EAST EUROPEAN EMIGRES ARE ACCUSED OF IMPEDING HUNT FOR NAZIS IN U.S.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706710010-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2011
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: April 6, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706710010-3
Of Impeding Hunt for Nazis in U.S.
East European Emigres AreAU~d
Response Charges Jewish Organization With Aiding Soviets
and ' it's fraught with anti-
Semitism."
against Ukrainians, Baits and East
Europeans" that has "served to pro-.
mote the interests of the J(GB," the
Soviet secret police.
The World Jewish Congress re-
port charged that the groups have
been openly and-Semitic in their
native-language newspapers and
have waged a campaign to set a
statute of limitations on war crimes
and to shut down the Justice De-
partment's Office of Special Inves=
tigations (OSI), which is responsible
for pursuing Nazi war criminals.
Current and former Justice
Departmentattorneys say the re-
port is accurate.
One OSI lawyer, who asked not
to be identified, said, "Their efforts
are to close us down. They have
people who do nothing but monitor
us, attack us. They are very active,
campaign aimed at undermining the
Justice Department's Nazi prose-
.cution program." -
On Thursday, Myron Wasylyk,
director of the Washington office of
} the Ukrainian Congress Committee
of America, responded by accusing
the World Jewish Congress of "a
vicious defamation campaign
Congress, after a year-long inves-
?tigation, charged that various Bal-
tic, Ukrainian and other Eastern European emigre groups have en-
gaged in "an intensive and shocking
Tony Mazeika, national coordi-
nator for the Coalition for Consti-
tutional Justice and Security, which
claims at least 30 million emigre
followers of Eastern European de-
scent, charged that the WJC report
is part of "an abusive campaign-
orchestrated by OSI-that is abso-
Federal Nazi hunters say their
efforts to investigate and expel
World War II criminals are being
obstructed by a group of more than
30 Eastern European emigre organ-
izations that are raising legal de-
fense funds for accused Nazis and
openly urging their supporters not
to cooperate with the Justice De-
partment.
On Tuesday the World Jewish
lutely criminal .... We have abso-
lutely no animosity-we want to
work with Jewish groups in the
United States." .
One major complaint raised by
the emigres is that U.S. prosecu-
tors have used as evidence wartime
documents provided by the Soviet
Union. I
Wasylyk whose group repre-
sents more than 1 million Ukrainian
Americans, said: "Most of the ev-
idence OSI is using is supplied by
the K . This is the issue as we
see it. We're all for getting war
criminals. But this is KGB-supplied
evidence that's meant to defame
Eastern Europeans, Baits and
Ukrainians in the United States."
Wasylyk said U.S. emigre organ-
izations have "obtained prominence
.. beyond what the 1KjgD_ would
like to see happen. We have new
clout with Congress, the press and
the Reagan administration. The
KGB is starting this disinformation .
campaign to slander the Eastern
European groups by claiming we're
anti-Semitic."
OSI head Neal Sher said of the
emigre groups:, "Organizations and
individuals have flooded each and
every member of Congress, the
White House, the State Depart-
ment, the attorney general's office
and the media ....
"It's ludicrous to say we're being
duped by the KGB. That's a smoke-
screen to hide`'f e' fact that these
people were involved in the most
heinous of crimes ..... If we're to
pursue these cases, we have to go
wherever the evidence is."
Many of the incidents of collab-
oration occurred in Latvia, Lithu-
ania and the Ukraine, where anti-
communist and anti-Semitic senti-
ment led some people to cooperate
with the German occupation forces
in the 1940s.
When Soviet evidence is used,
Sher said, "We have requested the
Soviets to produce the originals of
documents to be used as evidence;
they have done so. These docu
ments are subjected to scientific
testing, both by this government
and, if so desired, independently by
the defendant.
"When OSI attorneys and defense
counsel travel to the Soviet Union
to take testimony, Soviet prosecu-
tors do not know in advance the
questions that either side will ask.
Nor do they know what documents
or witnesses in the West are avail-
able to either corroborate or con-
tradict the Soviet witnesses."
The emigre lobbying efforts have
gone on for several years, accord-
ing to both OSI and the emigre
groups. But Eli Rosenbaum, a con-
sultant to the World Jewish Con-
gress and former Justice Depart-
ment Nazi hunter, says it has esca-
lated in the past six months, partic-
ularly-since last month, when Ma-
zeika's coalition was formally
launched in Los Angeles.
But there is no indication that
Justice is considering weakening
the powers of OSI, which was cre-
ated in 1979 to pursue Nazi war
criminals living in the United
States. Under U.S. law, former Na-
zis cannot be tried for their wartime
crimes. Instead, they have been
accused of violating immigration
laws by lying about their Nazi pasts
when they applied for U.S. citizen-
ship. If convicted, they can be de-
ported.
In the past two years, six former
Nazis have been deported or left
the country voluntarily.
Con nuw
By Mary Thornton
Wasington Post staff writer
T.L-M WASc11N0TO POST
L l 04 C
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706710010-3
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 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706710010-34~
In November 1983, several law-
yers representing the emigre
groups met with justice Depart-
ment lawyers-including Stephen
S. Trott, the assistant attorney gen-
eral in charge of the criminal divi-
sion-to protest the use of Soviet
evidence and push for a statute of
limitations, jury trials and free
court-appointed legal counsel for
the defendants.
But Trott, who oversees OSI,
made it clear in a followup letter
that he opposes a statute of limita-
tions and that the "Justice Depart-
ment is committed in these cases to
pursue evidence wherever the trail
leads it." He added that U.S. immi
gration law does not provide for
jury trials or free lawyers.
Some of the rhetoric of the emi-
gre groups and their supporters has
been openly anti-Semitic.
For example, a 12-page, single-
spaced letter to Attorney General
Edwin Meese III, signed by the
Council of Latvian Officers Associ-
ation of Australia and New Zealand,
asks that the law creating OSI be
overturned and adds, "Information
is now available that no mass gas-
sing of Jews and other prisoners
took place at the Buchenwald and
Dachau camps."
It goes on to say that one of the
aims of Jewish organizations around
the world is to "contaminate the
judicial systems of the countries to
serve their purpose ... It is well
known that Jews are the most priv-
ileged ethnic group in the Soviet
Union, although they deny it for
political purposes."
Both Wasylyk and Mazeika say
their groups are not anti-Semitic,
but the foreign-language periodicals
circulated by the emigre groups
contain such phrases as "the Jewish
Eichmanns," "Jewish Nazism" and
"Jews who profited from the Holo-
caust."
The emigre groups have cam-
paigned openly against OSI in the
ethnic newspapers. For example, an
article in the Sept. 23, 1983, issue
of Darbininkas, a Brooklyn-based
Lithuanian weekly, is entitled,
"How to Defend Oneself from At-
tacks by OSI."
The newspapers are also used for
fund-raising. Two prominent funds
are the Fund for the Defense of
Lithuanian Rights in Chicago and
the Latvian Truth Fund in New
York.
Aid has been solicited openly for
accused criminals, including Han
Lipschis, who had confessed to
serving as an SS official at the
Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Po-
land. He has been deported to West
Germany.
Rasa Razgaitis, a leader in an
emigre group called Americans for
Due Process, defended the fund-
raising, saying that it is unfair to
place the emigres on trial for a "civil
technicality" and then send them to
the Soviet Union, where they could
be executed for their wartime ac-
tivities. "These people are retired,
old, they have limited funds and no
right to court-appointed counsel,"
she said.
Israel Singer, executive director
of the World Jewish Congress, said
the emigre groups "fear that the
Justice Department's prosecutions
are exposing the American public to
the historical fact that Hitler's an-
nihilation of 6 million Jews was car-
ried out not by'the Germans alone,
but rather with ;the extensive col-
laboration of Lithuanians, Latvians,
Ukrainians, Estonians and other
Europeans." ?
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706710010-3