A federal judge in Philadelphia has entered an order revoking the U.S. citizenship of a World War II death camp guard.
U.S. District Judge William Yohn Jr. on Tuesday ordered the denaturalization of Johann Breyer, 68, based on his activities as a guard at the Auschwitz and Buchenwald death camps, the Justice Department announced.
Breyer, a retired tool-and-die maker who is a native of Slovakia, admitted in court papers that he had served as an armed guard at the perimeters of both camps, with orders to shoot escaping prisoners. He also admitted that he had escorted prisoners consigned to slave labor to their work sites.
In a ruling in July, the judge noted that “activities which occurred at these camps were brutal and included such acts upon the inmates of the camps as murder, torture, confinement, forced labor and experimentation.”
Based upon Breyer’s admissions and captured Nazi documents, submitted as evidence by government lawyers, the court found Breyer was ineligible for the U.S. immigration visa he received in 1952 and for U.S. citizenship, which he acquired in 1957.
Last week, the Justice Department ordered the deportation of Alexander Schweidler, 71, a resident of Inverness, Fla.
Schweidler, an admitted SS guard at the Mauthausen death camp, was given until Feb. 1 to leave the county. He is a British citizen.
In November, Joseph (Juozas) Grabauskas, a 74-year-old Chicago man who admitted serving in a Lithuanian mobile killing unit, voluntarily left the United States.
Earlier in November, the Justice Department effectively closed the case against admitted Nazi persecutor Anton Baumann, 82, a Wisconsin resident who was deemed too ill for deportation.
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.
