US v. Lileikis, Civil Action No. 94-11902-RGS.
| Decision Date | 24 May 1996 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 94-11902-RGS. |
| Citation | 929 F. Supp. 31 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America v. Aleksandras LILEIKIS. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
David S. Mackey, Chief, Civil Division, Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of Massachusetts, William Henry Kenety V, Senior Trial Attorney, Office of Special Investigations, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice, argued, Donald K. Stern, United States Attorney, District of Massachusetts, Eli M. Rosenbaum, Director, Office of Special Investigations, Susan L. Siegal, Acting Principal Deputy Director, Office of Special Investigations, on the brief, Boston, MA, for U.S.
John Rogers Carroll, Carroll & Carroll, Philadelphia, PA, Thomas J. Butters, Butters, Brazilian & Small, Boston, MA, for Defendant.
On September 21, 1994, the United States filed this seven-count denaturalization Complaint against the defendant Aleksandras Lileikis, the head of the Lithuanian internal security service (Saugumas) for Vilnius during the German Nazi occupation of Lithuania. The Government alleges that Lileikis illegally obtained United States citizenship by failing to disclose his personal involvement in genocidal crimes, specifically, his complicity in the systematic murder of Lithuanian Jews by the Nazis. Count I charges that Lileikis's citizenship must be revoked because his participation in the persecution of Jews made him ineligible for entry into the United States. Count V alleges that Lileikis lacks the moral character required by law of applicants for United States citizenship. Before the court is the Government's motion for summary judgment on Counts I and V.
As Lileikis acknowledges in his brief, it is a "well-known historical fact" that the subjugation, persecution, and ultimate extermination of the Jewish people was a driving tenet of Nazi ideology. Memorandum in Opposition, at 10. That advancement of this perverse aim was integral to the German war effort is also an acknowledged fact.1 The precise mechanisms set up by the Nazis to achieve a "Final Solution" by rendering the territory within their control judenrein ("cleansed of Jews"), and the role played by local security forces such as the Saugumas, are, however, central to the dispute before the court and require some explication.
During the Nazi administration of Europe, operational responsibility for the destruction of Eastern European Jewry was entrusted to the German "Einsatzgruppen," special subdivisions of the quasi-military Nazi Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei, or "SIPO"),2 and Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst, or "SD"). The task of liquidating the Jews of the Baltic states was assigned to Einsatzgruppe A, commanded by SS General Walter Stahlecker. Einsatzgruppe A was divided into mobile company-sized detachments called Einsatzkommandos. Einsatzkommando 3, led by SS Colonel Karl Jager, was responsible for the Vilnius region beginning in August 1941. In December 1941, the Einsatzkommandos were posted to fixed locations, and Einsatzkommando 3 received a new title, Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD-Litauen (Commander of Security Police and SD-Lithuania, or "KdS"). With the methodical passion that characterized the Nazi regime, Colonel Jager submitted an accounting to General Stahlecker on December 1, 1941, itemizing by man, woman and child, Einsatzkommando 3's daily accomplishments in murdering some 21,000 Jews.3 The bulk of the killings took place at an excavation site in the Lithuanian village of Paneriai (six miles from Vilnius), where the displaced Soviet occupation force had begun the construction of a petroleum tank farm. The Jews selected for execution were first concentrated at Lukiski Hard Labor Prison in Vilnius, and then marched or trucked to Paneriai. There they were stripped of their clothing and any remaining possessions, and then shot in groups of ten at the rim of the petroleum pits by the Ypatingas Burys ("Special Detachment"). The Ypatingas Burys, a Lithuanian volunteer unit, dutifully maintained "execution cards," tallying each person killed with a slash in red or blue pencil. Most of the cards also contain a written confirmation of the execution order, usually with a euphemistic remark like befehlsgemaess behandelt, a German phrase literally translated as "treated according to orders,"4 or more bluntly with "liqu.," the German abbreviation for liquidiert, or "liquidated."
Aleksandras Lileikis was born on June 10, 1907, in Lithuania. He joined the Saugumas, the Lithuanian plainclothes "security police," in 1927. By 1936, Lileikis had risen to the rank of Deputy Chief of the Saugumas for the Marijampole region. In 1939, he transferred to Vilnius to become Deputy Chief of the Provincial Office. In June, 1940, when the Soviet Union invaded Lithuania, Lileikis fled to Berlin, where he stayed for eight months and began the process of obtaining German citizenship. Lileikis returned to Lithuania shortly after the Germans seized control in June, 1941. Most of Lithuania's governing institutions had buckled under the destabilizing impact of the successive Soviet and Nazi occupations. The Saugumas, however, was quickly reconstituted by the Nazis to conduct "police work which cannot be performed by the SD's own German personnel, particularly searches, arrests, and investigations...." See U.S. National Archives and Records Administration Nuremberg International Military Tribunal Exhibit L-180, "Comprehensive Report up to 15 October 1941" of SS General Walter Stahlecker, Tab 1 to Arad affidavit, at 10-11.5 Within two months of his return to Lithuania, Lileikis was named Chief of the Saugumas for Vilnius province. At the end of the war, Lileikis retreated with the defeated Germans. He lived in Germany until 1955 when he emigrated to the United States.6
The Lithuanian civil authority installed by the Nazis in 1941 promulgated a series of anti-Jewish decrees. Jews were required to wear a visible yellow Star of David; they were "prohibited from walking the streets from 6:00 pm to 6:00 am;"7 they were forbidden to use the sidewalks and main streets of the center of Vilnius; they could shop only at certain stores during specified times of the day; they were prohibited from entering most public buildings and parks; they could not possess a radio; they were required to perform forced labor; and their foreign currency, precious metals, jewelry, and other valuables were forfeited to the state. On September 6, 1941, the Jews of Vilnius were forcibly concentrated into two ghettos. The ghettos were isolated from the outside world by barbed-wire, barricades, and armed guards. Lacking basic sanitation, medical supplies, food, and heat, the overcrowded ghettos were intended to promote the spread of disease among their Jewish inhabitants.
The Saugumas was responsible for enforcing the anti-Jewish decrees, and in particular those restricting Jews to the ghettos. To this end, the Saugumas formed a special branch called the Komunistu-Zydu Sekcijas (the "Communists-Jews Section") which was assigned the task of arresting suspected Communists and Jews, escapees from the ghettos, Jews who had resisted the orders to concentrate in the ghettos, and non-Jews who hid, aided, or did business with Jews. The evidence submitted by the Government details instances of Saugumas officers arresting people for offenses such as "suspected of being a Jew," "hiding," "escaping from the ghetto," and being "a threat to the current order." Included in the documents are the records of a Saugumas "sting" operation in which a truck driver, working for the Saugumas, offered to transport Jews secretly out of Vilnius for a fee. The driver took at least three truckloads of Jews out of Vilnius and delivered them into the hands of the Saugumas. The captive Jews were arrested, sent to the Lukiski prison, and from there transferred to the custody of the German Security Police to be shot by the Ypatingas Burys at Paneriai. Tabs 155-159.
Almost all of the internal records of the Saugumas were destroyed by the German and Lithuanian authorities as they fled Vilnius. However, thousands of documents, particularly those dealing with the disposition of prisoners held at the Lukiski prison, survived the war and are now stored in the Lithuanian Central State Archives. Western researchers were denied access to the documents until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since the opening of the archives by the newly independent Lithuanian state, a number of documents have come to light bearing Lileikis's signature or issued over his name, attesting to his involvement in the persecution and murder of Lithuania's Jews. Three examples follow:8
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
United States v. Rahman
...Admin., 419 F.3d 477, 483 (6th Cir. 2005) (citing Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U.S. 308, 318-19 (1976)). See also United States v. Lileikis, 929 F. Supp. 31, 37 (D. Mass. 1996) (holding that denaturalization defendant's refusal to answer specific questions "creates a compelling inference that ......
-
United States v. Rahman
...Admin., 419 F.3d 477, 483 (6th Cir. 2005) (citing Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U.S. 308, 318-19 (1976)). See also United States v. Lileikis, 929 F. Supp. 31, 37 (D. Mass. 1996) (holding that denaturalization defendant's refusal to answer specific questions "creates a compelling inference that ......
-
U.S. v. Demjanjuk, CASE NO. 1:99CV1193 (N.D. Ohio 2/21/2002)
...States v. Szehinskyj, 104 F. Supp.2d 480, 489-90 (E.D.Pa. 2000), aff'd, 2002 WL 15374 (3d Cir. Jan. 7, 2002); United States v. Lileikis, 929 F. Supp. 31, 38 n. 12 (D.Mass. 1996); United States v. Palciauskas, 559 F. Supp. 1294, 1296 n. 2 (M.D.Fla. 1983), aff'd, 734 F.2d 625 (11th Cir. 1984)......
-
U.S. v. Little
...of the privilege "creates a compelling inference that the Government's allegations against [Defendants] are true." U.S. v. Lileikis, 929 F.Supp. 31, 37 (D.Mass.1996). This is particularly so given the substantial probative evidence offered by the Government in support of its motion for summ......
-
Evidence
...years old. See also, Threadgill v. Armstrong World Indus., 928 F.2d 1366, 1375-76 (3rd Cir. (Del.) 1991). United States v. Lileikis , 929 F. Supp. 31, 38 (D. Mass. 1996) The court rejected plaintiff’s contention that documents obtained from the Lithuanian Central State Archives which were w......