Nazi’s days numbered Feds vow to boot fiend from Qns.
The Trump administration has pledged to deport the last known remaining Nazi in New York.
Jakiw Palij, 94, who worked as a guard at the Trawniki death camp in Poland, has been living in Jackson Heights, Queens, despite being stripped of his US citizenship more than 10 years ago.
The Justice Department said it will carry out an order issued in 2005 to have Palij deported to Ukraine, Germany, Poland “or any other country whose government will accept him.”
“The Department agrees fully that Palij should not live out his last days in this country. The Department remains committed to ensuring that justice is done in this case and will continue, in cooperation with our interagency partners, to pursue every avenue for effectuating Palij’s removal,” said a letter, dated Nov. 6, from Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd to New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind.
Hikind (D-Brooklyn), one of a number of New York lawmakers who have been urging the Ukranian native be deported for his participation in Nazi crimes during the Holocaust, applauded the DOJ for taking up the matter.
“Palij’s presence here mocks the memory of those who perished,” Hikind, the son of Holocaust survivors, said in a statement on Monday. “It mocks the US servicemen who fought and died to defeat the evil Nazi regime. It mocks the American justice system.”
He also called on President Trump to get personally involved in expelling the Nazi.
“It’s time for our president to show the world how murderous fiends should be regarded and disposed of,” Hikind said. “It’s time to take Jakiw Palij, this monster who is beneath contempt and un- fit to breathe American air, and kick him the hell out of here once and for all.”
Palij was an armed guard at the Polish concentration camp, where 6,000 Jewish prisoners were shot to death on Nov. 3, 1943, according to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. He immigrated to the United States under false pretenses in 1949 by hiding his Nazi service, and became a citizen in 1957.
An order to remove him has been in effect since he lost his citizenship in 2005, but Ukraine, Germany and Poland have refused to accept him, the DOJ said.
“There is no question of his guilt. It is imperative that someone responsible for Nazi atrocities be held accountable for his crimes, regardless of his age,” Hikind said. “I will never rest while a Nazi lives comfortably in our country.”