A United States immigration judge has ordered to deport a Pennsylvania resident who once served as a Nazi guard. The accused, 85-year-old Anton Geiser, lost his US citizenship four years ago due to his Nazi past.
Geiser has admitted to serving as a guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1943, and in Buchenwald concentration camp from 1943 to 1945. An estimated 100,000 people were murdered at Sachsenhausen during the Holocaust, and over 50,000 are thought to have been killed at Buchenwald.
“As a Nazi concentration camp guard during World War II, Anton Geiser must be held to account for his role in the persecution of countless men, women and children,”, assistant attorney general Lanny Breuer said following the verdict. “The long passage of time will not diminish our resolve to deny refuge to such individuals."
Geiser had argued in his defense that he did not personally kill or mistreat anyone. The defense was rejected, as similar arguments have been in the past. By standing guard, Geiser was directly responsible for allowing the concentration camps to function, prosecutors said.
Geiser has been ordered deported to Austria, the country from which he immigrated to the US. He was originally from Yugoslavia, a country which no longer exists.