Washington: A US immigration court has
ordered the deportation of a former Nazi concentration camp
guard during World War II to Austria, the Justice Department
has said.
Anton Geiser, 85, now a resident of Sharon, Pennsylvania,
served as an armed SS guard at three Nazi concentration camps
in Germany during World War II.
The US Immigration Judge Charles M Honeyman ordered
Geiser to be moved to Austria, the country from which he
immigrated to the United States after the Second World War.
Geiser has been found removable under the 1978 Holtzman
Amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act because he
assisted in Nazi-sponsored persecution.
The decision noted that through counsel, Geiser had,
"generally admitted all of the factual allegations" in the
government`s charging document.
In an earlier civil denaturalization prosecution that
resulted in the 2006 revocation of his US citizenship by a
federal district court in Pittsburgh, Geiser had admitted
under oath that he served as an armed SS Death`s Head guard at
Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, near Berlin, Germany, for
most of 1943.
Geiser acknowledged that while on duty at Sachsenhausen,
he escorted forced labourers to and from work sites, guarded
prisoners from an SS watch tower and was under standing orders
to shoot any prisoner attempting to escape.
He also admitted that he served as an armed guard at
Buchenwald Concentration Camp and its Arolsen sub camp from
mid-November 1943 until April 11, 1945.
Geiser maintained that he escorted prisoners from
Buchenwald to Arolsen and evacuated prisoners from Arolsen
back to Buchenwald when the Nazis abandoned the latter camp.
"As a Nazi concentration camp guard during World War II,
Anton Geiser must be held to account for his role in the
persecution of countless men, women and children," said
Assistant Attorney General Breuer.
Geiser immigrated to the United States from Austria in
October 1956 and was naturalized as a US citizen in March
1962.
His citizenship was revoked by the federal district court
order in 2006 on the basis of the court`s finding that Geiser
"clearly assisted in the persecution of people because of
race, religion and national origin" and therefore was legally
barred from receiving the visa issued to him.
"Without Anton Geiser and other members of the SS Death`s
Head guard battalions, the Nazi concentration camp system
could not have accomplished its diabolical objectives," said
Eli M Rosenbaum, Director of Human Rights Enforcement Strategy
and Policy in the Human Rights and Special Prosecution Section
(HRSP).
PTI
