May 26, 1999
COMMENTARY:
Beware wolves in refugees' clothing
___By James Rudin
___American Jewish Committee
___Current reports of Serbian atrocities have focused international attention on the grisly subject of war crimes.
___NATO leaders have promised that once the military action is successfully concluded,there will be trials of the people who planned and carried out the horrific actions in Kosovo.
___In the meantime, we should not forget that Nazi-era war criminals still dwell among us in America. Sixty-one Nazi war criminals have been stripped of American citizenship, and 49 of them have been deported.
___For example, Kazys Ciurinskas, formerly of Crown Point, Ind., served as a member of a killing battalion in Lithuania.
___On April 15, a U.S. Immigration Court in Chicago issued an "order of removal" and on May 12, Ciurinskas was expelled and returned to Lithuania. The trial record indicates that in 1949 Ciurinskas illegally concealed his World War II service when he applied for a visa to enter the United States.
___The murderous activities of Ciurinskas' battalion in the autumn of 1941 were so brutal that captured wartime documents reveal the killings repulsed even the Nazis.
___Two years ago, a federal district court revoked Ciurinskas' falsely obtained citizenship. The court noted the infamous 2nd Battalion participated in more than 10 "killing actions," resulting in the deaths of more than 19,000 Jews.
___What is striking is that many war criminals are not German. They are, instead, people who collaborated with the occupiers of their country and knowingly participated in the mass murder of Jews, many of whom were their fellow citizens. In almost every country that came under German rule in World War II, there were units like Ciurinskas' 2nd Battalion that acted as a murderous police force for their masters from Berlin.
___The Germans often were able to count upon indigenous anti-Semites in many countries who did the ugly job of killing.
___Following the war, some of those local killers sought entry into the United States, claiming they were escaping harsh communist rule in their own lands. People like Ciurinskas deliberately lied about their Nazi wartime activities.
___Public officials predict that many Serbs, tired of the constant warfare in their region, will seek to enter the safe haven of the United States. One hopes history will not be repeated and we will not see an influx of the very people who committed atrocities in Kosovo.
___It's clear that U.S. immigration authorities, already stretched thin along our nation's long borders, will have difficult work in the next few years. War crimes, especially the mass murder of civilians, must have no statute of limitations. (RNS)
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