Press Releases: Germany Accepts Former Nazi Slave-labor Camp Guard Jakiw Palij

image_pdfimage_print

Press Statement

Heather Nauert

Department Spokesperson

Washington, DC

August 21, 2018


The United States expresses its deep appreciation to the Federal Republic of Germany for re-admitting former Nazi slave-labor camp guard Jakiw Palij, who was removed from the United States on August 20.

During World War II, Palij served as an armed guard at the Trawniki slave-labor camp for Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. He concealed his Nazi service when he immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1949. A federal court stripped Palij of his citizenship in 2003 and a U.S. immigration judge ordered him removed from the United States in 2004 based on his wartime activities and postwar immigration fraud.