U.S. v. Ciurinskas, 97-3067

• Decision Date: 19 June 1998
• Docket Number: No. 97-3067,97-3067
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kazys CIURINSKAS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 729

148 F.3d 729

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kazys CIURINSKAS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 97-3067.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued April 7, 1998.

Decided June 19, 1998.

John E. DeGuilio, Dyer, IN, Susan L. Siegal (argued), William H. Kenety, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Luke A. Casson (argued), Dyer, IN, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before EASTERBROOK, RIPPLE and EVANS, Circuit Judges.

TERENCE T. EVANS, Circuit Judge.

Why would a person, who became a naturalized citizen of this country after World War II, apply for a war pension from the German government and at the same time expect us to believe that he did not lie on his various applications for entry into this country, applications which do not mention that he ever served in any military force, say nothing of one entitling him to a German war pension? But that is what Kazys Ciurinskas, a naturalized citizen originally from Lithuania, expects of us. He appeals from the decision of the district court, Judge James Moody, revoking his citizenship. See United States v. Ciurinskas, 976 F.Supp. 1167 (N.D.Ind.1997).

Before 1939 Lithuania existed as an independent country, bordered by Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It was an unfortunate location. In 1939 the Soviets came, placing 25,000 troops in Lithuania, and in 1940 they occupied the country, torturing and murdering officials, intellectuals, and civilians. The Soviets also took command of the Lithuanian army. In August 1940, Lithuania became a part of the Soviet Union. Then in June 1941, as part of its move on the eastern front, the German army under Adolph Hitler invaded Lithuania, encountering almost no resistance. Eighteen Nazi divisions advanced through Lithuania in approximately three days. At first, Lithuanians tended to view the German invasion as liberation from the Soviets and as a step toward the reestablishment of an autonomous Lithuania. Photographs exist of the first German military unit being greeted by enthusiastic crowds as it entered Kaunas, the wartime capital of Lithuania. During those days, to the extent Lithuanians were involved in fighting, they tended to fight the retreating Soviets rather than the Germans. Even as the hope for an autonomous Lithuania existed and radio announcements sought volunteers for the new Lithuanian army, the German occupation intensified. German mobile security police units known as Einsatzgruppen controlled the country along with a mobile unit of the German Order Police, the 11th Reserve Police Battalion, consisting of almost 500 officers and men.

Germany refused to recognized the Lithuanian provisional government, and the new Lithuanian army--the Battalion for the Defense of National Labor--was reorganized to serve German purposes; it came under the control of the Einsatzgruppe A and the 11th Police Reserve Battalion of the German Order Police. The name of the Lithuanian battalion was changed to, as translated from the Lithuanian language, Auxiliary Police Battalion; in German, it became the "Schutzmannschaft," which means, roughly, protective force. The order forming indigenous collaborators into auxiliary forces under the command of the German Order Police came from the notorious Heinrich Himmler on July 25, 1941. On July 31 these forces became the Schutzmannschaft.

The Schutzmannschaft soon had a role in the Final Solution--that is, Hitler's plan to "cleanse" the occupied Eastern territories by executing Jews, Soviet partisans, Gypsies, and "Bolsheviks," the latter a term used to refer to anyone else the Nazis considered undesirable. During the fall of 1941 and the following winter and into the spring, the Schutzmannschaft participated and assisted in the killing of thousands of civilians--primarily Lithuanian Jews and Jews in other occupied areas of the eastern front.

Ciurinskas does not dispute what happened; what he disputes, where it matters, is his role in the events. What is clear is that Ciurinskas served in the 2nd Lithuanian Schutzmannschaft, redesignated in February 1942 as the 12th. His route into the Schutzmannschaft was through his service in other military units. He was a member of the Lithuanian army prior to the Soviet invasion. After the invasion he was absorbed into the Soviet Army, where he remained until the German occupation. During the German occupation he remained in the army until he submitted a request for a discharge. He was apparently scheduled to be discharged sometime in April 1942, but that plan was dashed when he was wounded on April 1 while stepping on a land mine. He remained hospitalized for about a year and he did not return to active service. During the time he was in the Schutzmannschaft he was paid in German marks, wore a uniform, and was armed.

In the fall of 1941 Ciurinskas' unit of the Schutzmannschaft was stationed at Sanciai, in Kaunas. He spent time on guard duty at Fort IV, one of the twelve forts built during the 19th century to protect the city. On September 11 and 12, 1941, 140 members of his company were sent on a "special mission," a euphemism for an execution mission. Two members of the company have stated that at that time they took part in an operation near Jonava. On those days, 43 people were executed at Uzusalis, a village near Jonava. The names of those two members of the company appear with Ciurinskas' name on the list of persons sent on the special mission on those two days in September.

In October, most of the 2nd Schutzmannschaft Battalion was sent to an area near Minsk, Byelorussia (now Belarus). It was the only Lithuanian battalion in Byelorussia through the end of November 1941. From October 6 through December, the Schutzmannschaft, along with the German 11th Reserve Police Battalion, participated in a number of killing actions in Minsk and the surrounding areas. More than 19,000 civilians were executed. These included the 1,300 residents of a Jewish village of Smolevichi; over 630 persons who were killed on October 8 near Uzlany Rudensk; another 800 "partisans, Communists, Jews, and other suspicious riffraff" killed near Rudensk; 1,300 people killed in the sanitization of the community of Smilowicze; 625 civilian prisoners killed at a prison camp in Minsk; 1,150 Communists killed in another camp near Minsk; 1,000 Jews killed at Koydanov; the Jewish population of Slutsk--5,000 persons who were herded into ditches outside the city and executed; 6,600 Jews in the Minsk ghetto executed in order to make room for Jews arriving from Germany. Ciurinskas was promoted in December 1941 for conscientiously fulfilling his duties.

After he was released from the hospital, around April 1943, Ciurinskas worked at his cousin's mill on the outskirts of Kaunas for the balance of 1943 and 1944. He worked as a baggage handler at a railroad station in Breslau, Germany in 1944 and 1945.

In 1949 he sought to emigrate to the United States. He requested that the International Refugee Organization (IRO) certify him as eligible to apply for immigration into the United States under the Displaced Persons Act. During this process he signed an IRO resettlement registration form on which he stated that he had been employed between 1936 and 1944 as a miller at his own mill. He did not list any wartime service or any affiliation with any military or police units. If he had included on the application his Schutzmannschaft service, he would not have been certified as a displaced person "of concern" to the IRO. Such certification was necessary in order to be considered by the United States Displaced Persons Commission as a displaced person. In those days, the eligibility criteria for entry into the United States incorporated the IRO eligibility criteria.

Also as part of the application process, Ciurinskas was interviewed by the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) of the United States Army. The CIC report on Ciurinskas revealed nothing which would adversely affect his eligibility for immigration, even though a standard question during interviews regarded military service. Had he indicated that he was in the Schutzmannschaft he would have been admitting membership in an organization considered as "inimical," and thus hostile, to the United States. Rather, the CIC concluded that Ciurinskas "ran his own mill at Kaunas, Lithuania 1936-1944." On July 7, 1949, Ciurinskas was certified as a displaced person.

On July 15, 1949, he applied for a visa. During the visa application process he was interviewed by a vice-consul to the American Consulate. Such interviews were conducted with the aid of an interpreter if necessary. Vice-consuls relied on the previous reports certifying the applicant as a displaced person. During the interview, Ciurinskas swore to the accuracy of the information on his IRO resettlement form--which included information that from birth until 1944 he resided in Lithuania and that during 1936 through 1944 he was a miller at his own mill in Kaunas. His visa was issued July 15, 1949. He entered the United States on October 24, 1949.

Ciurinskas applied to file a petition for naturalization on September 23, 1954. During this process, applicants were required to understand and answer in English the questions put to them. Ciurinskas swore under oath that the answers in his Form N-400, a naturalization form, were truthful. Answers on that form include that he had not belonged to any organizations in the prior ten years. On December 20, 1954, Ciurinskas filed another naturalization form--N-405--on which he stated under oath that he had lawfully entered the United States and that he was a person of good moral character. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States on February 17, 1955.

As is clear, Ciurinskas entered this country under the Displaced Persons Act, 62 Stat. 1009(DPA), enacted in 1948 to enable European refugees of the war to emigrate to this country without regard to traditional immigration quotas. The Act...