NEW YORK, May 5 (JTA) — The U.S. Department of Justice
has won a court order of deportation against a Michigan man who
served as an armed Waffen SS guard at Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen concentration camps
during World War II. Chief U.S. Immigration Judge Michael Creppy found that Ferdinand Hammer, 75, participated in persecuting persons because of race, religion, national origin or political opinion. In ordering Hammer’s deportation, Creppy cited German documents that confirmed his service in the Waffen SS at Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen, and on prisoner transports between the two camps. “This is a significant victory,” Eli Rosenbaum, director of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, said in a statement. “The ruling reaffirms that those who helped the Nazis carry out their programs of murder and oppression may not claim the privilege of U.S. residence.” Last May, the U.S. District Court in Detroit stripped Hammer of his U.S. citizenship on the grounds that the retired foundry supervisor lied about his wartime past when he applied for naturalization in 1963.
