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Former Nazis Collected Millions in Social Security

CBN

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JERUSALEM, Israel -- Jakob Denzinger is a suspected Nazi war criminal. He is living out a comfortable retirement in Croatia, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers.

Denzinger is one of dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals and SS guards who collected millions in Social Security payments after leaving the U.S., according to a two-year investigation by the Associated Press.

Denziner, who would not talk to AP, patrolled the concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland. He immigrated to the U.S. after World War II and like many others, lied about his Nazi past, the report said.

Auschwitz survivor Steven Fenves guides visitors at the Holocaust Memorial in Washington. He tells of his experience as a 13-year-old at the camp.

"Arriving in Auschwitz, doors open, yelling, screaming, dogs, everybody shoved out, men and women separated, lined up in front of a white-gloved German officer, who was waving people right and left," Fenves recalled.

"I was put into a barrack of kids my age, and the foreman never came to select workers from there so kids were dying right and left," he said.

Denzinger owned a business in Akron, Ohio, and sold it when he left for West Germany in 1989 after the Office for Special Investigations uncovered his Nazi past.

"The United States of America -- the country that was one of the two principal leaders in leading the fight against the Nazis -- is rewarding these perpetrators by paying them money and pension," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.  

Many former Nazis blended into America, raised families and paid their taxes.

"It's true that they worked, but it's also true that they lied about who they were," Rabbi Hier said.

The payments of up to $1,500 a month flowed through a legal loophole that the U.S. Justice Department used to persuade the suspected Nazis to leave the country, the AP report said.

Meanwhile, congressmen and senators are due to introduce legislation to stop former Nazis from receiving Social Security payments.

"I will work hard to close it and not only now but in the future," Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., a senior member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said.

In a Catholic cemetery in Croatia, Denzinger, now 90, has already put up his tombstone. His epitaph: "Proud that we had you; happy that we're with you; eternally sad that we lost you."

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