Ex-Nazi Guard Deported From Wisconsin

(CBS/AP)  A Wisconsin man who took part in the massacre of 8,000 Jews during World War II was deported to Austria, government officials said Thursday.

Former Nazi concentration camp guard Josias Kumpf, 83, admittedly participated in a mass shooting at a Polish labor camp that left 8,000 Jewish prisoners - including 400 children - dead in 1943, according to Immigration and Justice Department officials.

During World War II, Kumpf served as an armed guard at Trawniki labor camp in Poland. He also served at a concentration camp in Germany as well as a slave labor site in France where prisoners built launching platforms for German missile attacks on England, the government said.

Kumpf's court-ordered removal from the U.S. "is another milestone in the government's long-running effort to ensure that individuals who participated in crimes against humanity do not find sanctuary in this country," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Rita M. Glavin.

The Trawniki shootings were part of "Aktion Erntfefest," or Operation Harvest Festival, which ended in the deaths of around 42,000 Jews in Poland, officials said.

The Serbian-born Kumpf said he was tasked with watching for victims who were still "halfway alive" or "convulsing" and prevent their escape, according to officials. If they tried to escape, he was to shoot them.

Kumpf arrived in the U.S. in 1956 and became a citizen eight years later. A U.S. District Court revoked his citizenship in 2005 after the government brought a suit against him. His deportation was ordered by a judge and carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Peter Rogers, Kumpf's attorney, didn't immediately return a message Thursday.

In a 2003 interview, Kumpf said he was taken from his home in Yugoslavia as a 17-year-old and forced to serve as a guard, but he didn't participate in any atrocities.

At a 2006 hearing Rogers described Kumpf as "a gentleman who was involuntarily inscripted into the army, assigned to the SS and then stationed at places where admittedly terrible things happened. My client never took part in them."

But at a subsequent deportation hearing, Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich said Kumpf participated in an operation that resulted in the murder of thousands of innocent victims.

"His culpability in this atrocity does not diminish with the passage of time," Friedrich said at the time.

Since 1979, the U.S. Justice Department has won cases against 107 people who participated in Nazi crimes.

[Chris_Butler]

I don't know whether anybody is interested but this guy has already been let out of goal because the statutes of limitations ran out in 1965.

It was a waste of time extraditing him.

[mdalerwill]

Lucky you ducked...
Posted by davicar2 at 12:18 PM : Mar 20, 2009

LOL. I think I must have made a new friend. My posts, even the serious 100%-on-topic ones, are disappearing off all the threads.

[quapawsix]

Just a note; Well that's funny they let the rocket scientists who where party members, and actively seeking weapons of mass destruction into our country and, did not prosecute them even when we have laws on the books against their interring into the U.S., and these same people did not prosecute the Japanese responsible for Unit 51 which was responsible for the same types of atrocities as well as carrying out genocide on the Chinese people, and prisoner's of war that went on in death camps in European Theater of War. Sure can for give these peoplea safe haven all in the name of security.

[bradkt1]

We NEVER forgive former Nazis...NEVER!!!

[cbsantispin]

At what point do we forgive former Nazi's and move on? The current Pope was a Nazi and many appear to have forgiven him! Instead of worrying about the old Nazi's who are out of business, we need to be worrying about and deporting the new "active" Neo-Nazi Skinheads! The new Neo-Nazi's are where the attention needs to be focused. Find them as Post their information on the web like its done for s e x offenders, we should know if they operate and live near us.

[Non-Sequitur]

For God's sake, the man was 17 years old in 1943. *** is wrong with you people? Bush and Cheney go free while this poor sap gets hosed for being a low man on the totem pole... what's wrong with this picture? What was he, a private at best? Get real, you fear infested blood suckers... you hate everything that you don't understand. The truth is in plain sight if only you took the effort (we do have Google, after all), but your ignorance is so profound that you prefer to be spoon-fed your propaganda from fear mongering gas bags masquerading as journalists. It's kinda hard to take you guys seriously if you see the problem.

[toolmangler-2009]

Posted by griller2009 at 5:11 PM : Mar 19, 2009




My uncle was among the first ones through the gate at Buchanwald and took pictures because he couldn't believe his eyes. I saw the pictures when he got back. I still weep and there is not a jewish bone in my body.

[Renegade.Rivers]

To say the least this about as hypocritical as our country could be, considering all of the Nazis that were allowed into the country, who were war criminals, after the war when Operation Paperclip was put in place. Of course, I am sure that many of you have never heard of that operation, which brought Nazi scientist to American, sponsored by our OSS, the forerunner to the CIA. Those Nazis were brought here using falsified records, and passports issued by the Vatican. This took place during the Truman administration.

Among the Nazis who was brought over here was Von Braun, whose rockets reigned terror on London for months. Of course, it was he who later designed the rockets which were used to put America in space. Arthur Rudolph, who during the war was operations director of the Mittelwerk factory at the Dora-Nordhausen concentration camps, where 20,000 workers died from beatings, hangings, and starvation. Kurt Blome was another Nazi who was brought over here, he was a high-ranking Nazi scientist, Blome told U.S. military interrogators in 1945 that he had been ordered 1943 to experiment with plague vaccines on concentration camp prisoners. He was tried at Nuremberg in 1947 on charges of practicing euthanasia (extermination of sick prisoners), and conducting experiments on humans. Although acquitted, his earlier admissions were well known, and it was generally accepted that he had indeed participated in the gruesome experiments.
Two months after his Nuremberg acquittal, Blome was interviewed at Camp David, Maryland, about biological warfare. In 1951, he was hired by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps to work on chemical warfare. His file neglected to mention Nuremberg. In all over 600 high ranking Nazis with a history of war crimes were brought to American after there records had been falsified.

On the other hand, this old man, who had been no one of importance, and may have never done anything wrong was expelled. Why? The only logical conclusion is that he was of no use to the powers that be,

[griller2009]

Thanks, Toomangler2009. By the way, my brother runs PTSD groups for Vietnam veterans at a VA center, so I am aware and am also very sympathetic to soldier's traumas during war time.

My main point was to point out the antisemitism of previous posts and that genocide is an extraordinary crime against humanity so we should not take it lightly or make excuses for this man no matter his age when he murdered or his age now that he is being deported.

[toolmangler-2009]

Posted by griller2009 at 4:45 PM : Mar 19, 2009




If I misunderstood, 'apologys'
I was more interested in certain peoples feeling and trying to mitigate the commentary to reflect that point.