The son of a pair of Holocaust survivors says his parents would have been "horrified" to learn they had sold their house to a former Nazi hiding in the US.
Jakiw Paliji, 95, was deported from the States on Monday after being outed for his role in the massacre of 6,000 Jews at Trawniki concentration camp in Poland on November 3, 1943.
Palij joined the elite Nazi Schutzstaffel, better known as the SS, 75 years ago in 1943 and went on to work as a guard at Trawniki.
He lied about his past and in four years after the war ended in 1949, he emmigrated to America under a visa designed to help refugees displaced by the Second World War.
In 1966 Palij and his wife moved into a two-story home in Jackson Heights, New York.
But the son of the couple who sold him the house told the New York Post his parents would have been horrified to know they sold to a Nazi.
He also said if his late father had known the truth, Palij wouldn’t "have gotten out of that house alive".
He said his deportation had some "fifty years too late."
Originally born in Piadyki, Poland, Palij was 19 when he was recruited by the SS.
He trained at the concentration camp in the lead up to ‘Operation Reinhard’ – a Nazi plan to capture and murder 1.7 million Jews.
He isn’t accused of participating in the November massacre but was onhand when it happened.
The US Department of Justice said Palij had an "indispensable role" in the murder and death of the Jewish people at the camp.
He was later promoted to the rank of Oberwachmann — or guard private first class.
He has denied participating in war crimes.
On Monday US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took him a wheelchair-bound Palij from his home and he was flown to Dusseldorf, Germany.
He faked his past on paperwork to enter the US and falsely claimed he never served in the military but instead worked on his father’s farm in Piadyki.
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His removal comes decades after investigators finally caught up with him in 1993 and he admitted to working at Trawniki.
He was stripped of his citizenship in 2003 by Brooklyn federal Judge Allyne Ross who said there was "convincing" evidence his work had "resulted in the persecution of civilians."
Soon protests by Jewish groups were commonplace outside Palij’s house.
But efforts to deport him to Germany, Poland or Ukraine hit several roadblocks after each government refused to take him.
When Trump took office he tasked the US ambassador to Germany to step up efforts to remove Palij.
Germany finally agreed to accept him, despite the fact he was born in what used to be Poland, out of a "moral obligation".
Palij was flown out of Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and landed in Dusseldorf, Germany, early Tuesday and will be housed in a care home.
He is unlikely to be charged with any war crimes due to lack of evidence.
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