Detroit-Area Man Who Shot Jews While Serving as Nazi Policeman Ordered Removed from the United States

WASHINGTON – An immigration judge in Detroit has ordered John (Ivan) Kalymon of Troy, Mich., removed from the United States because of his participation in Nazi-sponsored acts of persecution while serving during World War II as an armed member of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police (UAP) in Nazi-occupied L’viv, Ukraine, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division.    

The removal order was issued by U.S. Immigration Judge Elizabeth Hacker.   Kalymon, 89, immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1949 and became a U.S. citizen in 1955.   In 2004, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit seeking revocation of Kalymon’s U.S. citizenship.   Following trial, a federal judge granted that request in 2007, finding that Kalymon had participated in the rounding up and shooting of Jews.   The evidence included an Aug. 14, 1942, report handwritten by Kalymon in which he informed his UAP superiors that he had personally killed one Jew and had wounded another “during the Jewish operation” that day.

In a 28-page decision dated Jan. 31, 2011, Judge Hacker ordered Kalymon deported to Germany, Ukraine, Poland or any other country that will admit him.   Judge Hacker found, as had the district court, that during Kalymon’s voluntary 1941-44 service in the UAP, German authorities enacted a series of persecutory anti-Jewish decrees that were enforced in L’viv by UAP personnel.   German and UAP forces rounded up Jews, beating and shooting those who showed any sign of resistance, and sent most of them to be murdered in the gas chambers at the Belzec extermination center.  Some were shot or sent to be worked to death in forced labor camps.

Judge Hacker’s decision relied on surviving UAP documents that established that on repeated occasions over two years, Kalymon took part in round-ups and forced transports of Jews.   The judge further found that Kalymon concealed his UAP service when applying for his immigrant visa.

 “Ivan Kalymon was part and parcel of the Nazi machinery of persecution that ended the lives of more than 100,000 men, women and children in L’viv,” said Eli M. Rosenbaum, Director of Human Rights Enforcement Strategy and Policy for the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecution Section (HRSP).

The Department of Justice’s Criminal Division announced the formation of HRSP on March 30, 2010, as part of the U.S. government’s efforts to bring human rights violators to justice and deny those violators safe haven in the United States.    The new section represents a merger of the Criminal Division’s Domestic Security Section (DSS) and Office of Special Investigations (OSI).         

This case is a result of the Justice Department’s ongoing efforts to identify, investigate and take legal action against former participants in Nazi persecution who reside in the United States.   Since the inception of this program in 1979, the Department has won cases against 107 individuals who assisted in Nazi persecution.   In addition, 180 suspected Axis persecutors who sought to enter the United States have been blocked from doing so as a result of the department’s “watchlist” program, enforced in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security.   The removal case against Kalymon was litigated by HRSP Senior Trial Attorney William H. Kenety V, with assistance from Frank Ledda, Senior Chief Counsel in the Detroit Office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Additional information about the Justice Department’s human rights enforcement efforts can be found at www.justice.gov/criminal/hrsp.

This article was sponsored by Police Books.