A former guard at a World War II Nazi concentration camp was removed from his home in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and deported back to Germany on Saturday (February 20). According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 95-year-old Friedrich Karl Berger was deported for his participation in Nazi-sponsored persecution while serving in Nazi Germany in 1945.
A Memphis immigration judge ruled in February 2020 that Berger could be removed from the country for his role as an armed guard in the Neuengamme Concentration Camp system, NBC News reports, and specifically a camp near Meppen where prisoners were kept in "atrocious" conditions while being forced to work "to the point of exhaustion and death."
Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson said Berger's removal from the country demonstrates the department's commitment to ensuring the U.S. is not a "safe haven for those who have participated in Nazi crimes against humanity and other human rights abuses."
"In this year in which we mark the 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg convictions, this case shows that the passage even of many decades will not deter the Department from pursuing justice on behalf of the victims of Nazi crimes," he said.
According to FOX 17, Berger is the 70th Nazi persecutor to be removed from the United States.
"We are committed to ensuring the United states will not serve as a safe haven for human rights violators and war criminals," said Tae Johnson, acting director of ICE. "We will never cease to pursue those who persecute others. This case exemplifies the steadfast dedication of both ICE and the Department of Justice to pursue justice and to hunt relentlessly for those who participated in one of history's greatest atrocities, no matter how long it takes."
Photo: U.S. Department of Justice