By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
WASHINGTON — They’re getting up there in age, but the Justice Department continues to take action against Nazi guards living in the U.S.
The lastest effort is against Anton Geiser, 84, of Sharon, Pa., who authorities say served as an armed SS guard at two Nazi concentration camps in Germany during World War II.
The Justice Department announced last Friday that it had launched removal proceeedings against Geiser.
The latest move comes as the U.S. battles to deport suspected Nazi guard John Demjanjuk, 89. Demjanjuk of Ohio was supposed to be deported to Germany by Monday, but he got a last minute stay in court. That stay was lifted on Monday by an immigration judge, but Demjanjuk plans to appeal.
Geiser served as a guard in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp near Berlin and at Buchenwald Concentration Camp, authorities said.
He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1962 and his citizenship was revoked in 2006 because “his service to Nazi Germany made him ineligible to enter the United States,” the Justice Department said.
“Through his service as a Nazi concentration camp guard, Anton Geiser helped subject thousands of innocent civilians to inhumane and frequently lethal treatment,” Acting Assistant Attorney Gen. Rita M. Glavin said in a prepared statement. “The United States will not provide a safe haven for such individuals.”
The Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, which was created in 1979 to deal with Nazis in the U.S., has reportedly won more than 100 cases against Nazis.
