After nearly a half century, the US Department of Justice succeeded in stripping a 79-year old Belarus native of his citizenship as a result of the man’s alleged participation in the mass murder of Jews and other civilians in his country during the Nazi occupation period in World War II. Michael Gorshkow is said to have served in the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police during the occupation of Belarus.
The Justice Department began the case in May of this year and sought to strip Gorshkow of his citizenship on the grounds that he was not eligible to immigrate to the US because of his participation in Nazi-sponsored acts of persecution. Gorshkow recently left the US and did not respond to the government action. The effect of the denaturalization is that Gorshkow now will have no right to reenter the United States since he is without a legal status and is inadmissible on grounds of participating in Nazi atrocities.
According to the Justice Department, Gorshkow worked for the Gestapo in 1942 and 1943 as an interpreter and interrogator at the Gestapo’s headquarters in Minsk, Belarus. He also is charged with having participated in a Nazi killing action at the Jewish ghetto in the city of Slutsk in February 1943. 3,000 men, women and children were shot to death at pits or burned alive when the Nazis set fire to the ghetto and prevented Jews from leaving.
Michael Chertoff, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division said, “The court’s decision is an important victory on behalf of the victims of Nazi torture and murder in Nazi-occupied Belarus. Gorshkow’s silence and his departure from the United States testify to the strength of the Government’s case against him.” OSI Director Eli M. Rosenbaum added, “The Nazis’ advance order for the liquidation of the Slutsk ghetto identifies Gorshkow by name as one of the Gestapo men deployed to participate in the horrific 1943 massacre of Jewish men, women and children at Slutsk.
Since 1979, the Justice Department has stripped Nazi persecutors of their US citizenship and 56 have been removed from the US. 165 suspected Nazi persecutors have been stopped at US ports of entry and barred from entering the country. More than 160 US residents are currently under active investigation by the Justice Department’s OSI.
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