Charges of Nazi Aid Could Cost Citizenship

The Justice Department moved to strip an Ohio real estate agent of his U.S. citizenship Wednesday on grounds he allegedly persecuted Jews and others while serving in the Nazi-sponsored Lithuanian Security Police during World War II.

Citing captured records in the Lithuanian Central State Archives, the department’s Office of Special Investigations, which hunts Nazis in this country, charged that Algimantas Dailide, on at least one occasion, participated in the arrest of Jews who had escaped from ghettos around Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital.

The records show that those Jews were jailed, the government said, noting that in such cases Jews routinely were executed or otherwise punished.

Officials said Dailide, 73, still owns and operates a small realty business in Brecksville, a suburb of Cleveland. Messages left for Dailide were not immediately returned.

But WJW-TV in Cleveland showed a videotape of Dailide’s wife, Ruth, saying her husband had done nothing wrong.

“My husband was a teen-ager; he was a student,” she said. “He had to take care of his mother. He didn’t do anything. My husband, he is innocent.”

In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Cleveland, the government said the Lithuanian Security Police, or Saugumas, acted as a subordinate component of the German Security Police and Security Service and had duties that paralleled those of the Gestapo.

The Saugumas assisted Nazi occupying forces in enforcing the persecution of Vilnius Jews.

If it succeeds in stripping Dailide of U.S. citizenship, the government then would move to deport him.