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Nazi war crimes suspect living in Queens gets deported

A former Nazi guard who for decades lived a comfortable life in Queens was finally deported to Germany, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday.

Jakiw Palij, who officials said served as an armed guard at a concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and had a role at one of the deadliest massacres of the Holocaust, was arrested from his Jackson Heights home in a wheelchair on Monday.

Looking frail and sporting a white beard and missing teeth, the 95-year-old said nothing as he was carted out, according to ABC News, which reported he yelled out in pain as he was loaded into an ambulance.

Palij lied to immigration officials about his Nazi links – telling them he worked on his father’s farm and a German factory — when he arrived in the US after World War II in 1949, the DOJ said. He became a citizen in 1957.

But officials said in 2001, Palij, — who was born in a part of Poland that is now present-day Ukraine, admitted that he trained at Trawniki concentration camp in 1943.

Jakiw Palij in a 1957 photo provided by the State DepartmentAP/ US Department of Justice

SS soldiers who trained at Trawniki partook in “Operation Reinhard” – the Third Reich’s plan to murder Jews in Poland.

Trawniki — the last known Nazi collaborator living in the US — went on to become the site of one of the Holocaust’s largest massacres. Some 6,000 Jewish men, women and children prisoners were shot to death on Nov. 3, 1943. Their bodies were later burned.

“By helping to prevent the escape of these prisoners during his service at Trawniki, Palij played an indispensable role in ensuring that they later met their tragic fate at the hands of the Nazis,” the DOJ said in a press release.

Palij’s deportation had been in the works since his citizenship was revoked by a federal judge in 2003 based on his war crimes and postwar immigration fraud.

The following year, the DOJ obtained a removal order, with immigration Judge Robert Owens ordering him to be deported to Ukraine, Poland or Germany – or any other country that would take him.

Owens wrote in his decision that the Jews who were murdered at Trawniki “had spent at least half a year in camps guarded by Trawniki-trained men, including Jakiw Palij.”

Palij’s appeal was denied in 2005. Officials said it took more than a decade to finally deport Palij because of Germany’s reluctance to take him back, according to ABC.

Palij, who lived in Jackson Heights for the past 13 years, has denied being a Nazi guard, saying he was conscripted at age 18 when Nazis invaded his family’s farm.

Palij’s home in Jackson HeightsAP

”I know what they say, but I was never a collaborator,” he told the New York Times in 2003. “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.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Palij had no right to become a US citizen or remain in the country given his lies.

“The United States will never be a safe haven for those who have participated in atrocities, war crimes, and human rights abuses,” Sessions said in a statement. “Jakiw Palij lied about his Nazi past to immigrate to this country and then fraudulently become an American citizen.”

Sixty-seven other Nazis have already been deported from the US, Sessions said.

The White House credited President Trump for “prioritizing” Palij’s removal.

“Palij’s removal sends a strong message: The United States will not tolerate those who facilitated Nazi crimes and other human rights violations, and they will not find a safe haven on American soil,” it said in a statement.