Alleged Jew persecuter deported to Germany
A retired Florida real estate agent accused of persecuting Jews in Lithuania during World War II has been stripped of his US citizenship and deported to Germany.
Algimantas Dailide, 82, “has permanently departed the United States for Germany”, Assistant Attorney General Christopher Wray said on Thursday, closing Dailide’s long court battle against denaturalisation and deportation.
US courts confirmed that Dailide, “as a member of the Nazi-sponsored Lithuanian Security Police – the Saugumas – took part in the wartime arrest of Jewish men, women and children who were attempting to escape from forced confinement in the Vilnius Jewish ghetto
“The Saugumas systematically arrested and turned over for punishment and execution, Jews who attempted to escape confinement from the Vilnius ghetto, as well as any person who tried to help them.”
Executions
The statement added: “Jews arrested by the Saugumas were shot at execution pits at Paneriai, a wooded area outside Vilnius where some 50,000 Jews were murdered during the war.”
Dailide served in the security police from 1941 until 1944 when the Germans fled Lithuania. He entered the United States in 1950 and became a US citizen in 1955, according to the statement.
In February 1997, the US District Court in Cleveland revoked his citizenship and he lost a series of appeals, the last of which was turned down by the US Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia, last month.