WASHINGTON - The Department of Justice announced on Thursday that a man from Tennessee who served as an armed guard at a concentration camp in Nazi Germany during World War II be deported to Germany.
German citizen, Freidrich Karl Berger was ordered to be removed from the United States territory by a Memphis immigration judge.
According to the statement from the Department of Justice, the United States Immigration Judge Rebecca L. Holt made the ruling after they conducted a two-day trial 'on the basis of his service in Nazi Germany in 1945 as an armed guard of concentration camp prisoners in the Neuengamme Concentration Camp system, NBC reported.
Based on the information from the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, between 1938 and 1945, an estimated 100,000 individuals were imprisoned in the Neuengamme system and at least 42,900 people were killed.
The Justice Department also added that Berger served at a Neuengamme sub-camp near Meppen, Germany, where prisoners were Jews, Russians, Poles, Danes, Dutch, French, Latvians, and political opponents.
Holt also discovered that during the winter which began in 1944 and ended in 1945, Meppen prisoners were held in atrocious conditions and also exploited for outdoor labor which often led to death, Fox News reported.
The German citizen also admitted that he guarded prisoners and prevented them from escaping during their workday and even their trips to and from work sites and between sub-camps and camps.
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The court also found and shared by the Justice Department that as the British and Canadian forces advanced on german forces in 1945, the Nazis abandoned Meppen and Berger secured the guarding of prisoners amid their almost two-week trip during their forcible evacuation where they suffered inhumane conditions and claimed the lives of 70 involved prisoners.
The German citizen also conceded that he never requested a transfer from serving as a concentration camp guard.
Based on the United States Justice Department, Berger also is still receiving a pension from Germany according to his employment, which includes his wartime service, The Epoch Times reported.
The Department of Justice also released that Holt issued her opinion that the judge found Berger removable under the 1978 Holtzman Amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act due to his willingness in serving as an armed guard of prisoners at a concentration camp where the persecution took place.
Brian A. Benczkowski, the Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice's Criminal Division shared that Berger was part of the SS machinery of oppression that kept the prisoners of the concentration camp in atrocious conditions of confinement.
He also added that this ruling only shows that the Department is continuing its commitment in obtaining a measure of justice for the victims of wartime Nazi persecution.
The conducted investigation into the German National Freidrich Karl Berger was initiated by the Human Rights and Special Prosecution Section of the Justice Department and was assisted by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcements coming from the Homeland Security Investigations Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center.
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