1 NEWS

OSI Brings Charges
Against Architect

New York (JTA) — The
I Justice Department has
r-charged a retired
Philadelphia area architect
with having been a high-
ranking officer who helped
Nazis murder Lithuanian
Jews and others during
World War II, and said he
ied about his past when he
applied for a U.S. visa and
r- for his American citizenship.
, The Office of Special In-
vestigations, the Justice
\, Department's special Nazi-
- hunting unit, and U.S. At-
,torney Michael Baylson,
charged in documents filed
‘;) in U.S. District Court that
Jonas Stelmokas, 75,
`'advocated, assisted, par-
ticipated or acquiesced in
the murder and other
„persecution of Jews and
other unarmed civilians in
Lithuania."
Mr. Stelmokas has denied
she charges. He told a
Philadelphia television news
' program that "it was all
Soviet fabrication."
OSI charged that Mr.
-Stelmokas concealed his
Wartime past when he ap-
plied for a visa in 1949 and
misrepresented his war-
ears activities when he ap-
plied for citizenship in 1954
and was naturalized in 1955.
The Justice Department
unit has moved to revoke
Mr. Stelmokas' citizenship
and, if successful, will seek
this deportation.
Mr. Stelmokas, a resident
of the Philadelphia suburb of
Landsdowne, is a former
chairman of the local
chapter of the Lithuanian-
American Community of the
U.S.A., Inc., which he has
served for some 40 years.
OSI charged that Mr.
Stelmokas was untruthful
when he swore that the only
organization to which he
belonged prior to 1945 was
the Lithuanian Boy Scouts.
OSI alleges that from 1941
to 1942, Mr. Stelmokas was
a platoon commander in the
Third Lithuanian Schutz-
mannschaft (Protective
Detachment) Battalion,
which was responsible for
mass murders of Jews and
others.
The battalion forcefully
confined Jews to the Kaunas
(Kovno) ghetto, in which
thousands of Jews died
either from the extremely
i,-poor conditions or by execu-
tion.
OSI said Mr. Stelmokas
made no reference to this,
either in his 1949 visa ap-
plication, 1954 citizenship

I

application or in a 1955
sworn statement to a
naturalization examiner.
Nor did he mention that he
served in the 91st Light Flak
Battalion of the German Air
Force, the Luftwaffe, in
which he was a member
from 1944 to 1945, according
to the OSI complaint.
In fact, Mr. Stelmokas, in
his 1951 application for a ju-
nior association to the
American Institute of Archi-
tects, said he had worked as
a draftsman for the Kaunas
health department between
the years 1941 and 1943.
OSI officials said the
Lithuanian government has
been making its archives
available to war-crimes in-
vestigators.

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Businessman
Cancels Trip

Los Angeles (JTA) — After
a month of off-again, on-
again negotiations, a Los
Angeles businessman has
decided not to go to Saudi
Arabia because his visa
identifies him as Jewish.
On his initial visa applica-
tion, Mr. Schwartz listed his
religion as Jewish, and in
return was notified by the
Arab auction firm that a
non-Jew should be sent in
his stead, as "it is difficult to
get the visa for a person who
is jewish (sic)."
After the Simon Wiesen-
thal Center lodged protests
with the Pentagon and
Saudia Arabia's ambassador
to Washington, Prince Ban-
dar Bin Sultan, the Saudi
Embassy issued the visa,
claiming that the kingdom
does not discriminate on the
basis of religion.
Mr. Schwartz picked up
the visa at the Saudi Con-
sulate in Los Angeles and
prepared his travel plans.
Part of the visa was in
English and part in Arabic,
and shortly before his
planned departure, Mr.
Schwartz asked a bilingual
friend to translate the non-
English part.
"It says Yahood, which is
Arabic for Jew," the friend
told Mr. Schwartz, a Holo-
caust survivor and a U.S.
combat veteran of the
Korean War.
Mr. Schwartz canceled his
travel plans. "I didn't like it,
and to travel to Saudi
Arabia with 'Jew' in my
passport, I was concerned for
my safety."

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