75 Years From Kristallnacht, 130 People Rally Against Queens Nazi

Shouting “kick him out” as the elderly Nazi shuffled to the door, a group of about 130 students on Sunday morning rallied outside the home of a former Nazi living in Queens to draw attention to four Nazis still left in the United States.

“There are four people, Nazis, still alive in this country, that we know about. We’re not going to let them enjoy their lives, their freedom,” said Assemblyman Dov Hikind, the Brooklyn Democrat who organized the protest in tandem with the Rambam Mesivta of the Five Towns.

Jakiw Palij served in the German force dedicated to rounding up Jews in Poland and killing them. He was admitted to the U.S. by lying on his naturalization form — and now cannot be deported since no country wants to accept him. His identity was revealed in an Associated Press expose in July, which highlighted 10 Nazis still living in the country.

Now 91, Palij came outside in his pajamas during the protest, telling a New York Post reporter that he was, “starting to get used to it.”

Yehudah Meth, a Hikind aide, told Hamodia that there were five Holocaust survivors at the rally, and it was noticeable that Palij “was very upset about it.”

Hikind, whose parents were Holocaust survivors, chose Sunday, the 75th anniversary of the Kristallnacht riots which heralded the Nazi campaign of terror against the Jews.

Several neighbors shouted at the protesters to leave the “old man alone,” but Hikind said that “it is our obligation to root out the evil from among us.”

“People have the nerve to say, ‘They are old now — why bother?’” he said in a statement announcing the rally. “But what of the hundreds and thousands of innocent victims that were personally tortured and murdered by these criminals? Do we have no obligation to their memories?”

This article appeared in print on page 5 of the November 11th, 2013 edition of Hamodia.