Man, 92, to be deported for aiding Nazis

Man, 92, to be deported for aiding Nazis

BOSTON - An immigration judge has ordered the deportation of a 92-year-old retired factory worker because he lied about his part in the Nazi destruction of Warsaw's Jewish ghetto in 1943, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

Immigration Judge Wayne R. Iskra ordered Vladas Zajanckauskas sent to his native Lithuania, according to a news release from Alice S. Fisher, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's criminal division.

Zajanckauskas' lawyer, Thomas Butters, did not immediately return a call Thursday seeking comment.

The deportation order, issued Aug. 2 and delivered to the Department of Justice on Tuesday, comes more than two years after a federal judge revoked Zajanckauskas' U.S. citizenship, ruling he lied when he denied involvement in the killings.

Zajanckauskas, of Sutton, 40 miles east of Boston, denied he was in Warsaw at the time and said his service was limited to working the bar at the Nazi training camp in Trawniki, Poland.

Justice Department prosecutors said he was recruited into a Nazi guard unit and was on a Nazi roster as one of the officers leading "Trawniki men" deployed to help Nazi SS and police capture Jews in the Warsaw ghetto to be removed to death camps.

The judge noted that Zajanckauskas admitted that Trawniki men guarded Jews and prevented their escape when they were being rounded up in the ghetto. Trawniki men also conducted house-to-house searches for hidden Jews, fought against resistance fighters and took part in the shooting of some captured Jews, the judge said.

The Nazis killed thousands and burned down the ghetto, street by street, after the Jews resisted attempts to deport them to death camps.

Zajanckauskas emigrated from Austria in 1950 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1956. Zajanckauskas said he never told immigration officials about his Trawniki service because it would jeopardize his chances of getting into the United States.