Lawsuits Accuse Two of Aiding Nazis and Entering U.S. Illegally

The Justice Department filed lawsuits Friday against two persons accused of having assisted the Nazi government in the persecution of civilians during World War II.

In one suit, which involved a denaturalization case, the department alleged that Chester Wojciechowski of Posen, Ill., illegally obtained U.S. citizenship by concealing his service as a Nazi concentration camp guard and in various Nazi-controlled police organizations during World War II.

Wojciechowski, 64, is a native of East Prussia, which is now a part of Poland, the department said. It said that he immigrated to the United States in 1954 and became a citizen in 1961.

Deportation Action

In the second suit, which involved a deportation action, the department moved against Leonid Petkiewytsch of Cincinnati, charging that he unlawfully entered the United States after concealing service as a guard at a Gestapo prison camp.

Petkiewytsch, 62, is a native of Jaroslawiec, Poland, the department said. It said he entered the United States in 1955.

In the complaint against Wojciechowski, filed in a federal court in Chicago, the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations charged that, between 1939 and 1942, Wojciechowski was a member of Nazi-sponsored police organizations in the city of Lublin.

SS Membership

In addition, it said, Wojciechowski was charged with membership between 1942 and 1944 in the Waffen SS and service in the SS Death’s Head Battalion at Majdanek, a Nazi concentration camp.

The investigations office alleged that Wojciechowski was not eligible for immigration to the United States because his wartime service “constituted assistance to the Nazis in the persecution of civilians because of race, political opinion or national origin.”

In ordering Petkiewytsch to show cause why he should not be deported, the office charged that between August, 1944, and May, 1945, he was an armed guard at Kiel-Hassee, a prison camp near Kiel, Germany.

It said that in May, 1945, Petkiewytsch was imprisoned for three years by the British occupation forces in Kiel as a suspected war criminal.

In court in Cincinnati, the office alleged that Petkiewytsch “concealed from American immigration authorities his arrest and incarceration by the British authorities and thus concealed his guard service at Kiel-Hassee.”