Judge Revokes U.S. Citizenship of Accused Death Camp Guard

The Justice Department said Friday that a federal judge in Chicago had revoked the U.S. citizenship of an accused Nazi concentration camp guard who fled the country for Germany.

It said that the judge entered the default judgment of denaturalization after Chester Rydlinskis, 71, failed to appear in court and answer the charges.

Rydlinskis, a retired draftsman from Bloomingdale, Ill., fled to Germany late last year after learning that the complaint by the Justice Department’s Nazi-hunting Office of Special Investigations would be filed, it said.

The lawsuit charged that Rydlinskis served as an armed guard and dog handler from 1941 to 1945 at the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and at the Buchenwald camp in Germany.

After the war ended, it said, he concealed his Nazi activities when he entered the United States in 1956 and 10 years later when he became a U.S. citizen.