An immigration appeals tribunal upheld the deportation order of a former SS guard.
Josias Kumpf, 83, of Racine, Wis., failed in his appeal to the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals to overturn an immigration judge’s 2007 deportation order, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday in a release.
Kumpf served as an SS guard at the Sachsenhausen and Trawniki camps in Germany and Poland. He has acknowledged participating in “Operation Harvest Festival” in November 1943 in eastern Poland, during which 42,000 Jewish adults and children were murdered over three days. His job was to shoot to kill any prisoners attempting escape.
He has said he never actively participated in murder and that German authorities forced him into SS service when he was 17. However, in stripping him of his U.S. citizenship, American judges have ruled that Kumpf violated rules that ban naturalization for individuals who “personally advocated or assisted persecution.”
Kumpf, born in Serbia, immigrated to the United States from Austria in 1956 and was naturalized in 1964. He could be deported to Germany, Serbia or Austria. It is not yet clear whether Kumpf planned to appeal the decision.
As the Year Turns, Support the Journalism You Trust. JTA covers the stories shaping Jewish life around the world — with the depth this moment calls for. As you reflect on the year ahead, consider a gift that keeps independent Jewish journalism strong.
