United States v. Stelmokas

100 F.3d 302 (3d Cir. 1996)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P alleged that D was born in Moscow, Russia, and resided in Lithuania commencing in 1930. From 1936 until 1939 D attended the Lithuanian army officers' school in Kaunas, Lithuania, from which he graduated in 1939. From August 1939 until July 1940 D was an officer in the Lithuanian army. P contends that D was a voluntary member and officer of the Schutzmannschaft and advocated, assisted, participated, and acquiesced in the murder and persecution of Jews and other unarmed civilians in Lithuania. Around August 1944, at the time the German occupation of Lithuania ended, D entered the Luftwaffe in the 91st Light Flak Replacement Unit. In July 1949 D sought a determination from the United States Displaced Persons Commission ('DPC') that he was a displaced person and therefore was eligible to immigrate to the United States. D did not inform the analyst that he had served in the Schutzmannschaft or the Luftwaffe. D falsely claimed that he had been a teacher in Seda, Lithuania, from July 1940 until August 1943. He claimed that he then was unemployed in Kaunas until July 1944, and was a laborer in Dresden, Germany, from 1944 until March 1945. DPC status was granted, and D applied for a visa to enter the United States. D repeated the same lies to an American vice-consul in Hamburg, Germany. D was approved and then entered the United States as a displaced person and permanent resident on August 31, 1949. D filed an application for naturalization with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. D misrepresented under oath his personal history by claiming that the only organization to which he belonged before 1945 was the Lithuanian Boy Scouts. The district court granted his petition for naturalization. P requested that the court revoke D's naturalization. D filed an answer to the complaint in which he admitted the historical facts regarding the German occupation of Lithuania and admitted that he had applied for entry into the United States as a displaced person. D refused to answer the allegations in the complaint regarding his wartime activities as he claimed: 'that his answers could be used against him in criminal proceedings in the United States and other countries.' P then moved to compel D to answer the complaint on the ground that D could not rely on the Fifth Amendment to refuse to answer. The government introduced numerous documents into evidence. Soviet Union. D argued that the documents were not trustworthy, but the court rejected this contention because expert testimony established that they were authentic. One expert testified that he was not aware of a single World War II Soviet Union archival document that was a forgery. The court concluded that the government 'amply established the authenticity and trustworthiness of the documents in evidence.' The court found D voluntarily enlisted in the Schutzmannschaft and was appointed platoon commander in the 7th Company. The court traced D's various assignments in the Schutzmannschaft, a process made possible by the meticulous record keeping of the Schutzmannschaft units, which court opinions demonstrate was consistent with the Germans' practice during World War II of recording their murderous conduct in specific detail. The documents linked D's battalion to many atrocities one of which involved the murder of precisely 9,200 Jews. Levine and Malnik, who were children in the ghetto at the time, supported the documentary evidence with eye-witness testimony. They testified that armed Lithuanians took part in the murders. The court also made findings that D participated in anti-partisan actions and served in the Luftwaffe. The court held that D had been ineligible to immigrate to the United States because his actions in the Kaunas ghetto assisted the enemy in persecuting civilian populations. The court revoked his citizenship. D appealed.