'Last Nazi In America' Lives In Jackson Heights, Protesters Say

JACKSON HEIGHTS, QUEENS — A man thought to be the last Nazi living in the U.S. hasn't been forgotten.

Jakiw Palij, 92, lives in Jackson Heights. But in his past life, he was a guard in Trawniki concentration camp where 6,000 prisoners were murdered over the course of a night in November 1943, according to the Department of Justice.

He's admitted his role as a guard in interviews and been stripped of his U.S. citizenship, but no country has agreed to take him.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, which fell on April 24 this year, a group of students from Rambam Mesivta yeshiva gathered in front of his home to voice their frustration that he's still allowed to be at liberty.

"We wanted to shine the flashlight on who this man is and to ask Germany to put him on trial," said Rabbi Zev Friedman, Dean of Rambam Mesivta.

Friedman said some neighbors of Palij's think of him as a harmless elderly man. "He is not a nice old man," he said. "He is a murderer who escaped justice for years."

This was not the first time protests have been organized. Students of Rambam Mesivta have gathered in front of the man's house several times.

Congressman Joseph Crowley penned a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Attorney General Jeff Sessions Tuesday requesting the deportation of Palij.

“This process has dragged on for far too long,” the letter read.

"And if action isn't taken immediately, it could mean that this individual may never face justice. The United States has long acknowledged that Nazi crimes were beyond heinous, I urge you to proceed quickly on this matter."

The protest was first reported by the Daily News.

Palij moved to the U.S. in 1949 and, falsely claiming that he had worked on his father's farm before leaving Poland, became a citizen in 1957, according to the Department of Justice.

In fact, he was a guard in Trawniki extermination camp, according to the department.

Palij's American citizenship was revoked by a federal judge in August 2003, but attempts to deport Palij remained fruitless as the three countries to which he could be sent — Ukraine, Germany and Poland — refused to accept him.

The ex-Nazi currently lives on Social Security checks, according to Crowley's letter.

In interviews, Palij has insisted that he was coerced into working at the concentration camp. ''They came and took me when I was 18,'' he told the New York Times in a 2003 interview.

''We knew they would kill me and my family if I refused. I did it to save their lives, and I never even wore a Nazi uniform. They made us wear gray guards' uniforms and had us guarding bridges and rivers.''

Image via Lindsey Mastis/Flickr