Nazi Police Officer Dies in Michigan at 93

A man under a deportation order for serving in a Nazi-controlled police force during World War II has died in Michigan at age 93 after years of denials that he shot at Jews.

John Kalymon of Troy died at his suburban Detroit home on June 29. He had pneumonia, cancer and dementia, son Alex Kalymon told The Associated Press.

“The last two years he had no idea about anything about his life,” the son said Wednesday. “He was just struggling to live and his mind wasn’t there.”

A federal appeals court last year upheld a deportation order against Kalymon, but the U.S. couldn’t find a country that would take him.

In Munich, Germany, prosecutors this year filed an arrest warrant against him for being an accessory in war crimes. They planned to send a doctor to the U.S. to determine if Kalymon was fit to face trial, but the exam never happened.

There is no dispute that Kalymon served in the Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian Auxiliary Police in Lviv, which was part of Poland at the time. He said he did nothing more than light guard duty and never shot Jews.

However, the government produced a handwritten document in which “Iv Kalymun” reported firing four shots, killing one Jew and injuring another.

In 2007, after a civil trial, a federal judge in Detroit stripped Kalymon of his citizenship, saying his two years with the Ukrainian police resulted in the persecution of civilians.

Alex Kalymon said his father didn’t disclose his job as a police officer when he entered the U.S. after World War II because he feared he would be turned away.

John Kalymon had insisted that handwriting on documents used against him was forged and not his.

This article appeared in print on page 5 of the July 10th, 2014 edition of Hamodia.