US deports 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard Jakiw Palij to Germany

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The last Nazi war crimes suspect facing deportation from the US was taken from his home in New York City and returned to Germany on Tuesday, the White House said.

The deportation of the 95-year-old former concentration camp guard, Jakiw Palij, comes 25 years after investigators first confronted him about his past and he admitted lying to get into the US - claiming he spent the Second World War as a farmer and factory worker.

Palij lived quietly in the US for years, as a draughtsman and then as a pensioner, until nearly 30 years ago, when investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard spilled the secret that he was "living somewhere in America".

Palij told Justice Department investigators who showed up at his door in 1993: "I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied."

Palij’s photo on his entry documents for the US.

A judge stripped Palij of his citizenship in 2003 for "participation in acts against Jewish civilians" while an armed guard at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and was ordered to be deported a year later.

But because Germany, Poland, Ukraine and other countries refused to take him, he continued living in limbo in Queens with his wife, Maria, now 86.

His continued presence there outraged the Jewish community, attracting frequent protests over the years.

According to the Justice Department, Palij served at Trawniki in 1943, the same year 6,000 prisoners in the camps and tens of thousands of other prisoners held in occupied Poland were rounded up and slaughtered.

Palij has admitted serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

Jakiw Palij lived in the Jackson Heights neighbourhood of the Queens borough of New York. Credit: AP

Palij’s deportation is the first for a Nazi war crimes suspect since Germany agreed in 2009 to take John Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio carworker who was accused of serving as a Nazi guard.

He was convicted in 2011 of being an accessory to killing more than 28,000 people and died 10 months later, aged 91, with his appeal pending.

In September 2017, all 29 members of New York’s congressional delegation signed a letter urging the State Department to follow through on his deportation.

Palij said 'I would never have received my visa if I told the truth.' Credit: AP

The deportation comes after weeks of diplomatic negotiations, which the White House said President Donald Trump had made a priority.

"Through extensive negotiations, President Trump and his team secured Palij’s deportation to Germany and advanced the United States’ collaborative efforts with a key European ally," the White House said.

Germany’s Justice Ministry and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office did not comment on where Palij would be taken in Germany or what would happen to him.

Prosecutors in Germany have previously said it does not appear there is enough evidence to charge him with wartime crimes.