Ex-guard for Nazis faces deportation
Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2003 3:56 pm
Our government doesn't have better things to worry about than deporting people who might have been forced to serve for the Nazis?
Ex-guard for Nazis faces deportation
Racine County man says he never killed any prisoners at the concentration camps
By GINA BARTON and MEGAN TWOHEY
gbarton@journalsentinel.com
Last Updated: Sept. 30, 2003
The U.S. government wants to deport an infirm Racine County man who says he has nightmares about his service as a guard in two Nazi concentration camps.
The civil action, filed Tuesday in federal court in Milwaukee, surprised the illiterate, retired sausage plant worker and his daughter. But federal officials say his participation in shocking brutality should cost him the American citizenship he gained almost 40 years ago.
Josias Kumpf, 78, admitted to investigators in March that he served as an armed guard at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp north of Berlin and at Trawniki training and labor camps in Nazi-occupied Poland "on a couple of occasions during my regular military training," according to a statement filed with the complaint against him.
In an interview Tuesday, Kumpf said the Nazis would have killed him if he had refused to serve as a guard.
"They had lights and dogs," he said of the German soldiers who escorted him from his home in Yugoslavia in 1942, when he was 17. "If someone runs away, they'd shoot."
According to his statement, Kumpf was at Trawniki during a mass execution of prisoners on Nov. 3, 1943. However, "I did not participate in the shooting of the prisoners. My role was to guard the camp during the shooting so the prisoners could not escape."
While Kumpf stood guard, at least 7,000 men, women and children were gunned down in a mass murder operation known under the code name "Operation Harvest Festival," according to prosecutors.
"During the massacre, Jewish prisoners were forced to strip naked and lie on the corpses of other prisoners before they to were shot to death, while trucks with speakers played loud music to drown out the screams of the victims. No person who participated in such a shocking act of brutality should enjoy the privilege of U.S. citizenship," Eli M. Rosenbaum, director of the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, said in a statement. His office coordinates nationwide efforts to prevent former Nazis from entering the country and to deport those who do.
Came to U.S. in 1956
Kumpf says he arrived at the Polish camp toward the end of the mass killings, never killed anyone, left after two days and still has nightmares about the events.
"I feel sorry," Kumpf said. "I saw what they did to Jewish people. They were dying; they were like skeletons. I see the hole and people dying."
In his statement to authorities, Kumpf detailed his military history, saying he served as a combat soldier "fighting on the Russian front and against the Russians in Poland and Germany." At the end of the war, he was in France. Despite a retreat back to Germany, he was captured by the Russians and held as a prisoner of war for five months.
At the Russian prison camp, Kumpf was fed little and became very skinny, he said Tuesday. Afterward, he traveled in the custody of Russian soldiers from Germany to Yugoslavia, then to Austria. In Austria, he broke free and found his family, who had since moved there. He worked as a farmer, fixed roads and did a variety of other jobs.
In 1956, Kumpf, who was by then married and had children, applied for entry into the United States because he was making only $40 per month in Austria. At that time, and when he applied for citizenship in 1964, he described his combat experience but did not mention his service as a guard at the camps.
Tuesday, he said no one ever asked.
But because he concealed that "material fact," his citizenship was illegally obtained and must be revoked, according to the complaint. Had he disclosed his service to the Nazi regime when he applied for a visa, it would have been denied, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
The complaint also disputes Kumpf's characterization of his duties during the war and his assertions that he worked at just two camps for only a few days. It alleges that he was a member of the SS Death's Head Battalion - the Nazi cadre of concentration camp guards - for at least a year. In addition to serving at Sachsenhausen and Trawniki, prosecutors say, he worked at three other concentration camps: Majdanek in Lublin, Poland; Buchenwald in Weimar, Germany; and Mittelbau in Nordhausen, Germany.
Dozens deported since 1979
The information in the complaint was gathered by a historian in the federal Office of Special Investigations. Since 1979, when the office opened, 73 people who assisted the Nazis have been stripped of U.S. citizenship and 59 have been deported, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
The complaint against Kumpf is the third such action filed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
In 1990, prosecutors filed a complaint against Anton Tittjung, formerly of Greenfield, alleging that he had served as a guard at Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. A federal judge ruled in the government's favor and revoked his citizenship in 1990. In affidavits, Tittjung said that he worked at the camp only under threat of being shot and that he never personally abused a prisoner. He appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he lost in 2000. Then 75, he was ordered deported to Croatia.
At a 1991 trial, a federal judge determined that Anton Baumann, formerly of West Allis, had served as a guard at the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland. There was no evidence that he mistreated or killed any prisoners. Baumann's citizenship was revoked later that year, and an immigration judge ordered him deported to Germany. However, the judge allowed Baumann, then 82, to stay in the U.S. until his ill health improved. It never did, and he died in 1994.
Kumpf has 20 days to respond to Tuesday's complaint, which does not include criminal charges. He is entitled to a trial, at which a judge would determine whether to revoke his citizenship. If his citizenship is revoked, he must leave the country. His options would likely be Germany, because he is an ethnic German, or the city of his birth in the former Yugoslavia, which is now in Serbia and Montenegro.
Kumpf, who worked at Vienna Sausage in Chicago from 1956 to 1990, moved to Caledonia about 11/2 years ago, after his wife died. Kumpf, who cannot read or write and who needs help taking care of himself, now lives with his adult daughter and her husband.
His family members said they were surprised when they learned of Tuesday's action by the government. They said they had heard nothing since two officials interviewed Kumpf in March.
Kumpf said he has a sister in Germany but no family in Yugoslavia. He remained calm Tuesday, even though he doesn't want to leave the U.S.
"You can measure my pulse," he said. "I'm OK. I didn't do anything."
His daughter, Anneliese Krampitz, 53, isn't so sure.
"You didn't do anything," she said through tears. "But are they going to believe you?"
From the Oct. 1, 2003 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Ex-guard for Nazis faces deportation
Racine County man says he never killed any prisoners at the concentration camps
By GINA BARTON and MEGAN TWOHEY
gbarton@journalsentinel.com
Last Updated: Sept. 30, 2003
The U.S. government wants to deport an infirm Racine County man who says he has nightmares about his service as a guard in two Nazi concentration camps.
The civil action, filed Tuesday in federal court in Milwaukee, surprised the illiterate, retired sausage plant worker and his daughter. But federal officials say his participation in shocking brutality should cost him the American citizenship he gained almost 40 years ago.
Josias Kumpf, 78, admitted to investigators in March that he served as an armed guard at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp north of Berlin and at Trawniki training and labor camps in Nazi-occupied Poland "on a couple of occasions during my regular military training," according to a statement filed with the complaint against him.
In an interview Tuesday, Kumpf said the Nazis would have killed him if he had refused to serve as a guard.
"They had lights and dogs," he said of the German soldiers who escorted him from his home in Yugoslavia in 1942, when he was 17. "If someone runs away, they'd shoot."
According to his statement, Kumpf was at Trawniki during a mass execution of prisoners on Nov. 3, 1943. However, "I did not participate in the shooting of the prisoners. My role was to guard the camp during the shooting so the prisoners could not escape."
While Kumpf stood guard, at least 7,000 men, women and children were gunned down in a mass murder operation known under the code name "Operation Harvest Festival," according to prosecutors.
"During the massacre, Jewish prisoners were forced to strip naked and lie on the corpses of other prisoners before they to were shot to death, while trucks with speakers played loud music to drown out the screams of the victims. No person who participated in such a shocking act of brutality should enjoy the privilege of U.S. citizenship," Eli M. Rosenbaum, director of the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, said in a statement. His office coordinates nationwide efforts to prevent former Nazis from entering the country and to deport those who do.
Came to U.S. in 1956
Kumpf says he arrived at the Polish camp toward the end of the mass killings, never killed anyone, left after two days and still has nightmares about the events.
"I feel sorry," Kumpf said. "I saw what they did to Jewish people. They were dying; they were like skeletons. I see the hole and people dying."
In his statement to authorities, Kumpf detailed his military history, saying he served as a combat soldier "fighting on the Russian front and against the Russians in Poland and Germany." At the end of the war, he was in France. Despite a retreat back to Germany, he was captured by the Russians and held as a prisoner of war for five months.
At the Russian prison camp, Kumpf was fed little and became very skinny, he said Tuesday. Afterward, he traveled in the custody of Russian soldiers from Germany to Yugoslavia, then to Austria. In Austria, he broke free and found his family, who had since moved there. He worked as a farmer, fixed roads and did a variety of other jobs.
In 1956, Kumpf, who was by then married and had children, applied for entry into the United States because he was making only $40 per month in Austria. At that time, and when he applied for citizenship in 1964, he described his combat experience but did not mention his service as a guard at the camps.
Tuesday, he said no one ever asked.
But because he concealed that "material fact," his citizenship was illegally obtained and must be revoked, according to the complaint. Had he disclosed his service to the Nazi regime when he applied for a visa, it would have been denied, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
The complaint also disputes Kumpf's characterization of his duties during the war and his assertions that he worked at just two camps for only a few days. It alleges that he was a member of the SS Death's Head Battalion - the Nazi cadre of concentration camp guards - for at least a year. In addition to serving at Sachsenhausen and Trawniki, prosecutors say, he worked at three other concentration camps: Majdanek in Lublin, Poland; Buchenwald in Weimar, Germany; and Mittelbau in Nordhausen, Germany.
Dozens deported since 1979
The information in the complaint was gathered by a historian in the federal Office of Special Investigations. Since 1979, when the office opened, 73 people who assisted the Nazis have been stripped of U.S. citizenship and 59 have been deported, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
The complaint against Kumpf is the third such action filed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
In 1990, prosecutors filed a complaint against Anton Tittjung, formerly of Greenfield, alleging that he had served as a guard at Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. A federal judge ruled in the government's favor and revoked his citizenship in 1990. In affidavits, Tittjung said that he worked at the camp only under threat of being shot and that he never personally abused a prisoner. He appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he lost in 2000. Then 75, he was ordered deported to Croatia.
At a 1991 trial, a federal judge determined that Anton Baumann, formerly of West Allis, had served as a guard at the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland. There was no evidence that he mistreated or killed any prisoners. Baumann's citizenship was revoked later that year, and an immigration judge ordered him deported to Germany. However, the judge allowed Baumann, then 82, to stay in the U.S. until his ill health improved. It never did, and he died in 1994.
Kumpf has 20 days to respond to Tuesday's complaint, which does not include criminal charges. He is entitled to a trial, at which a judge would determine whether to revoke his citizenship. If his citizenship is revoked, he must leave the country. His options would likely be Germany, because he is an ethnic German, or the city of his birth in the former Yugoslavia, which is now in Serbia and Montenegro.
Kumpf, who worked at Vienna Sausage in Chicago from 1956 to 1990, moved to Caledonia about 11/2 years ago, after his wife died. Kumpf, who cannot read or write and who needs help taking care of himself, now lives with his adult daughter and her husband.
His family members said they were surprised when they learned of Tuesday's action by the government. They said they had heard nothing since two officials interviewed Kumpf in March.
Kumpf said he has a sister in Germany but no family in Yugoslavia. He remained calm Tuesday, even though he doesn't want to leave the U.S.
"You can measure my pulse," he said. "I'm OK. I didn't do anything."
His daughter, Anneliese Krampitz, 53, isn't so sure.
"You didn't do anything," she said through tears. "But are they going to believe you?"
From the Oct. 1, 2003 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel