Nicht Schuldig, Of Course

"Each time the media issues a story about my grandfather, we receive unsolicited and often threatening messages by email and on social media platforms."

"The messages describe various means of killing one or all of my family members, including forcing my family members to drink Clorox; gassing my family members; hanging my family members; decapitating my family members; shooting my family members; and killing my family members by other means."

Jamie Rooney, grandson, Helmut Oberlander, former member of German killing squad, Holocaust 

Helmut Oberlander has said previously he was forcibly conscripted by the Nazis when he was 17 years old. On Wednesday, his lawyer sought to have his deportation hearing adjourned. (CIJA)

 

How horrible, what a misery to visit on people innocent of any crime other than being offshoots of a man who during World War II, as a German citizen conscripted into the Nazi military machine, he effectively collaborated with, and facilitated the murder of numberless men, women and children of all ages and conditions who were gassed, hanged, shot, en masse -- all with the intention of exterminating the entirety of Europe's Jewish population, every last one. And coming close to succeeding.

In the 70-plus years since the end of that war from 1939 to 1945, fascist Germany and its Axis allies succeeded in destroying the lives of at least six million Jews and along with them, homosexuals, political dissenters, Roma, and the physically and mentally impaired. Jews were rounded up from villages in the European countryside, and sometimes a mass atrocity of forcing them to dig a trench to stand by it and be shot and thrown into that mass grave proceeded.

In the cities of Europe, often with the assistance of local police and local fascists and local Jew-haters Jews were assembled, placed on cattle cars without food or water or sanitation for transit to work camps, concentration camps, death camps. Experiments with gases on the crowded cattle cars were carried out to kill people while in transit. At arrival at the camps the dead on the cattle cars were shoved aside and the living instructed to go to the left or the right; instantly to the gas chambers, alternately to work in German factories producing war supplies.

 

A group of Jews, including a small boy, is escorted from the Warsaw Ghetto by German soldiers in this April 19, 1943 photo. The picture formed part of a report from SS Gen. Stroop to his Commanding Officer, and was introduced as evidence to the War Crimes trials in Nuremberg in 1945  AP Photo

 

Helmut Oberlander disguised his past when he emigrated from Europe to Canada in 1954. Falsifying his application would be grounds for revoking his citizenship and deporting him back to Germany; war criminals are not permitted entry to Canada -- in theory. In his case his citizenship was revoked four times and the wheels began turning to have him deported back to his country of origin. It has been 35 years that the process has swung back and forth. 

He is now 97 years of age as a retired businessman living in Waterloo, Ontario. His neighbours would have known him as a quiet, nice man. Each time government agencies acted to revoke his citizenship, appeals leading to court judgements reinstated him. The fourth time, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear his appeal and he was finally slated for expulsion and deportation. Canada did as much with Rwandans who were part of the Hutu apparatus of government that slaughtered Rwandan Tutsis.

Canada's record in holding responsible and deporting Nazi war criminals involved in the wholesale slaughter of millions of Jews does it no credit. His fraudulent entry to Canada has failed repeatedly to expel him, as the law on Canadian immigration justice reflects.This now aged and ailing war criminal has evaded deportation through permitted appeals time and again. Although he was among the first targeted by a war crimes unit, criminal prosecution proved too difficult, deportation the only avenue.

But even that, in an effort to hold a war criminal responsible for his actions and ridding the country of his presence along with others of his ilk, has failed. Courts overturned his citizenship revocation and intention to deport him in 2001, 2007 and 2012. But even when those orders were finally upheld, more appeals stalled the process indefinitely, to the present. Helmut Oberlander's grandson's tale of woe is one of those instances when "Cry me a river" seems appropriate.

 

The arrival and processing of an entire transport of Jews from Carpatho-Ruthenia, a region annexed in 1939 to Hungary from Czechoslovakia, at Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in Poland, in May of 1944. The picture was donated to Yad Vashem in 1980 by Lili Jacob

 

But his lawyers and his family fight on to achieve their goal of having him remain in Canada until his imminent death through natural causes. His reward for loyalty to German fascism in aiding and abetting the deaths of countless people innocent of any crime but the circumstances of their birth as Jews, has been to reap the benefits of living in a country that afforded him a gracious future and the opportunity to raise a family -- opportunities he willingly deprived Jews of, who were innocent of doing grave harm to others.

He had been assigned, still in his teen years as a translator for Einsatzkommando 10a, known as Ek10a, a special police task force operating in occupied territory; 'mobile killing units' connected to the Nazi SS to achieve their goal of mass murder. At his advanced age, mental faculties and physical condition are not at their prime understandably; his constant appeals of the Canadian government's attempts to hold him accountable and rid the country of his presence bought him precious time.

It speaks volumes that an hour-long assessment at his home by a doctor produced this report on his behalf, in support of his family's wishes:

"He was seen today in his family room. He sits on a Lazy Boy chair with his feet on an ottoman. He is next to the sliding doors to a back deck, with a view of the backyard."

"He answered at times tangentially, and at other times his answer was irrelevant and slurred. According to his family this was one of his better days."

"At one point, he interrupted our conversation asking what was out hanging and drying in the backyard -- there was nothing. When asked to clarify, he lost track of his train of thought."

"He hallucinates, seeing squirrels or people with suitcases. We observed him picking at invisible things in the air with his hands. He is generally quite drowsy. Sleep is poor. [His physical functions are in decline]."

"A referral to palliative care services was recommended and accepted."

He will shortly rest at peace, surrounded by his loving family members who will sorrow at his passing. Jewish loss of life has long since been discounted as part of history. Jews, haunted by the colossal tragedy of the Holocaust are often challenged by skeptics that it ever even occurred. Anti-Semites accuse Jews of profiting from the Holocaust by using it as a cudgel with which to demand special attention from a world whose disinterested inaction failed humanity. 

Generations after the Holocaust, the world total of the population of Jews still struggles to achieve the total number that existed pre-Holocaust. Jews remain haunted by the very reality that no one cared that because they are Jews they were 'destined' to die. That people in targeted occupied countries accepted that Jews were dispensable. While taking comfort in the fact that far smaller but far more significant numbers of non-Jews saw it in their courageous hearts to shelter and save a small number of Jews from death.

This photo provided by Paris' Holocaust Memorial shows a German soldier shooting a Ukrainian Jew during a mass execution in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, sometime between 1941 and 1943. This image is titled "The last Jew in Vinnitsa", the text that was written on the back of the photograph, which was found in a photo album belonging to a German soldier.

s

The Exquisite Letter of the Law : Evading Justice

The Einsatzgruppen (task forces, special action groups) were units of the Security Police and SD (the SS intelligence service) that followed the German army as it invaded and occupied countries in Europe. Often referred to as “mobile killing squads,” they are best known for their role in the systematic murder of Jews in mass shooting operations on Soviet territory.  USHMM

"Mr. Oberlander was a member [of] a Nazi killing unit responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Jews ... he gained access to Canada under false pretences."

"[Tuesday's] ruling is one step closer to justice for thousands Canadian Holocaust survivors and their descendants and one step closer to his rightful deportation from this country."

Martin Sampson, Vice President, Communications, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) 

Helmut Oberlander has said he was forcibly conscripted by the Nazis when he was 17 years old. He has lost his latest appeal and will face a deportation hearing with the Immigration and Refugee Board. (CIJA)

"He cannot read or hear the allegations of fact alleged against him. Given his age, his memory faculties are diminished greatly."

"Such a lengthy process, coupled with aging over the decades, has left Mr. Oberlander extremely vulnerable and unable to defend his own interests in this proceeding. It would be an abuse of process to continue in this case."

"[Even so, his] participatory rights are greatly reduced. If these proceedings are permitted to continue, he requires that accommodations be undertaken to the hearing process to ensure his full and active participation."

"It cannot be said that Mr. Oberlander has abused the judicial process. He has been successful three times in the Court of Appeal in having decisions that were wrong in law quashed."

"The issue of Mr. Oberlander’s status was not before [MacKay]. He was not to decide whether Mr. Oberlander had lost domicile or, for that matter, Canadian citizenship. The only issue for him to decide was whether or not he acquired citizenship by material misrepresentation. His statement regarding domicile was not required and was not indicated in the law as being required."

"Because of the context and issues which he was deciding and the subsequent role of the GIC [Government in Council] in revoking status, the comments made by Justice MacKay regarding Mr. Oberlander’s domicile status must be considered obiter and of no effect on subsequent processes — including the present one before the Immigration Division."

Oberlander Defence Lawyers

Former Nazi Helmut Oberlander, with his wife Margaret, in 2003. Photo by Peter Lee/Waterloo Regional Record via CP

"I am not persuaded that the facts justify the exercise of the Court’s discretion in favour of the stay sought by Mr. Oberlander."

"I instead agree with the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness that, in the current circumstances and at this juncture, the Court should not entertain Mr. Oberlander’s request [permanent stay of proceedings]."

"Mr. Oberlander’s admissibility proceedings should be progressed and brought to a conclusion as quickly as possible."

"Special reasons do not arise merely because a party elects to exercise a legal option and is not successful."

Federal Court Judge Denis Gascon

Helmut Oberlander, 97, of Waterloo is accused of failing to disclose his Nazi past to immigration department officials when he entered Canada

 It has been 35 years since the federal government initiated proceedings against Helmut Oberlander with the intention of deporting him. He applied for a Canadian visa in 1954 fraudulently, deliberately avoiding any mention that  h was, during the years of the Holocaust, a member of a Nazi killing squad in Ukraine and in Russia during the Second World War. He had been recruited as a youth and he has used the fact that he was 17 at the time of his recruitment as an ethnic German living in Ukraine to answer to the call of the Third Reich in its notorious dedication to the violent obliteration of European Jewry.

Under Canadian law, citizenship can be revoked on the basis of failing to reveal past membership in governments or their military arms that have been involved in war crimes. He has been fighting deporation for the past 35 years. Even though his citizenship was revoked three times, each occasion leading to a fresh appeal. Now 97, a retired businesman who had settled in Waterloo Ontario, he plans to live to the end of his natural lifespan in Canada and has instructed his legal team to ensure that his plan to avoid deporation succeeds.

His legal team place their strategy on his age, condition of health, his recruitment at 17, and that he was a mere cipher, and did not himself personally kill anyone. In criminal justice, accessory to murder is itself a crime. Association with a death squad, aiding and enabling the extermination of countless human beings, according to his legal team, should be discounted on the basis of his age. While his actions resulted in infants and children, men and women of all ages being deprived of a natural lifespan, summarily executed, his own lifespan was uninterrupted; the gift of years was his, deprived of his victims.

Shooting of Jewish civilians, including mother holding child, 

by a German mobile killing unit near Ivangorod, Ukraine, 1942

 

The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada had scheduled a hearing in Feburary over his eligibility to remain in Canada as a foreign national who committed crimes against humanity and who had deliberately withheld information about his past when he applied for citizenship. The issue screams of blatant ineligibility for entry to Canada, for status as a landed immigrant, for gaining citizenship. A war criminal; inadmissible. Falsification of qualification; inadmissible. Yet for 35 years the Canadian justice system has given this man leave to mount one appeal after another.

Each of those court appeals geared to delaying -- or best case scenario -- putting an end to allowing the Immigration and Refugee Board proceeding with his removal from Canada. Frustrating government legal teams attempting to finalize the situation, costing taxpayers through the ongoing betrayal of the concept of justice, angering the Jewish community which has long known that Canada has harboured a surprising number of Nazi war criminals, Helmut Oberlander among them.

His claims through his lawyers that the government erred in not disclosing Deschenes Commission documents on him (named in a confidential portion of a report issued in 1987 by a Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada known as the Deschenes Report), leading to "an egregius breach of natural justice and procedure fairness, amounts to an abuse of process". What could be more grotesque: a Nazi war criminal arguing the justice system aiming to produce justice for the millions of European Jews who were targeted for mass murder, is not fair and is abusive to the interests of the Nazi defendant.

The Oberlander legal team is pressing for a permanent stay of proceedings. To release this man from responsibility for his part in the slaughter of innocent people, guilty only of being Jewish. This is a man who was among the first a war crimes unit targeted on behalf of the federal government. "We urge the Immigration Division (of the IRB) to begin his hearing as soon as possible. For Holocaust survivors in Canada and around the world, justice delayed is justice denied", stated B'nai Brith Canada.

Einsatzgruppen executing Jews in Ukraine, 1942. USHMM Photo Archives.)

 

The man's Canadian citizenship was stripped, and that decision was overturned on three occasions. Until finally in 2019 the Supreme Court of Canada refused Oberlander's appeal of the last revocation of his citizenship. The time and energy and money that has gone into the search for justice in the case of this Nazi war criminal is astounding. His welfare has been well looked after by the institutions of the state. Never have the interests of the victims seen anything approaching the same concern for justice to prevail.

Justice for a man who worked for Einsatzkommando 10a (E10a), a special police task force operating in Soviet-occupied Ukraine, which a Canadian judge described as "mobile killing units" the Nazi SS utilized in the interests of efficiency in mass murder. Following the denial of his last appeal of the stripping of his citizenship, his family issued a formal statement to the effect that he "has been unjustly persecuted", that he had "never been charged with any crime". Time and distance made it impossible to obtain criminal prosecutions, leaving deportation as the only remedy for criminal punishment.

"With the start of Hitler’s “war of annihilation” against the Soviet Union in June 1941, the scale of Einsatzgruppen mass murder operations vastly increased. The main targets were Communist Party and Soviet state officials, Roma, and above all Jews of any age or gender. Under the cover of war and using the pretext of military necessity, the Einsatzgruppen View This Term in the Glossary organized and helped to carry out the shooting of more than half a million people, the vast majority of them Jews, in the first nine months of the war."

"The 3,000 personnel of all four Einsatzgruppen did not conduct these killings alone. Units of the Waffen SS, Order Police, Wehrmacht, allied Romanian forces and local collaborators aided them. The latter helped to identify victims as well as kill them. Many of the killers and victims knew one another as neighbors and colleagues. For example, over two days in September 1941, a small detachment of Einsatzgruppe C along with larger units of Waffen SS, Order Police and Ukrainian auxiliaries shot 33,771 Jews in Babi Yar, a ravine outside Kiev. When occupied territories came under civilian control, stationary offices of the SS and Police replaced the Einsatzgruppen and continued to conduct mass shootings."

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum