Ukrainian Commander of Nazi-linked Unit Living In U.S.?
By David Rising, Monika Scislowska and Randy Herschaft, Associated Press
U.S. Holocaust Museum via AP
Heinrich Himmler, center, reviews troops of the Galician SS-Volunteer Infantry Division on June 3, 1944. Michael Karkoc became a member of the Galician division after the Ukrainian Self Defense Legion was incorporated into it near the end of the war.
A top commander of a Nazi SS-led unit accused of burning villages filled with women and children lied to American immigration officials to get into the United States and has been living in Minnesota since shortly after World War II, according to evidence uncovered by The Associated Press.
Michael Karkoc, 94, told American authorities in 1949 that he had performed no military service during World War II, concealing his work as an officer and founding member of the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion and later as an officer in the SS Galician Division, according to records obtained by the AP through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The Galician Division and a Ukrainian nationalist organization he served in were both on a secret American government blacklist of organizations whose members were forbidden from entering the United States at the time.
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Herschaft reported from New York and Scislowska from Warsaw; Doug Glass, Pat Condon and Amy Forliti in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Maria Danilova in Kiev, Ukraine; Efrem Lukatsky in Pidhaitsi, and Svetlana Fedas in Lviv, Ukraine, contributed to this story.