the U.S. to Avoid Deportation Proceedings

A 64-year-old alleged Nazi war criminal, accused of having served during World War II in a Lithuanian military battalion involved in the rounding up and killing of Jews, Gypsies and Communists, is living in Canada, having recently fled the United States to avoid deportation proceedings.

Immigration Minister Flora MacDonald told the House of Commons in Ottawa yesterday that Juozas Kisielaitis, a Lithuanian, obtained Canadian citizenship in November 1948, left the country for the U.S. in 1963, and only recently returned here with his family from Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.

The U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations said this week that Kisielaitis served during the war in the Schutzmannschaft, a military battalion under the command of a Nazi police major who participated in killings of Jews with “indescribable brutality,” according to documents presented at the Nuremberg war crimes trials.

Solicitor General Elmer MacKay’s office said yesterday that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has been looking into the Kisielaitis case for some time. Outside the House of Commons, MacDonald told reporters that any action on the alleged Nazi’s status would await the findings of the Royal Commission chaired by former Quebec Superior Court Judge Gilles Deschenes. The Commission is investigating the presence of Nazi war criminals in Canada.

American officials said they used Canadian immigration records to prove Kisielaitis’ membership in the Schutzmannschaft through Lithuanian documents captured by the Soviet Army. Kisielaitis admitted that he was a member of that battalion when in 1982 he testified against another officer in that unit.