KIRCHBERG,
Germany - A Lithuanian citizen convicted of collaborating
with the Nazis and persecuting Jews during World War
II is living peacefully in a small town in Germany.
As a member of the Nazi-sponsored Lithuanian Security Police, Algimantas Dailide
arrested Jews who were trying to escape the Vilna ghetto
and handed them over to the Germans. He lied about his
wartime activities on his U.S. immigration application
after the war, was stripped of his American citizenship
in the 1990s, and was ordered deported in 2003 following
an investigation and legal proceedings that lasted more
than a decade. Dailide fled arrest and settled here in
Kirchberg, Saxony, where he has been living ever since.
Dailide is in ninth place
on the the Simon Wiesenthal Center's most recent list
of the 10 most wanted Nazis. A Vilnius court convicted
him of war crimes in a trial that began in 2005, but
he has remained free. Last month a high court in Lithuania
ruled that he would not go to prison, partly because
of his frail health. However, this Haaretz reporter saw
him walking around town last week and carrying home his
groceries.
It coDailide, 87, lives with his wife in a modest apartment at Torstrasse 13,
across the street from the town hall. His name is on
the mailbox and intercom at the entrance. Dailide's German-born
wife, whom he met in 1945 after escaping Lithuania, has
relatives in Kirchberg, a town of 7,000 in what was formerly
East Germany.
They live on his wife's German pension of 300 euros a month, and the remaining
profits from the sale of their house in the U.S. Dailide's
American Social Security privileges were revoked.
Dailide's conviction for war
crimes relied on documents and testimony concerning a
certain October 1941 night, when Dailide arrested 10
Jews who were attempting to escape from the ghetto, and
another occasion on which he arrested two Polish Jews.
What happened to those he arrested is not known, but
it is safe to assume they were murdered along with 94
percent of Lithuanian Jewry, which numbered 220,000 people
before the war.
Dailide's name surfaced in
documents found in Lithuania's archives, which were examined
after the Baltic state won independence. The Vilnius
court rejected Dailide's protestations of innocence,
and ruled he had lied in his testimony. Despite that,
the court refrained from sentencing him to prison, as
is permissible by law. The prosecution appealed this
leniency, but the appeal was rejected last month. Jewish
organizations say this is typical of Lithuania's refusal
to punish Nazi collaborators.
Efraim Zuroff, who heads the
Wiesenthal Center's Israel office, yesterday called the
court's failure to sentence Dailide to prison scandalous, "and attests to the manner in which the Lithuanian government refuses to deal
with the past."
Zuroff, who worked steadily
to bring Dailide to trial in the U.S. and later in Lithuania,
said the case is "a classic example of how a lack of political willingness to contend with the
crimes of the past, along with extenuating circumstances
stemming from advanced age, are letting Nazi criminals
off the hook."
More than a dozen Lithuanian
collaborators have been tried, but not one has gone to
prison, a fact Zuroff says contributes to rising anti-Semitism
in the Baltic country.
'I'm innocent'
Last Wednesday, Dailide opened
the door to his apartment and invited this Haaretz correspondent
and a local reporter to come in. Dailide's wife, who
suffers from Alzheimer's and cancer, was reclining in
her bedroom. Taking care of her is one of the reasons
Dailide has remained free. He said he uses a tube to
feed her.
During our hour-long meeting
Dailide exhibited an excellent memory for details, but
had trouble concentrating at times. The walls of the
darkened apartment are decorated with photos of his family
in the U.S. - his two sons live there - and of himself
and his wife during the decades they spent in Cleveland,
Ohio, and Florida. On the couch were numerous self-help
books, a daily newspaper and dictionaries.
Dailide insists he is innocent.
The documents used against him are misleading, he contends,
based on a colleague's erroneous record in October 1941.
In the other case, he had signed an arrest warrant on
behalf of a policeman who was illiterate, he said.
He recounted his escape to
Germany in 2004, when he was afraid U.S. authorities
were going to arrest him. "I took my car, packed a few things and fled the house. I slept in motels and
used phone cards to contact my family. A neighbor drove
my wife to meet me periodically. A priest from Cleveland
contacted a priest in Toronto, who agreed to put me up.
I didn't use credit cards, I put our house up for sale,
and I managed to cross the border into Canada using my
Lithuanian passport. My wife met me in Toronto, and we
flew from there to Frankfurt, took a train to Zwickau
and arrived in Kirchberg."
Dailide revealed that despite
the Lithuanian court's ruling that he undergo a new medical
examination following his conviction, he has never been
reexamined. "Last year my lawyer in Lithuania received a letter from the court demanding that
I come to Lithuania for medical examinations. They noted
that the trip would cost about 500 euros. We replied
that we do not have the money - and they dispensed with
the examination."
All of the information regarding
the state of Dailide's health evidently stems from a
few check-ups he had at his lawyer's recommendation during
the trial in 2005. "Naturally I wanted to be acquitted in the trial, but nobody wants to go to prison
in any case," he said.
He claims he suffers from
chronic back pain and arthritis, and that he takes medication
for high blood pressure.
A spokeswoman for the Lithuanian
court said in response: "A medical board that convened for two years ruled that Dailide's state of health
does not allow for his incarceration."
She said she would need to
check whether the court had refrained from reexamining
him. The results of her inquiry had not arrived as of
press time.
'Everyone collaborated'
How is it that someone convicted
of collaborating with the Nazis can live in Germany?
A German lawyer who specializes
in immigration cases explained that the European Union's
Nice Treaty gives everyone - even if convicted - the
right to choose where to live. The treaty stipulates
that Germany can deport an EU citizen only if he or she
is causing "significant damage" to the public. Dailide apparently does not meet this criterion.
Dailide's neighbors became
familiar with his story six months ago when a local paper
ran a photo of the house under the banner "War Criminal in Kirchberg." A store owner in the adjacent building said she was shocked at first, but calmed
down after she inquired into the details.
"He didn't shoot
anyone, right? So he collaborated, so what? Everyone
collaborated in that period," she said.
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