Bill Would Cut Off Benefits to Nazis

By JTA October 27, 2014

A bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives would cut off Nazi war criminals from U.S. benefits.

The bill introduced this week by Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Leonard Lance (R-N.J.) comes in the wake of an Associated Press investigation that found that dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals and SS guards collected millions of dollars from Social Security after being forced out of the United States.

The measure authorizes new immigration hearings to determine whether suspected war criminals were receiving benefits.

Maloney said she hoped Congress would pass the bill in the “lame duck” session, the few weeks between the Nov. 4 elections and Christmas — the last weeks of this Congress, when it is unusual for new legislation to succeed.

“We should work in a bipartisan and expeditious manner to terminate these benefits once and for all,” she said at a news conference. “The American taxpayer should not be subsidizing the retirements of those guilty of the worst atrocities in human history.”

There are at least four living beneficiaries, including Jakob Denzinger, a former guard at Auschwitz. Denzinger, 90, lives in Croatia, where he receives approximately $1,500 a month in Social Security payments.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO