U.S. appeals court upholds deportation order for accused Nazi

(JTA) – A U.S. appeals court upheld an immigration appeals board decision to deport an accused Nazi living in Michigan.  

The 6th Circuit Appeals Court in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Friday upheld the deportation of John (Ivan) Kalymon, 91, who allegedly rounded up and shot Jews as a member of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police during World War II.

The U.S. Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals in September 2011 had upheld a Detroit immigration judge’s decision that Kalymon should be removed from the United States due to his participation in lethal acts of Nazi-sponsored persecution of Jews.

Kalymon was ordered deported to Germany, Ukraine, Poland or any other country that will admit him.

Kalymon served voluntarily as an armed member of the Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian Auxiliary Police in German-occupied Lvov, Ukraine. He is accused of shooting and killing Jews during his service, which he hid on his U.S. citizenship application. 

In 2004, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Detroit seeking to revoke his U.S. citizenship, which he acquired in 1955 after emigrating from Germany six years earlier. A federal judge granted the request in 2007, finding that Kalymon had participated in the roundup and shooting of Jews during his time in the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police from 1941 to 1944. 

The evidence against Kalymon included a seized Aug. 14, 1942 report, handwritten by Kalymon, in which he informed his Auxiliary Police superiors that he had personally shot to death one Jew and wounded another “during the Jewish operation” that day, according to the Justice Department. Other evidence included reports from Kalymon’s commander that Kalymon had fired his weapon during forcible roundups of Jews in which they were killed and wounded.