Appeals Court Affirms Decision to Revoke the U.S. Citizenship of Detroit-Area Man...

Appeals Court Affirms Decision to Revoke the U.S. Citizenship of Detroit-Area
Man Who Shot Jewish Civilians While Serving as a Nazi Policeman

WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Sixth Circuit Court of
Appeals affirmed a March 2007 ruling by the U.S. District Court in Detroit
revoking the U.S. citizenship of John (Ivan) Kalymon, 87, of Troy, Mich.,
because of his participation in violent acts of persecution while serving
during World War II as an armed member of the Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian
Auxiliary Police (UAP) in German-occupied L'viv, Ukraine, Acting Assistant
Attorney General Matthew Friedrich of the Criminal Division announced today.

During the period of Kalymon's service in the UAP, from 1941 to 1944, German
occupation authorities enacted persecutory anti-Jewish decrees that were
enforced in L'viv by UAP members. The Court of Appeals, in a decision issued
Sept. 4, 2008, affirmed the District Court's finding that UAP men also
participated in actions to reduce the population of the ghetto in which the
Jews were forced to live, by searching for Jews in hiding, by shooting Jews
who attempted to escape, and by rounding up and deporting Jews to Nazi forced
labor camps or to the Belzec extermination center where they were murdered
with poison gas.

Both court decisions cited captured UAP documents, which established that on
multiple occasions Kalymon took part in mass round-ups of Jews and helped
deliver some of them for deportation. The court decisions also noted that
wartime UAP reports, including one signed by Kalymon himself, proved that in
1942 he personally killed and wounded Jews in L'viv by shooting them.

Kalymon immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1949 and became a U.S.
citizen in 1955. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the District Court's finding that
he was not eligible for citizenship because his persecutory actions on behalf
of Nazi Germany rendered him legally ineligible to receive a visa to immigrate
to the United States. The Sixth Circuit also affirmed the district court's
decision that Kalymon was ineligible to immigrate to the United States because
he concealed his UAP service when applying for a visa.

"The Nazis and their collaborators killed more than 100,000 of L'viv's Jews --
men, women and children whose only 'crime' was their religion. John Kalymon
was one of those collaborators, and this latest court decision is an important
victory in the U.S. government's ongoing effort to secure a measure of justice
on behalf of the victims of Nazi inhumanity," said Office of Special
Investigations (OSI) Director Eli M. Rosenbaum.

The case was investigated and prosecuted by OSI, which also litigated the
appeal. The proceedings to denaturalize Kalymon were instituted in 2004 by
OSI. The case is a result of OSI's ongoing efforts to identify, investigate
and take legal action against former participants in Nazi persecution who
reside in the United States. Since OSI began operations in 1979, it has won
cases against 107 individuals who assisted in Nazi persecution. In addition,
more than 180 individuals who sought to enter the United States in recent
years have been blocked from doing so as a result of OSI's "Watchlist"
program, which is enforced in cooperation with the Department of Homeland
Security.

SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of Justice, +1-202-514-2007, TDD +1-202-514-1888