The Justice Department this week announced that it had began denaturalization proceedings against Adam Friedrich, the 80 year old man it alleges personally advocated or assisted in Nazi persecution while serving as a guard at the Gross Rosen Concentration Camp in Germany, and at its Dyhernfurth subcamp, site of a poison gas factory. Friedrich, a St. Louis resident, immigrated to the US in 1955 and became a citizen of the US in 1962. 

Friedrich, a Romanian, is said to have left his country in 1942 and traveled to Vienna where he volunteered for the Nazi's infamous Waffen SS unit. In 1943, he was transferred to the Gross Rosen concentration camp and served in the Death's Head guard unit. He served there as well as the Dyhernfurth subcamp until the camps were evacuated in 1945. Friedrich guarded prisoners from a watchtower and slave laborers at a quarry work site. Thousands of civilians died in the camp during the time Friedrich served.  

Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff, chief of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, said, "This action reconfirms that we will always remember those who have suffered persecution and we will hold accountable all who participated in the perpetration of such heinous acts." "Today's legal action continues our commitment to achieve justice against those responsible for the most infamous crimes of the Twentieth Century," said Eli M. Rosenbaum, Director of the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), which brought the case with the United States Attorney's Office in St. Louis. Rosenbaum added, "Men like Friedrich made it possible for the Nazi regime to subjugate, persecute and ultimately murder the innocent men, women and children whom they targeted."  

Since 1979, 68 Nazi persecutors have been stripped of U.S. citizenship and 56 such individuals have been removed from the United States. An additional 165 suspected Nazi persecutors have been prevented from entering the United States. More than 170 U.S. residents are currently under active investigation by the Justice Department.