Former Nazi guard awaiting trial dies aged 95
After being stripped of US citizenship and deported to Germany, Jakiw Palij was awaiting his trial before passing away
A former Nazi camp guard stripped of American citizenship and deported from the US to face trial in Germany has died aged 95.
Jakiw Palij, who concealed his Nazi past when he moved to the US in 1949, had been awaiting trial when his death was announced on Thursday.
Palij was a guard at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland when 6,000 Jews were shot and killed in a single day in 1943, as part of Operation Reinhard.
By stopping prisoners from escaping, he played an “indispensable” part in the massacre, according to US officials. Palij always denied the charges.
His deportation had been a long-running saga, beginning in 2001, when he told US investigators that he had been trained by the perpetrators of the massacre, but for years Germany refused to put him on trial as he was not of German nationality.
Several US presidents declined to deport him but Donald Trump stripped Palij of US citizenship and deported him in August.
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