By Staff
Title: Jeffrey Mausner Papers of postwar collaboration trials, 1960-1980
ID: RG-80/RG-80
Creator: Jeffrey Mausner (1960's--1980's)
Extent: 1.0 Boxes
Arrangement:
The arrangement scheme for the record group was imposed during processing in the absence of an original order. Materials are arranged by subject and/or creator. Their order is based off of the Nazi war criminals as well as other various legal documents.
The record group is comprised of eighteen collections: 1. Otto Ambros; 2. Apprehending and Prosecuting Nazi War Criminals; 3. Basil Artishenko; 4. Paul Herman Bluemel; 5. Boleslavs Bogdanovs; 6. Ildefansas Bucmys; 7. General Leon Degrelle; 8. Anatoly Hrusitzky; 9. Konrad Kalejs; 10. Serhij Kowalczuk; 11. Georg Leibbrandt; 12. Karl Linnas; 13. Boleslavs Maikovskis; 14. Mausner Awards; 15. McCalden V. SWC; 16. Mermelstein; 17. Jeffrey Mausner, Speeches; 18. Otto Albrecht Von Bolschwing.
Languages: English [eng], German [ger]
The record group is comprised of postwar legal documents and newspaper articles from the United States depicting the attempts to denaturalize, deport, and/or extradite Nazi war criminals from the United States to European countries or the Soviet Union, to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. The legal documents present the legal proceedings of the prosecution as they argued to have the war criminals denaturalized, deported, or extradited. Some of the legal documents provide a brief history of the crimes committed by the defendants, and how these war criminals came to the United States and evaded prosecution for many years. Multiple court appearances were made concerning each accused Nazi war criminal. The alleged Nazi war criminals include Otto Ambros, Basil Artishenko, Paul Herman Bluemel, Boleslavs Bogdanovs, Ildefansas Bucmys, General Leon Degrelle, Anatoly Hrusitzky, Konrad Kalejs, Serge Kowlachuk (Serhij Kowalczuk), Georg Leibbrandt, Karl Linnas, Boleslavs Maikovskis, and Otto Albrecht Alfred von Bolschwing. The newspaper articles included follow the progress of these various legal proceedings of each accused Nazi war criminal.
Materials within the record group include briefs and other legal documents used in court proceedings, depositions, witness statements, original Nazi documents used as evidence in court, court rulings and orders, newspaper articles, and other documents relating to prosecution of Nazi war criminals in the United States. Materials are digitized.
Access Restrictions: No restrictions.
Use Restrictions:
<p style="font-size: 11.8181819915771px;"> Copyrighted materials, credits to and references to the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust are required.
<p style="font-size: 11.8181819915771px;"> Digital copies might be available upon request.
Documents related to alleged Nazi war criminal Serge Kowalczuk (Serhij Kowalczuk). Kowalchuk was a Ukrainian police official in the city of Lubomyl during the Nazi occupation, when the Ukrainian police assisted the Nazis in the murder of Lubomyl's Jewish citizens. Kowalchuk misrepresented and concealed that he had been a Ukrainian police official, claiming in his visa application that he had been a tailor.
In October 1942, the Jewish ghetto of Lubomyl was liquidated. Ukrainian police, German gendarmes, and other units drove all the Jews remaining in the ghetto to the town square and then to a brick factory several kilometers from Lubomyl, at the village Borki. Large pits had already been dug at this sight. Ukrainian policemen guarded this area while Germans shot the Jews. The shooting was conducted as follows: several Jews at a time were forced to undress and led to the pits by Ukrainian policemen. They were forced to lie down in the pit face down, and were shot in the back of the head by the Germans. The next group of Jews would be forced to lie on top of those already shot. This killing lasted the whole day. Several thousand Jews were shot.
After Kowalchuk's trial, the United States District Court ordered that Kowalchuk's naturalization be revoked and that he surrender his Certificate of Naturalization and United States Passport. The United States Court of Appeals, In Banc, affirmed the order of denaturalization. The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. Kowalchuk left the United States.
Legal documents and correpsondence related to the alleged Nazi war criminal Georg Leibbrandt, revocation of Leibbrandt's United States visa. Leibbrandt was Chief of the Political Division of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories from 1941 to 1943 or 1944. In that position, Dr. Leibbrandt aided and participated in the murders of hundreds of thousands of Jews. Dr. Leibbrandt was one of only 15 persons who attended the "Wansee Conference" on Janurary 20, 1942, known as the "Final Solution Conference," at which the plan for the implementation of the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" was formulated. "The Final Solution of the Jewish Question" was, of course, the euphemism used by the Nazi government for its policy of total annihilation of Jews in Europe. Dr. Leibbrandt was instrumental, as Chief of the Political Division for the Occupied Eastern Territories, in the actual implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question in the Occupied Eastern Territories.
Leibbrandt's visa was revoked and he was banned from re-entering the United States. He was placed on the State Department and Immigration Service watch lists, to prevent him from re-entering the U.S. Evidence of Leibbrandt's activities was sent from the U.S. Justice Department to the German authorities.
Documents related to the Nazi war criminal Karl Linnas. Linnas was Chief of the concentration camp in Tartu, Estonia. Witnesses testified that Linnas personally participated in atrocities, including mass murder. Linnas misrepresetned and concealed that he was Chief of the concentration camp when he obtained his visa to come to the United States and when he became a U.S. citizen, claiming that he had been a student and technical artist during this time.
According to witnesses' testimony, Linnas supervised the transportation of prisoners from his camp to a nearby anti-tank ditch. On such occasions, innocent Jewish women and children were tied by their hands and brought in their underwear to the edge of the ditch where they were forced to kneel. The guards then opened fire. The ditch became a mass grave. There was also eyewitness testimony that Linnas on at least one occasion announced his victims' death sentence at the side of the ditch and gave the order to fire. Linnas was also said to have then personally approached the edge of the ditch, and fired into it. Another eyewitness recounted having seen Linnas help direct Jews out of a school and onto a school bus. That witness recalled that Linnas helped a small child with a doll onto the bus, and that the doll was later placed in a storage area for the personal effects of those who had been killed.
Linnas was denaturalized and then deported to the USSR, where he was imprisoned. He died in prison is Estonia, which at that time was part of the USSR.
Documents associated with Nazi war criminal Boleslavs Maikovskis. Maikovskis was the Chief of Police of the city of Rezekne, Latvia during the Nazi occupation. When he applied for his visa to come to the United States, Maikovskis misrepresented and concealed that he was police chief, claiming that he worked as a bookkeeper for the Latvian Railway Department from 1941 to 1944.
Witnesses testified that Maikovskis gave the order to round up all of the Jews in the Rezekne district and have them shot, and that Maikovskis personally participated in the murder of hundreds of Jews. These witnesses testified that Maikovskis and the policemen working under him rounded up the Jews, took them into the mountains, and shot them into ditches. Several hundred people were killed in one day. Entire families were murdered.
Maikovskis also gave the order to arrest all of the residents of the village of Audrini, to burn their houses, and to have them shot to death. Maikovskis and his men rounded up all the inhabitants of the village of Audrini, took them into the mountains, and shot them. Every inhabitant of the village, including all of the children, were murdered. Maikovskis and his men burned the entire village of Audrini to the ground.
The Immigration Court (Judge Francis Lyons) ordered that Maikovskis would not be deported from the United States. However, the Justice Department appealed that order, and it was reversed by the Board of Immigration Appeals, which unanimously ordered Maikovskis deported from the U.S. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the order of deportation, and the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari, making the order of deportation final. Maikovskis went to Germany, where he was imprisoned and placed on trial for mass murder. However, the trial in Germany was not completed, because after several years of trial and imprisonment, the German court determined that Maikovskis was incompetent to stand further trial.