97-Year-Old Former Member Of Nazi Death Squad Dies At Home In Canada

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A photo of Helmut Oberlander when he was a translator for a Nazi death squad. (Screenshot)

ONTARIO (JTA) – A translator for a Nazi death squad died at home in Ontario at the age of 97, ending a decades-long effort to deport him from Canada for his role in the murders of tens of thousands of Jews.

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Helmut Oberlander, who was born in Ukraine in 1924, had long said that he was forced on pain of death at age 17 to become an interpreter for Einsatzkommando 10a, a Nazi unit. The death squad killed nearly 100,000 people, most of them Jews, according to the CBC. Oberlander had not been accused of directly taking part in killing anyone.

In 1954, he emigrated to Canada and hid his activities during the war, eventually raising a family. His Nazi past appears to have been discovered as early as the 1960s. In the mid-1990s, the government began the process of revoking his citizenship, which succeeded after repeated appeals. He was in the midst of deportation hearings when he died on Wednesday.

B’nai Brith Canada, a Jewish organization, had fought for years for Oberlander’s deportation.

“The peaceful demise of Helmut Oberlander on Canadian soil is a stain on our national conscience,” Michael Mostyn, B’nai Brith Canada’s CEO, said in a statement. “The fact is that this country slammed its doors on Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis, then allowed some of their tormentors into Canada and failed to deport them.”


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Reuven
Reuven
2 years ago

The fact that HKB”H gives these Nazis such Arichas Yomim, shows that they did not really have a Bechira. Hashem made us look like spiders in their eyes and they could not feel anything wrong with their actions. In their eyes we were the Am Hadomeh Lachamor

Marcia
Marcia
2 years ago

He must now answer to Hashem

triumphinwhitehouse
triumphinwhitehouse
2 years ago

Canada like the US until Trump harbored these Nazis almost as bad as Argentina and Brazil

PaulinSaudi
PaulinSaudi
2 years ago

Yep. That generation is dying off. The simple fact is some of them escaped earthy justice.

PhineasJWhooping
PhineasJWhooping
2 years ago

Meanwhile Canadian hospitals jump at every opportunity to legally murder any patient over 65 years old whom they deem as lacking quality of life.