This Week
Alleged Nazi Found
U.S. Department of Justice accuses another
Sterling Heights man of having a Nazi past.
HARRY KIRS BAUM
Staff Writer
0
ne month after deporting
one convicted Nazi from
Sterling Heights to Austria,
the U.S. Department of
Justice has set its sights on another
man residing in the same city.
The Justice Department's Office of
Special Investigations filed a com-
The Yeshivat Akiva Children's Choir came to sing.
plaint April 19 in U.S. District Court
in Detroit. OSI alleges that Iwan
Mandycz, 80, was an armed guard at
Jewish leaders consider the building
HMC Director Rabbi Charles
two SS labor camps in Poland where
of new health and sport facilities
Rosenzveig admonished American
Jews
were forcibly interned, exploited
more important than the building of
Jews for not doing enough to per-
as
slave
laborers and then murdered.
Holocaust facilities."
suade Allied forces to bomb the death
"Prisoners
were given starvation
The commemoration included a
camps in Poland and Germany.
rations,
and
brutal
beatings were a
performance by the Yeshivat Akiva
Telling the crowd that governments
daily
occurrence,"
said
Eli
Children's
Choir,
poetry
readings
and
throughout Europe and the Catholic
Rosenbaum,
OSI
director.
"The Third
a
candle-lighting
ceremony.
A
prayer
Church have come forward to apolo-
Reich
permitted
these
people
to live
service
followed
onsite
at
the
eternal
gize for its silence or active participa-
only
so
long
as
they
could
work."
flame of the HMC, about a block
tion in the murder of the Jewish peo-
The complaint charges that
away.
ple of Europe, Rabbi Rosenzveig said,
Mandycz
trained at the SS training
At the commemoration, survivor
"I felt today that perhaps we should
camp
Trawniki
in Nazi-occupied
Paul Worona, 81, of Southfield, said,
look upon ourselves as well."
Poland
during
April
and May 1943.
"The feelings I have when I come
Quoting excerpts from an address
The
purpose
of
the
camp
was to pre-
here,
I
feel
like
crying."
given in Tel Aviv in 1963 by Dr.
pare
Eastern
European
recruits
to
Thoughts
of
what
he
went
through
Nachum Goldman, former president
assist
German
personnel
in
imple-
never
go
away,
Worona
said,
but
the
of both the World Zionist
menting the Nazi campaign to annihi-
event brought the memories of losing
Organization and the World Jewish
late Jews in Poland, which the Nazis
his parents, two brothers and three
Congress, Rabbi Rosenzveig read,
code-named "Operation Reinhard."
sisters into sharper focus.
"The major responsibility for the lack
During their training, Trawniki
The commemoration is still neces-
of strong action during the Holocaust
recruits guarded Jewish prisoners who
sary, he said, for all survivors and for
rests upon us Jews.
were
housed at an adjacent slave labor
those who were lost.
"The Jewish communities in
camp.
Annette
Ferber
Adelman,
33,
of
America and other countries did not
After completing his training at
West Bloomfield, who recited a poem
have the courage to exert pressure
Trawniki,
Mandycz served as an SS
during the service, said, "My mother
through drastic acts upon the democ-
auxiliary
and
armed guard at
was a hidden child and my father was
ratic governments, forcing them to
Poniatowa,
an
SS labor camp located
a survivor. It's very trying and I have
apply drastic means to intervene and
in
Lublin,
from
approximately May to
very difficult emotions."
help during the Holocaust."
late
November
1943.
This would have
Observing the crowd, she said, "I
Rabbi Rosenzveig also took to task
placed
Mandycz
at
the
camp on Nov.
think it's very important, but I don't
University of Chicago Professor Peter
4,
1943,
the
date
when
SS and
see
enough
young
people
here.
I
think
Novick, a recent visitor to Detroit,
German
police
forces
shot
to death all
that's
something
to
be
concerned
whose controversial book, The
of
the
prisoners
at
Poniatowa.
Some
about
in
the
future."
Holocaust in American Jewish Lift
14,000
Jewish
men,
women
and
chil-
Said Marla Greenbaum of
("Another View," April 28, page 16),
-dren
at
the
camp
were
murdered
in a
Southfield, pointing at her son Noam,
paints a picture of American Jews as
single
day
as
part
of
an
SS
killing
9, who sang in the Akiva choir: "To
"obsessed with the Holocaust."
action with the code name
see him up there, it shows me that my
"I only wish it were true. There is
"Operation Harvest Festival."
father's generation's still going on."
so much to learn from the lessons of
"Once the Nazis decided that the
"If
you
ever
need
a
verification
of
the Holocaust. I, unfortunately, know
prisoners
were no longer useful, they
who
won,
you
look
at
the
kids,"
the opposite to be true, at least in
moved
swiftly
to liquidate both camps
noted Stuart Teger of Southfield.
some Jewish communities," the rabbi
[Poniatowa
and
Trawniki]," said
"Hitler failed and here's the proof." 111
said, not going into specifics. "Some
5/5
2000
32
Rosenbaum.
In 1949, Mandycz obtained an
American immigration visa in
Salzburg, Austria, and entered the
United States. He became a natural-
ized U.S. citizen in 1955.
According to the OSI complaint,
Mandycz concealed his service as a
slave labor camp guard when he
applied for his visa. He told U.S. offi-
cials that he had spent the war work-
ing on his parents' farm in Poland and
then as a forced laborer in Austria.
The suit seeks a ruling that Mandycz,
80, obtained his U.S. citizenship ille-
gally, and a judgment revoking that
citizenship.
Mandycz has 60 days to answer the
complaint, said Rosenbaum, and he'll
have to respond "by denying or
admitting to each paragraph." The
next step is pre-trial discovery.
The trial of Ferdinand Hammer,
the convicted Nazi living in Sterling
Heights, took seven years before he
was deported to Austria in March.
Rosenbaum was unwilling to guess
how long this trial will take.
"These cases, if vigorously defend-
ed, unfortunately take a period of
years," he said, "but we always do
whatever we can to expedite them to
the maximum amount possible."
Rosenbaum said that OSI's inves-
tigative research generates all of their
cases, not tip-offs by individuals.
"We've been consistently success-
ful," he said. "I don't want to tempt
fate, but it's been many years since
we've lost a case. I'm optimistic."
Andrew Haliw of Farmington
Hills, named as Mandycz's attorney,
could not be reached for comment.
Since OSI began operations 20
years ago, 63 Nazi persecutors have
been stripped of their citizenship and
53 of them removed from the United
States, including four in the past year.
In recent years, more than 150 sus-
pected Nazi persecutors have been
stopped at U.S. ports of entry, and
blocked from entering the country, as
a result of OSI's "watchlist" program.
Some 250 persons are currently under
investigation by the Justice
Department unit.
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