Canadian Court Rejects Appeal of Ex-nazi’s Denaturalization

Jewish organizations here are pleased with last week’s decision by Canada’s Supreme Court to reject a bid by convicted Dutch Nazi war criminal Jacob Luitjens to appeal a denaturalization order.

The Sept. 10 ruling removes the last hurdle before a deportation hearing, which will be held on Oct. 13 in Vancouver. The court did not explain its ruling, but revocation of citizenship is not usually appealable under Canadian law.

Luitjens, a 73-year-old retired University of British Columbia botany instructor, was stripped of his Canadian citizenship last November by a Cabinet order after a federal court ruled in October that he had knowingly concealed his past Nazi ties when he immigrated to Canada in 1961 and again when he applied for citizenship 10 years later.

That ruling set in motion efforts to send Luitjens back to the Netherlands, where he was tried in absentia in 1948, convicted of “aiding and abetting the enemy in time of war” and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Luitjens was a former member of the Dutch Nazi party and the Landwacht, a paramilitary unit which assisted the Gestapo in rounding up Jews and resistance fighters in occupied Holland.

“Given the long duration of this case (since 1988) and its importance in terms of bringing Nazi war criminals resident in Canada to justice, we trust the deportation process will continue with all due speed,” stated Milton Harris, chairman of the Canadian Jewish Congress’ war crimes committee.

“Our position is that the government should be exploring both the deportation and extradition options, whichever route is quicker,” said Paul Marcus, national director of the Institute for International Affairs for B’nai Brith Canada. “This removes another roadblock from an already cumbersome and frustrating process,” he said.

Luitjens could be the first person deported under the new extradition treaty between Canada and the Netherlands, which went into effect last December.

In 1981, the Dutch government requested that Luitjens be returned to Holland, but Canadian Justice Department officials ruled that the Canada-Netherlands extradition treaty of that time did not cover the crime of collaboration.

To date, Canada has successfully completed only one war crimes case. In 1983, Albert Helmut Rauca of Toronto was extradited to West Germany to stand trial for the murder of 11,585 Jews in the ghetto of Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania. Rauca died before the case could be heard.