{"id":50704,"date":"2019-12-05T11:07:46","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T16:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/?p=50704"},"modified":"2019-12-05T11:08:48","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T16:08:48","slug":"supreme-court-to-decide-whether-to-hear-appeal-from-former-nazi-interpreter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/canada\/supreme-court-to-decide-whether-to-hear-appeal-from-former-nazi-interpreter\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court to decide whether to hear appeal from former Nazi interpreter"},"content":{"rendered":"
Canada’s top court will decide Thursday whether to hear an appeal from a 95-year-old ex-Nazi interpreter fighting to retain his Canadian citizenship\u00a0\u2014 a decision that ultimately could lead to Helmut Oberlander’s deportation.<\/p>\n
The Waterloo, Ont., man has been engaged in a legal battle with the the federal government since 1995, when the RCMP launched an investigation into his alleged involvement in war crimes. That triggered the process to strip him of his Canadian citizenship, which he has challenged through the courts.<\/p>\n According to the summary of the case filed on the Supreme Court’s website, this is the government’s fourth attempt to revoke Oberlander’s Canadian citizenship on grounds that he “significantly misrepresented his wartime activities” to Canadian immigration\u00a0officials.<\/p>\n Oberlander’s lawyer Ronald Poulton said there is no\u00a0deportation order against his client so far. Such an order would require a separate proceeding.<\/p>\n “Dragging a 95-year-old who has poor health through such a process, which takes place\u00a0near the airport in an immigration holding centre, is nothing short of cruel,” he said in an email.<\/p>\n “Don’t forget, there has never been an allegation that he participated in any kind of crime, let alone war crimes. The only suggestion is that as a 17-year-old, he was forced into being a translator for a German unit engaged in such crimes. The government does not allege that as a translator, he even assisted in the commission of a crime. He was merely present with this unit. This entire proceeding has been grossly unfair.”<\/p>\n Poulton said Oberlander is too ill and frail to be interviewed.<\/p>\n Avi Benlolo, CEO of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies, said that if the Supreme Court decides not to hear Oberlander’s appeal, Canada will be one step closer to a deportation that is “long overdue.”<\/p>\n “No former member of a Nazi death squad should be given the opportunity to walk free and enjoy the benefits of being a Canadian citizen,” he said in a statement to CBC News.<\/p>\n “Regardless of age and whether or not he was directly responsible for the murder of Jewish people in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust, it’s time for Oberlander to face justice for his alleged involvement in these murders, just like other former Nazis have over the years.<\/p>\n “Unfortunately, many more former Nazis have gotten away with murder, and we cannot allow that to happen again here in Canada.”<\/p>\n According to the Supreme Court summary, there\u00a0have been four orders to revoke Oberlander’s Canadian citizenship. One of those orders was issued in 2017 on the\u00a0grounds that Oberlander was complicit in crimes against humanity, having made “a voluntary, knowing and significant contribution” to the crimes committed by a Nazi mobile death squad that targeted Jewish people in the former Soviet Union.<\/p>\nOld and frail<\/h2>\n