The ambassador’s duty

Congratulations to Rick Grenell, newly minted Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Federal Republic of Germany. Nice title, good job. We don’t want to spoil his Chelsea sendoff party Sunday evening before he flies off to Berlin, but there is some unpleasant business that Grenell must make clear to his hosts from the outset of his posting: Germany must take back a Nazi war criminal illegally living in Queens. Soon.

Jakiw Palij volunteered for duty as an SS death camp guard, working for the Third Reich in occupied Poland as part of the machinery of murder that consumed millions of Jews. After the war, he lied about his SS service and entered the U.S.

The Justice Department found Palij living in Jackson Heights and had his citizenship stripped in 2003, then won a deportation order in 2004.

But for 14 years, Germany has said no thanks to taking Palij back, and the State Department has gone soft, giving a war criminal the chance to die in freedom in the nation he lied his way into.

Germans and State Department careerists are hoping time will take care of the 94-year-old Palij. Grenell must push. Palij must not cheat justice.