Mixed reaction to settlement of suit against concentration camp guard

Bob Kahn was dismayed when he learned the Justice Department agreed to settle its case against a Butler Township resident who lied about his role in the Holocaust on his 1992 U.S. citizenship application.

“If the settlement is left to stand, it will be a black eye on the Justice Department,” said Kahn, who fled Nazi Germany following Kristallnacht.

According to the settlement agreement filed in U.S. District Court in Dayton on Jan. 18, 84-year old Ildefonsas Bucmys will be stripped of his U.S. citizenship but will not be deported despite admitting he failed to provide accurate responses on his citizenship application.

For some Dayton Holocaust survivors and their children, the settlement strikes a raw nerve.

The Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations filed the suit against Bucmys in September 2002 alleging he concealed his role as a Lithuanian prison guard at Majdanek death camp.

In exchange for dropping the lawsuit, Bucmys agreed to testify against anyone who may also have served at the Majdanek concentration camp in 1943. He also agreed that neither he nor his heirs would appeal the revocation of his citizenship.

While the OSI has agreed not to pursue Bucmys’ deportation for his “activities during World War II,” the agreement specifically states that in no way is the OSI prevented from cooperating with a foreign government’s attempts to extradite Bucmys for trial.

As of press time, U.S. District Judge Walter H. Rice had not yet approved the four-page, jointly filed agreement.

Should Rice sign it, Bucmys will revert to the status of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residency.

Kahn adamantly believes the Justice Department should have pursued deportment.

“The reason that Mr. Bucmys lied about his past and his involvement as a notorious camp guard at the death camp of Majdanek is not as his attorneys want us to believe, namely that his English wasn’t good,” he said.

According to one of Bucmys’ defense attorneys, Mark Henry, his client isn’t thrilled with the case’s outcome.

“He is disappointed by any resolution which seems to endorse the case against him, but considering everything he was facing to continue litigation, it’s an acceptable trade,” Henry said.

He also said his client was prepared to settle the case when it began two years ago, but the OSI was determined to go to trial. It was only in September 2004, on the eve of the trial, that the government extended a settlement offer, Henry said.

Lisa Harlan, a daughter of Holocaust survivors, has no sympathy for Bucmys.

“I think he just lied to get in here,” she said. “He was allowed to enjoy this country, to enjoy his family, while I never had the pleasure of meeting three out of four of my grandparents. Let him go back to the country where he volunteered to stand guard while Jews were being murdered. Had he told the truth, he never would have been allowed in this country. I feel badly for his family. It’s not their fault what he did. It’s his fault what he did.”

An estimated 170,000 men, women, and children were systematically murdered at Majdanek, located in Lublin, Poland, including tens of thousands of Jews, many by asphyxiation in gas chambers.

The volunteer Lithuanian guard force at Majdanek was subordinated to the SS Death’s Head Battalion.

Bucmys served as an armed guard at Majdanek with standing orders to shoot to kill prisoners who attempted to escape.

The OSI claims he was at the camp on Nov. 3, 1943, when 18,000 Jewish prisoners were shot to death during an action called Operation Harvest Festival.

According to OSI, Bucmys departed Majdanek on two weeks of authorized leave in November 1943 after Operation Harvest Festival and didn’t return. Bucmys has argued he left in late summer 1943.

OSI Executive Director Eli Rosenbaum declined to comment while the settlement remained unsigned by Rice.

Julie Liss-Katz, chair of Dayton’s Jewish Community Relations Council, said that while she understands this case has become an emotional issue for the Jewish community, each case has its own set of facts and circumstances.

“It is important to our community that whenever charges are brought before the court, that each side has an opportunity to be heard and present their facts before a decision is made,” she said. “We must continue to support our judicial system and process.”

The OSI did not produce any witnesses to testify about specific crimes committed by Bucmys at Majdanek.

Henry has admitted that his client served in the Lithuanian guard force which was guarding, at least on the periphery, a documented Nazi death camp, but has argued that Bucmys was there against his will.

“Bucmys and his attorneys have tried to justify not only why he lied, but also tried to absolve him from the atrocities which the camp guards were directed to perform,” Kahn said. “Mr. Bucmys’ efforts to disassociate himself from the brutal treatment of innocent camp inmates are in complete conflict with eyewitness accounts, confessions of the camp guards, diaries about the nature of this camp and its murderous purpose.”

Renate Frydman, director of the Dayton Holocaust Resource Center and Chair of the Holocaust Education Committee , said that as far as she could tell, the Justice Department did all it could to assemble the best evidence available for this case.

“However, 60 years after the event, the persons who could corroborate the involvement of this particular person in the death camp are dead,” she said. “Their lives were cut short by the horrors they faced in places like Majdanek where Bucmys spent time as a guard.”

She said the most important outcome of the Justice Department bringing this evidence to light is “to point out that there are still individuals living, even around us, who hid their past and lived normal lives.”

“The prosecution of people like Bucmys, regardless of their age or the number of years that have passed since their crimes, is justice in and of itself.”

Frydman added that although it may seem Bucmys was treated leniently, “stripping a person of his U.S. citizenship, at any age, is a very serious penalty, and shows that justice can be served in many ways.”

Tami Kamin-Meyer contributed to this report.