FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CRM TUESDAY, JULY 1, 1997 (202) 514-2008 TDD (202) 514-1888 JUSTICE DEPARTMENT INITIATES REMOVAL PROCEEDINGS AGAINST FORMER OFFICER IN NAZI-SPONSORED KILLING UNIT WASHINGTON, D.C.--The Justice Department today initiated removal proceedings against a Philadelphia man who served as an officer and platoon commander in an infamous Nazi unit during World War II. The Notice to Appear (Notice), filed today in U.S. Immigration Court in Philadelphia by the Criminal Division's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) and the Philadelphia Office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, alleges that Jonas Stelmokas, 80, a retired architect, voluntarily joined the Nazi-sponsored Lithuanian Schutzmannschaft (Protective Detachment) in July 1941. He allegedly joined shortly after the German invasion of Lithuania, and served until August 1944, when he was transferred to the Luftwaffe (German Air Force). "This is an important step on the path to bringing this case to a just conclusion," said OSI Director Eli Rosenbaum. "The inhumane operation of the Kaunas Jewish Ghetto, one of the most deservedly notorious in all of Nazi-occupied Europe, would have been impossible without the involvement of Stelmokas and other Schutzmannschaft officers and men." In 1995, the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia stripped Stelmokas of his U.S. citizenship, finding that his Schutzmannschaft service and misrepresentation of that service to U.S. immigration officials disqualified him for the U.S. visa he received in 1949. In 1996, that decision was upheld by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The Notice cites the findings of the District Court which indicated that Stelmokas was the commander of the detachment that guarded the barbed-wire enclosed ghetto in which the Jews of Kaunas, Lithuania were forcibly confined. The District Court held Stelmokas was responsible for enforcing the internment of the Jews in the ghetto where they were subject to extreme deprivation, brutality, and arbitrary shootings. The District Court found that Stelmokas was ineligible for a visa to enter the United States because, among other reasons, his service and activities in the Lithuanian Schutzmannschaft constituted assistance in the persecution of civilians on the basis of their race, religion, or national origin, and assistance to the enemy Nazi forces in their military operations against the United States. The Notice further alleges that Stelmokas was ineligible to immigrate to the United States because he concealed his Schutzmannschaft service when applying for a visa. Specifically, Stelmokas claimed to U.S. immigration officials that he had worked as a teacher from August 1940 until August 1943 and was unemployed in Kaunas from August 1943 until July 1944. In fact, he was at that time employed as an officer in the Lithuanian Schutzmannschaft. Rosenbaum said the initiation of proceedings to deport Stelmokas was a result of OSI's ongoing efforts to identify and prosecute former participants in Nazi-sponsored acts of persecution who reside in the United States. To date, 59 Nazi persecutors have been stripped of U.S. citizenship as a result of OSI's efforts, and 48 such persons have been removed from the United States. Some 300 persons remain under investigation. An additional 123 Nazi persecutors who sought to enter the United States in recent years have been blocked from doing so as a result of OSI's "watch list" program. ### 97-274