We're now most 70 years past World War II and yet those who were involved in atrocities are still among us. As it turns out, at least one might be closer to us
than we realized:
A top commander of a Nazi SS-led unit accused of burning villages filled with women and children lied to American immigration officials to get into the United States and has been living in Minnesota since shortly after World War II, according to evidence uncovered by The Associated Press.
Michael Karkoc, 94, told American authorities in 1949 that he had performed no military service during World War II, concealing his work as an officer and founding member of the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion and later as an officer in the SS Galician Division, according to records obtained by the AP through a Freedom of Information Act request. The Galician Division and a Ukrainian nationalist organization he served in were both on a secret American government blacklist of organizations whose members were forbidden from entering the United States at the time.
Though records do not show that Karkoc had a direct hand in war crimes, statements from men in his unit and other documentation confirm the Ukrainian company he commanded massacred civilians, and suggest that Karkoc was at the scene of these atrocities as the company leader. Nazi SS files say he and his unit were also involved in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, in which the Nazis brutally suppressed a Polish rebellion against German occupation.
For his part, Karkoc isn't talking:
Karkoc now lives in a modest house in northeast Minneapolis in an area with a significant Ukrainian population. Even at his advanced age, he came to the door without help of a cane or a walker. He would not comment on his wartime service for Nazi Germany.
"I don't think I can explain," he said.
I suppose not.
6 comments:
war is ugly and sometimes causes normally decent people to sully themselves.
i'm not trying to say that this guy is normally decent, or not, or that war made him do it, or not.
i'm just saying its time to let it go now.
the process involved in bringing this guy to justice wouldnt be worth it.
that, and the thought that there werent many angels on the eastern front to begin with, when passions ruled the moment and survival itself too often meant taking part in 'atrocity' by today's standards, and this happened on both sides...
where a war-brutalized young man leading a company of equally battle-hardened stormtroopers did not make one a 'Mengele'...
for me, there is a distinction there.
just let it go.
I don't know what to think about it, Gino. We'll learn more about this matter in the coming days.
I'm sorry, but we're not talking about a guy who just happened to fight for the Nazis. If the accounts of what Karkoc's unit did are accurate, (and we'll let the process play out) then we're talking about a soldier massacring civilians.
He's lead a life of relative comfort for half a century; decades more than his (alleged, I guess I'm obligated to say) victims. I don't believe in a statute of limitations for war crimes.
If the accounts of what Karkoc's unit did are accurate, (and we'll let the process play out) then we're talking about a soldier massacring civilians.
That's the thing -- it that turns out to be true, then he has to be punished.
a soldier massacring civilians.
it was the eastern front. this happened every day.
and dont forget the bombing of dresden. or is it different when our guys do it from an airplane?
it was the eastern front. this happened every day.
Doesn't change the nature of the act.
and dont forget the bombing of dresden. or is it different when our guys do it from an airplane?
Don't know that it is different, but the people who ordered Dresden are all gone now. They're in a different court now.
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