Illinois man who aided Nazis loses citizenship

A retired carpenter who has lived in the United States for more than 50 years was stripped of his U.S. citizenship Tuesday for taking part in a police organization that helped the Nazis round up Ukrainian Jews during World War II. Osyp Firishchak, 86, could face deportation proceedings under an order issued by federal Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan.

In his decision, the judge said Firishchak lied during a three-day civil trial when he denied being a member of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, which helped the Nazis arrest Jews in large numbers and send them to forced labor and death camps.

Firishchak, who came to the United States in 1949, testified this month that he was not a member of the police organization but was a homeless vagrant during the years when investigators say he helped the Nazis. He also contended his name, which appears on auxiliary police documents starting in 1941, was a common one in Ukraine.

The Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations - the federal government's Nazi hunters - proved Firishchak "was a participant in an organization that perpetrated some of the most horrific acts against human decency ever known in history," the judge said.

Firishchak also obtained citizenship illegally by lying to immigration authorities when he said under oath that he had not been a member of any organization affiliated with the Nazis, the judge said.